Context
Future Screens Are Mostly Blue - Episode 95 of 99% Invisible
http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/future-screens-are-mostly-blue/
Although not specifically "art" as we've talked about it throughout the semester, this episode discusses design decisions in Science Fiction with designers Chris Noessel and Nathan Shedroff about their book, Make It So: Interaction Design Lessons From Science Fiction. It explores the design of interfaces made by people in the past about the future for Sci-fi movies, tv shows, and the like. Specifically, it discusses the “holistic visual syntax” that visual portrayals of Sci-fi exhibit in order to portray ideas (such as the use of green to represent the Borg or the "image under glass" computer interfaces of Star Trek Next Generation). They spend a lot of time discussing "apologetics" people give to bad interfaces while giving praise to good ones and discussing how designers can draw from them. Apologetics are traditionally used in the sense of religion, but in this show they use it to mean rational explanations to explain or cover holes in design. For instance, when Luke and Han are fighting TIE Fighters in the Millennium Falcon, you can hear the TIE fighters flying around and exploding, but sound waves don't propagate in space! An apologetic for this is that sound helps you identify where objects are in 3D space, so maybe the designers of the ship decided to put sensors on the outside of it to gather data about movement and portray it as sound to the ship's occupants. It's the idea of finding the human factor in technological shortcomings.
This thinking has helped me to sort out the idea of an interface for showing my video - and perhaps gave me ideas of various things I can focus on when looking for clips to use. It showed the potential for rich experiences in engaging audiences.
News of the Normal Future - Specifically NORMAL000 by Aurelien R. Michon and Cedric Flazinski
http://normalfutu.re/
http://normalfutu.re/stories-of-the-normal-future/buy/
This graphic novel discusses ideas of dystopian future and how people and culture change (and stay the same). It is a preview of NORMAL001, 002, and 003. The art style is sketchy and only made of the colors white, black, and red - lending an uneasy and sometimes alarming tone. It begins the discussion of designing for the future and the counterintuitive idea for individuals to be isolated in the ever-connected world we live in. In their own words, it is a "BLEND OF ANTICIPATORY DESIGNS AND NARRATIVES DEVOTED TO CELEBRATING THE FUTURE NETWORKED ‘ME-FEST’ AND ITS SERVERS FULL OF CUTE CAT VIDEOS, THROUGH ONE BIG STORYLINE".
I think this is an interesting look into the potential for design - while I did not directly use ideas from it, it is a provocative look at design of future things.
Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby
http://www.dunneandraby.co.uk/content/projects/756/0
Although I wasn't able to read the whole thing (only excerpts were available) I enjoyed looking at this. From the information available, this is a speculation into the possible design of future items and ideas. It is an exploration not of predictive means based on trends, but asking "what if" questions and trying to provide avenues for discussion. They believe that the more we speculate, the more we think about possibilities, the more the reality of what we are thinking will become "malleable".
This influenced me to keep my video lighthearted. Rather than taking a critical look at UI design, I wanted to celebrate it and leave the viewers thinking about "what if" possibilities for the future at the end.
Let's Enhance
This is a light-hearted take on the constant use of image enhancement in film (not specifically Sci-fi, but it includes it). The video shows clips of actors in various TV shows giving the command to "enhance" images to produce a hilarious effect. As a computer scientist, this trope always made me shake my head (computers are good at finding patterns and there are amazing ways to sharpen or otherwise coax detail out of images if you know what you're looking for, but it is impossible to create more detail out of thin air like many of these shows suggest is possible), but I've never seen the line to "enhance" delivered so many times in 1 minute and 43 seconds.
This gave me insight into possible avenues for humor in repetition in my final project. Although not a serious supercut, it draws attention to modern day humanity's expectation of computers and design to solve our problems.
A Look Back At The Future In Film
This is another light-hearted and fun look back into the past of Sci-fi films. It brings together the visual aesthetics of various films and what people of the past expected from the future. In one simple supercut, it gives an overview of both new and old Sci-fi and how our expectations have changed. I specifically like this because it visually showcases some of what 99% (shown above) discusses, in that it showcases what future technology and design was thought to be like in these various worlds. So much can be portrayed about the human psyche by well-chosen pieces of music and clips.
This reminded me of the breadth of Sci-fi available and the potential for humor in simplicity. One can weave a sort a narrative with disjoint clips and showcase ideas and relate it to past, present, and future sensibilities. I followed this sort of formula in my video.
