yijingc--Final Assignment Research

There's a lot of media to be made from being playful and tinkering. Usually, when we create media, we have a particular goal in mind and strive toward that goal. On the other hand, this final assignment asks us to play around and more so discover rather than target a particular outcome.

While some people may be more fidgety about the lack of direction, I find this change in direction perfect for how I learn and create. I started creating art and music by experimenting with tools and trying different techniques out until I found something that looked or sounded nice.  The canvas and track is my playground on which I create media of varying degrees of artistry.

When I had heard about the final assignment, I had thought about electronic media and what curios they can create. In particular, I thought of Vectorpark and the toy/game Windosill. When we think about games made in Adobe Flash, we tend to think of games made with 2D, pivot-style sprites; platformers, puzzle games, and the such. In contrast, Windosill creates an environment that shows the breadth of what Adobe Flash can produce by using faux-3D graphics, physics, and mouse events, all with an amazing elegance. It would not be wrong to call Windosill more of a digital gallery than a game.

The next thing I thought of pertaining to the theme was the game Antichamber. The game itself is bizarre (or beautiful) enough, but what is even more outstanding are the developer rooms in the game.  Alexander Bruce rewards players for solving challenging game puzzles by showing some of the creations he made while developing the game. Each of these 'windows' could be considered a virtual gallery of impossible objects, all of which are toys compared to the mechanics the game uses as objectives.

In today's age and for this class's target demographic, our playgrounds of choice seem to be software environments. By using technology, we can create virtual galleries filled with all sorts of marvelous toys by experimenting with their esoteric features. Software tends to have its expected uses, but it's all the more interesting and educational to see the breadth of its capabilities.

Here are a few examples that come to mind:

• The archetypal example of such intention perversity is with Microsoft Excel. Sure, it can be used as a spreadsheet program, but why do that when it has access to Virtual Basic and can be used to make a video player or an RPG?

Entire programming languages can be repurposed for tasks they aren't meant to normally handle, and we can marvel at what we can generate with them.

• Ironically, JavaScript was originally a toy for HTML, but it has since its introduction developed into a powerful tool that can be used for many things, such as data manipulation, symbolic calculations, and physics emulation. This trait is not unique to JavaScript, but, really, any programming language with the capacity for executing algorithms.

• Consider that at least 78 programming languages have the capacity to generate a Mandelbrot set, even if some of them lack graphics support! Even if we're limited to mere text, there is still a lot of room for beautiful media. I can't even imagine the range of media we can make by using even primitive interfaces.

There is much to explore within the confines of technology. Given the extensiveness of this project compared to other assignments, I feel I'll have the time to experiment, learn, and create something innovative.