AMY E MARTIN // Blog

Actually the assignment was weird but what I came up with was not. I wish the pieces were weirder. I want to work the weird, man. Anyway, the assignment was to analyze some kind of thing that exists digitally and extrude it into physical space. Now that I look back on the work it seems a form study of a digital thing. Also now that I don't have to do it anymore, my mind is semi-filled with abstract forms that have nothing to do with the functionality of the thing that I chose and mostly to do with its structure. Unfortunately when I was doing the assignment I stuck with functional ideas. So here it is:

The digital thing that I chose to analyze was instant messaging (no particular carrier). I wrote down the process by which one person creates an instant message and sends it to another person who reads it. The flip process would be the response. I then drew visual representations of each of the steps (thoughts - units (as I have always physically felt my thoughts as blocks of stuff but that metaphor probably only works for me), words - sentence diagram, fingers - neurons, keyboard - keys, computer - computer chip, modem - a digital signal via an analog wave (not an exact representation but whatevs, I'm sleepy), ISP - network, IM - globs of information traded from one side to another then back through ISP, modem, computer, screen now instead of keyboard, eyes - cones and rods, words and thoughts.

I hoped by going through the process of both verbally and visually defining the thing that I'd have a better understanding of it. I don't know if that's true or not but it was a fun exercise. There are about 7 more pdfs of this assignment but I'll have to wait until later to document them. Too much work left and too sleepy.

Labels: futurism, school work, weirdness