Addressing the (Currently) Covert Connection
After extensive research and analysis on prominent positions in other practices (Written Component 2) and bridging connection with my emerging position, it was pointed out that, from the readers’ perspectives, the elaborated position does not yet frame the iterative studio practice I have committed to. The practice consists of interrogating web design and digital publishing as a GCD media, exploring their impact on our collective perception of the state of the world, whether imperceptible or proclaiming.
The overwhelming impact exerted onto the post-modern human condition by digital infrastructure is undeniable. This imposing infrastructure has created imposing landscapes, the building blocks of which are the frontend interfaces. Like how a natural landscape influences its inhabitants, this digital landscape not only exerts its power through the visual elements, but also the interactions, the language and cultural entities birthed from it. Hence I choose web design as the viaduct towards my emerging position.
Thus, I would like to take this written component to elaborate, reflect on and evaluate my iterative studio practice leading up to the moment. I also plan to let this writing exercise navigate my practice into the near future, as the midpoint assessment approaches.
Evolution of the Brief
The studio practice of a vast ballistic range was distilled down to an actionable and scalable brief with a clear prompt, after identifying the time constraints and preferable amount of control. A scalable practice is based on 3 cornerstones: specific aspect for practical research; defined variables and defined fixatives. Understanding of all above led me to this current brief focusing on web design.
Iterate Towards the Content
To begin with, I needed content––the conventionally agreed core of digital publishing, to give the digital publishing context. Instead of niche texts pointing towards or directly embodying the good life, the primary requirement of the content was maximum accessibility and universality. The audience should be able to digest the content without difficulties, before noticing and engaging with the iterative GCD decisions I put into the digital publication aspect.
At this stage, I seemed to temporarily forgo the content’s alignment with the good life. Because of many ill-intended positions we have learned to be wary towards propagandas, and lecturing is unattractive. The desired effect of my practice, sprung from my position, could thus be achieved through a candid presentation of the most overt aspects of our collective conditions.
I started working with Donald Trump’s Twitter archive. Stripping away its original visual context, I put it in a plain format, in layouts of poetry, manipulated the interaction, along with other lightfooted experiments that orchestrate the content’s narrative. It was then pointed out by my peers that employing contents with pre-defined, recognisable formats was strong, as the shift of its habitat was starker and more resonating.
This recognition drove me towards the most ubiquitous kinds of contents that populate our digital lives––tweets, hashtags, news stories, YouTube’s comments, etc. These texts are unfiltered detritus left behind in the shadow of the grand cyber landscapes, most readily consumed by us, making up the most of the thousands of words we consume on a daily basis (reference pending). By focusing on them my iterative studio practice can resonate with my emerging position towards the good life.
Iterate Towards the Visual/Interactional Language
The iterative practice consists of manipulating the text and the interaction with which. My first action with the content was always a plaintext layout, stripping away the rhetoric and metalanguage belonging to their original (and usually imposing) habitats, giving the text unpretended candour, as well as me freedom for further iterations.
With Trump’s Twitter archive, the context of this content is charged with unambiguous emotions. Upon which I applied a layout usually reserved for poetry, not only dismantling the versal structure and the intonation, as well as the message.
Orchestrated user interaction was also a part of the iterative practice. Disrupting certain functions and features taken for granted (such as functioning hyperlinks, selectable and copyable texts) was a crucial part of the iteration, exploring how I can push the boundaries of interaction, and utilising them to bring forward my position. With news articles, I allowed users to arrange and display texts with their liking, inducing a more self-reflective reading experience. In the experiments revolving around the BBC article on Brexit’s impact on Fishery, I decide to make the fisherman’s testimony the only non-interactable component on the webpage––for the fact that they are the most impacted demography, yet with the least voice.
With everything discovered so far, the next iteration will aim for bringing all the discoveries mentioned above together––candidly presenting different contents together with appropriate interaction design, to create a piece of thought-provoking and imagination-inspiring experience for the audience.