My most recent critique for my on-going thesis project was on Friday, January 28th 2011. I was sort of caught off guard and I was not completely prepared to present my ideas for my thesis project since I wasn't scheduled for the day, but it was a good way for me to quickly gather my thoughts.
I presented my self archive book from Design III-A, and showed the class my Social Life Charging Source" project to give them an intro on my ideas for the coming semester. I then presented the ideas from my sketchbook, which contains all the information on how I want to execute my thesis ideas.
My idea is to have a whole system within the gallery where viewers are able to log into a website using their smart-phones to get a new experience from the gallery. This is a play on where people are commonly going to their phones to download apps in order to "enhance" their experience, when I believe their surroundings is what is really important, not the information on their phones. Sometimes technology is interrupting our natural thought process, and through this project I want to create my own virtual distractions where viewer/users will get lost in the digital world, when they should be enjoying the gallery. I will achieve this by creating this smart-phone friendly website, where users can view a gallery map, and the user can find various things within the gallery. Rather than providing real help, the website will actually cause the user more trouble. The end result will be the user realizing that he/she has wasted his/her valuable time being lost in what this website is telling him/her to do.
I received positive feedback from my professor and peers to continue with what I'm doing, and at this stage it is important to choose which actions I want the user to pursue, and to make the project apparent in the gallery space. My professor pointed out that a viewer could overlook my sign that tells them to go to my smart-phone friendly website or they might not want to participate in it at all, so I want to spread my project in as many areas as possible to grab the viewers attention. Another idea I recently thought of, was to get different users to collaborate on the gallery floor. Maybe the website tells him/her to find another individual attempting to complete a similar task, and together they could form their own "experience".
