Revision as of 02:33, 22 December 2005

Class 1 - Desciption

Overview of Class

In class

Syllabus Read the syllabus...

Introduction to the Lab

   * Windows XP clients
   * ServerIMM and z:\
         o z: needs to have a folder called MTD2.
         o This sound folder should contain a folder for each project.
               + These project folders are where you should store you projects and any work files you use while you are still working on them.
         o z: needs to have a folder called pub (this is your public website)
               + You can sign up here if you don not have a pub folder
         o The pub folder needs to also have a folder called sound. This is the folder that is linked to from my http://interactive.colum.edu/MTD2/ page

Build and Maintain student website for class. For your homework this week please create a class portfolio website. Heres an example of a really nice student folder This folder was for sound class you should make a similar folder calles MTD2.

link to share [local ie only \\siam\user\test]

Framing the Discussion – Media that Move

By David Gerding (9/2/2005) What are Time-Based Media?

In earlier writing I posited there are three primary media types: Static, Dynamic and Interactive. Static media have no inherent technological capacity to change in time. They are non-moving. Dynamic media include a technological means to change in time and include things like television and radio. Interactive media, which we’ll discuss in the future, have the technology to respond and adapt. Interactive and dynamic media require time to function – they are inherently serial (“arranged in a series”).

In Media Theory and Design 1 we learned that all compositions are a collage of elements, and that meaning is implied and inferred by the spatial relationship of these elements within a static (non-moving) frame. Wertheimer’s Gestalt Theory of Perception relates a variety of ways in which meaning is inferred in static visual compositions (see a quick summary here).

Time-based media are no different, inheriting this fundamental quality of meaning as a function of the interrelation of elements within a frame. Furthermore, all time-based media are composed as a series of frames. So, meaning in time based media is implied and inferred about the elements within a single frame and, more significantly, typically, between one or more frames in the series. Gestalt Theory has been used to evaluate not only static visual compositions, but time-based media, like music (see this About.com article.) Time-based media, like music, enjoy the intra-frame (within the frame) “juxtapositional” capacity of static media, like when several notes are played simultaneously to create a chord. Time based media can also create meaning via inter-frame relationships, like juxtaposition of one shot in film against another in time to create an emergent, associative meaning. Serge Eisenstein is largely credited with first exploring notions of creating meaning in film through montage, an aesthetic defined in production as film editing and which helps differentiate film narratives from the media that preceded them.

Because time-based media are comprised as a series of frames, time-based compositions in all time-based media are organized into nomative collections. These collections of individual frames are standardized by convention specific to the given medium. For example, in narrative writing Narrative Arc

Story telling has been with us for millennia, in all likelihood preceding mediated forms as an oral form of communication. We all remember the “narrative arc” lessons from grade school: Beginning – Middle – End. There were also phrases like “rising action”, “climax” and “falling action”. The narrative arc can be found in most mainstream forms of time-based media. When the narrative arc is missing it is usually by intent – the artist is trying to work against or outside the norm of narrative convention.

Framing Conventions by Media

Media Type

Atomic (Smallest) Frame

Larger Frames

Largest “Frames”

Music

Measures/Meters

?

Movements

Movies

Frames

Scenes

Acts

Video

Frames

Acts

Narrative

Sentences

Scenes

Acts

Motivating the Timeline

In The Link vs. the Event: Activating and Deactivating Elements in Time-Based Hypermedia, Hardman, et. al, posit a simple, two-dimensional model for determining the introduction of media elements onto the timeline: temporal and event. Temporal elements are motivated by time, such as the “beep” at the end of the 10 count countdown in old film reels. Event-driven elements are motivated by a preceding, or causal event.

Rhythm

Abstracted

Causal

Homework

   * Create Class Portfolio Website

Links

MTD2 MTD2 class 2