Project 1: Brainstorming Ideas

Yesterday was our first real day in class with our group to work on our first assigned project titled "Projection; What is Cyber Art?" Our group was merged with another so the group currently consists of myself (a Computer Science major), an Industrial Design major, and two Art majors. We spent the last hour of class presenting concepts and ideas that we had been thinking about individually to the group then brainstorming for new ideas as a group.

There are very few bounds assigned to this project which allowed us to get very creative with our ideas. Below are the two project guidelines we were given:

1. consider, discuss and make art, that questions the social, cultural, political, and aesthetic impact of the computer
2. the resulting artwork must be projected in some way or you may consider the projection process itself

Our presentations and brainstorming resulted in these notes on our ideas:

Various phones in either relationships, or hooking up.

- The texting is read aloud by the voice of the phone carrier

- Commentary on all communication through devices, we pay them more love than people we know

Live Action Video piece about the "difference" humanitarian effort through social networks, online petitions, and twitter

-People think they are making a difference by clicking buttons

-People really make a difference when they rally (reference the gay march for rights in DC, the Tea Baggers, and the actual protests in Iran)

-Examples of Useless Online Organization: Twitter- Iran Protest= Green Square, Facebook- Breast Cancer Awareness, Hokie United, Online Petitions- Health care, social issues

Question of awareness?

- Party idea, panning between people actually interacting and people talking into phones or texting in computers

-Take people isolated from their rooms/ houses and put them together and exaggerate the issue of direct communication (technology has made things extremely impersonal, creating social phobias)

Various electronic plug interaction implying gender and sexual interactions

Devices constricted by their own projection/ implied symbolism of our slave to over abundance of information

The change in how we project our voice through computers

-5 people in a circle interaction solely through computer/ or holding up screens for projectors of what they are saying.

-2-3 peoples stand behind white walls with projections of what they type being shot onto their walls. You cant see what you typed but you can see what others are saying. You can see the eyehole in the wall of what others have said. Commentary on the anonymity of others. Two people (strangers) and one team member? Two people are legit, probably tell the truth about themselves. One must lie.

-Chat room anonymity: When chatting in a room you only get one persons messages?

How computers change our view of information/entities

-a projector shining light onto multiple objects stacked together to form a shape. The silhouette of the objects land on a screen which is viewed from the other side by viewers. The viewers think they know what they are seeing but the screen is hiding what the silhouette truly consists of.