Evaluation

I chose animation as the main focus of the communication technology exploration process, and examined my relationship with it. I have often experimented with animation, and believe it is an increasingly popular form of visual communication. From television advertisements, to projected visuals for club nights, there seems to be no end to its uses. Animation is an often cheap and simple form of communicating.

We began this project by testing interactivity and communication. I was introduced to processes such as geo-caching for the first time. Geo-caching is a form of urban interaction and explores the idea of exchanging forms of communication and using gaming to create an invisible link between two or more different people by giving them a task. For example, I worked with a small group to create some form of game to give to another group to complete, when arriving in the city of Bradford. Many of us had never been before, and therefore our game would not only give others a way of instructed exploration of a new place, but also give the act of them ‘discovering’ the city a purpose. I found it an unusual way of creating an interaction with others who you may have never met (e.g. if you completed a route around an area and then posted it online for others to re-trace your steps) but also an interesting one. It all links in to the current phenomenon that is online communication sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

After participating in group exploration sessions I decided to focus on the technologies involved in animation and similar processes. I created a couple of my own stop motion animations to test the technologies and then delved in to and reviewed other examples, such as VJ videos and animated GIFs. Overall there are a number of programmes offering you the process of putting together some form of moving communication technology. Among these are Photoshop (a simple form of putting together an animated GIF), Adobe Flash and Final Cut. These are the most commonly used, especially among students. I learnt that there are numerous ways of showing my own animations to the public, including YouTube, blogs, competitions and showings in public places, such as club and bar venues. Another realisation about animation and moving image is that like many other technologies, it is one that is constantly evolving and is becoming increasingly more high-tech. The future will no doubt continue to offer opportunities to produce more complex and realistic images.

This project has given me a broader understanding of the process of animation and encouraged me to take a closer look at the opportunities that can be offered to an animator. I regret not being able to try my hand at VJing and some of the other technologies I learnt about as part of the experimental process, but unfortunately due to illness limiting my time at college was not able to utilise the technology offered to students in those areas. In the future I hope to produce my own work using many of the processes I have mentioned on my blog, and also have a deeper exploration in to other forms of technology.