DAT 402 – Assignment Part 2 – Digital Spheres of Culture

The Brief

Working individually, choose a sphere of online network culture that uses video to communicate ideas. Collect materials that exemplify the way in which this community or genre uses online video and edit together a clip compilation that explores their use of online video. Think about dialogues, conversations between participants and look for themes that are repeated in the video content you collect. There are many trends in video sharing that offer sometimes unexpected insights into the way in which people use networked communication technologies.

Your task is to identify a genre of YouTube/Vine, etc. video making and explore the way users of the technology present themselves and their interests by watching and collecting examples, looking for themes across the content you review. The work should be long enough to make a good job of exploring at least one key theme and you should provide a few sentences to introduce the piece that support your thinking and approach in the document you hand in to support it. The piece should be accompanied by a Word document (.doc) that gives a short explanation of your thinking, and a list of sources of videos and ideas in Harvard bibliographic referencing style that are included in the work, or support your topic. Continue reading DAT 402 – Assignment Part 2 – Digital Spheres of Culture

DAT 402 – Assignment Part 1 – Sound & Recorded Media

The Brief

Working individually create a radiophonic sound work that responds to one of the pieces of class reading material. Select one idea from your chosen reading to explore through sound. The work should be long enough to make a good job of this and you should provide a few sentences to introduce the piece that support your thinking and approach.

Using the class sessions you should develop your sound work and mix it appropriately as well as explore the ideas in your reading. The piece should be accompanied by a Word document (.doc) that gives a short explanation of your thinking, and a list of sources of sounds and ideas in Harvard bibliographic referencing style that are included in the work, or support your topic.

Deliverables – your work should include these as minimum:

  • A radiophonic response to one or a number of the key ideas in your chosen essay – 2-10 minutes long, exported as a 24bit Wav and uploaded to the DLE.
  • High quality sound recording – made using microphone/soundcard setup
  • The work should incorporate found sound/archival material from sources such as archive.org or the prelinger archive.
  • The work should offer an exploration of sound and its effects through practice from your chosen essay
  • The accompanying bibliography should incorporate information found through further research using the university library system
  • It should be accompanied by a bibliography (Word document) that clearly credits your sources of information and sources of sounds (for example YouTube videos,  etc.) in Harvard Referencing Style, guidance can be found here http://libweb.anglia.ac.uk/referencing/harvard.htm

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DAT 404 – Assignment – Professional Practice Web Site

Your task is to create a ‘splash’ webpage that self-promotes you and your professional practice. The webpage must be built from scratch (i.e. not using a content management system) using:

  • The structure of HTML elements
  • Be aesthetically styled by CSS
  • Responsive through JavaScript interaction
  • Contain a custom built contact-me form

Basic content for the webpage (text and imagery) will be provided by yourself. However, in consideration to global limitations on accessibility and bandwidth the page weight has been limited to 500k. Continue reading DAT 404 – Assignment – Professional Practice Web Site

DAT 404 – Web Technologies Assignment Preparation

In preparation for completing the assignment for DAT 404 (Web Technologies), we were tasked with investigating web site design and splash page design for our chosen professional practice and then mocking up a number of our own designs.

My chosen professional practice is the field of visual effects and, to that end, I took at look at the following visual effects provider web sites… Continue reading DAT 404 – Web Technologies Assignment Preparation

DAT 406 – Assignment Part 1 – ‘Realising the Virtual’

Brief: Your task is to link virtual and physical technology in an artistic, thoughtful, engaging and/or playful way. Create a system where a real object controls something on the web, or virtual data controls a real object. Be imaginative and creative and have fun. You might think of it as real-world data visualisation, or using physical objects to make a comment on virtual processes. Continue reading DAT 406 – Assignment Part 1 – ‘Realising the Virtual’

Groundbreaking Logo – Blender

Some time ago, I was just starting out with Maxon’s Cinema 4D application and followed along with this tutorial, both as a learning exercise and because I liked the end result.

Now having had a taste of Blender as part of my DAT406 university assignment, I was keen to repeat the learning process and so decided to use the same tutorial. This time I would apply the techniques, albeit it in a slightly less polished and refined form than in Joe’s tutorial, to Blender. This is the result… Continue reading Groundbreaking Logo – Blender

DAT 406 – Assignment Part 2 – ‘The Multiverse’

Brief: Your task within your groups is to create an animation using Blender suitable for easy playback within the Immersive Vision Theatre (IVT) exploring the theme of the multiverse. Continue reading DAT 406 – Assignment Part 2 – ‘The Multiverse’

DAT 406 – Arduino: Potentiometer-controlled LED

This is the result of a practical task with Arduino that uses a potentiometer to vary the flashing speed of an LED. The code listed in this article takes the analogue input from the potentiometer. This value is then used to vary the time between the LED being on and being off.

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DAT 406 – Analyse an interface

Steering wheels and pedals of a car

Steering wheel

A car steering wheel is circular: a shape that invites rotation. The steering wheel can be rotated both left and right and this movement results in a corresponding movement of the car’s wheels allowing the driver to make changes of direction. The size of the steering wheel affords the easy placement of the driver’s hands. There is a mechanical limitation to the extent that the steering wheel can be rotated. It cannot be rotated in one direction indefinitely. There are generally limits of the speed that the wheel can be rotated so that opportunities for rapid changes of direction are limited.

Pedals

The pedals of a car are placed to allow the feet of a seated driver to operate them. On a manual car, the pedals are placed (from left to right): clutch, brake and accelarator. This layout is used, possibly due to the majority of people being right footed and an important function of the pedals is to accelerate the car, hence the accelator being the right-most pedal. The pedals only move on one axis: up and down. Pressing down on any car pedal actuates the function of that pedal, whilst releasing a pedal has the opposite affect, e.g. releasing the accelerator, stops power going to the wheels.