Author: Linglan Xu

U2-POSITION-feedback notes

MAGCD U2 W1-2

Feedback notes

What’s working?

– Good visual effect and attempt

– The point of legibility research works

What’s not working?

– You didn’t set rules for the practice, so it’s confusing to have so many different shapes

– You should catalogue them well, to be more systematic with iterations

– In the second week approach, the basic shape is not a standard M

How to develop？

– It looks like a game, try to use the zine to show your works

– Thinking about how shape can affect legibility

– Thinking about the basic meaning of letter 

– Try to put them in a sentence

– Do more research about the foundation of typography and about symbol and meaning

– Setting some rules and do the iteration more slightly

Reflection

For the iterative process, I should set up some rules for myself before I do it so that I can do the project in a systematic way and be clearer when presenting and expressing it.

The first two weeks of the iteration I concentrated on the study of typographic form, looking at the impact of morphological change on legibility. From a linguistic point of view, I want to delve into the symbolic representation of type. From a personal identity perspective, I also want to incorporate some elements of Chinese and Western culture.

Methods of contextualising-process

Why is the iMac G3 a computer? How does the context of the museum shape my perception of an object that I have never encountered before when I walk into a museum to observe it in a display case? With this question in mind, I analysed the factors that determined the nature of the object, namely the process of visiting, the museum’s descriptions and the collection of exhibits.

by overlaying the images in the collection, I tried to make the iMac G3 keep the same style as other exhibits in the collection
Since our group did not have the same critical question for the first week, we’d like to explore our positions by combing our works together. So here, we’d like to discuss about the position of ourself and audience’s position.
1 content making-we change the size and angle of texts, to make the audience change their physical position, i.e., coming closer or go further to see 2 window – to mimic the translucent effect of iMac G3, we block some parts 3 spin- change the perspectives and gain different info

Peer to peer feedback

1. try to make more layers? like one layer each

2. develop the content

3. intentionally link the content

4. using lights

Methods of Iterating-process

I chose cinema4D as my tool to continue exploring 2d and 3d. For the first week’s iteration, I experimented with various ways of creating typeface in the three-dimensional world, both in Chinese and English. 

2D effect
using the basic shapes to creat
pixel in 3D
texture experiment
using letters to create shapes

As I changed the components and materials of the typeface, the question arose as: What does it mean when a text exists in a three-dimensional world? While thinking about this, I realised that everything around me can become a three-dimensional typeface because the real world is a three-dimensional world. So my answer for this question is: The x and y axes formed the two-dimensional world and the three-dimensional world added the z axis to the two-dimensional typeface, it means that the typeface became an “object” in the three-dimensional world.

In project of altering letters, Ryo Shimizu also explores the relationship between text and space. When texts are dismantled into completely new symbols, space creates an imagery with texts, i.e. the senses become more perceptually enriched and the focus is no longer on the textual information obtained directly from the words. In McLuhan’s terms, these symbolised words become a new medium and the message it carries changes. This led me to think about the transformation between text-object-text. When words become objects, this means that texts can carry things like objects, for example a glass of water can be placed on a text. So what if the glass of water was turned into words? Would it become an overlap of words or an overlap of objects? Or perhaps an overlap of objects and texts? What kind of image is created when the relationship between objects, such as carrying, containing, juxtaposing, is represented in type?
“And we indeed, rightly considering objects of sense as mere appearances, confess thereby that they are based upon a thing in itself, though we know not this thing as it is in itself, but only know its appearances, the way in which our senses are affected by this unknown something”
—Immanuel Kant

With these 3d texts, I have composed Kant’s description of the thing in itself. Kant divides the world into appearances and the thing in itself; our perceptions exist only in appearances, the thing in itself is unknowable. I assume texts as the embodiment of appearances, and as the concept of texts and objects continue to merge, breaking down the perception of texts. It’s an exploration of the thing in itself.

Methods of translating-process

As this is the last project, I really want to challenge myself by choosing an unfamiliar topic and trying different methods. The text that I’m going to translate is a sci-fi from Arthur.C.Clarke, who is one of my favorite writers. In this novel, he is talking about his Christian belief. While in the country where I was born-China-most people do not have a religious belief and we believe in science. In this context, it’s really hard for me to understand the meaning of religious words and what author is going to express.

It’s not about language, but more about culture behind. So I came up with the question-how people without any religious background can understand these religious words?

sentences with religious words

Experiment 1-time&space

I made a coordinate system to rearrange all the religious words.

Experiment 2-intonation

By applying the four tone in Chinese to English text and Chinese text, I made music to find the flow of these two texts-as another try of translation.

Experiment 3-text

I put these words into google and Baidu, the main search engine used in China, to see what kind of result I can get. I believe search engines can be a way to show the difference and similarity of western/eastern thought.

by translating them into emoji-a language without barrier, I’m looking for a method to represent the original text

I chose the third experiment as a way to deep in, and I tried to analysis the layout or the results on the search engine.

As we can see here, the price takes a large part, so I decided to find more connections between price and religion.

Methods of translating-feedback reflections

1. What’s working?

– An attempt at different ways of translation

2. What’s not working?

– Insufficient research on the relationship between money and currency

– No change in content obtained by changing the form

– Lack of logic

3. To develop further

– Finding good entry points about religion

– More research on the relationship between money and currency and their meaning

For this two-week project, I chose an overly large topic which contains a lot to explore. For example, interpreting time and space from the sci-fi text, or exploring the differences between East and West from a religious perspective. As I picked the relationship between religion and currency to explore, I was suggested to go into more detail about the background of the religion as told by the author, as well as author’s attitude towards it, which would give me more relevance in my study of the religion.  

Religion and currency are similar from a developmental point of view, for example they both move from the abstract to the tangible, and this can be a source of inspiration for linking the two. When it comes to the meaning of currency in religious area, money sometimes represents the forgiveness and the hope for wishes to come true.

On the other hand, it extends from the idea of religion and money to think about the commodification of religion and the process of materialization by people of such sacred things as technology develops.

I experimented with different mediums to express religious vocabulary in this project, and although the result achieved can only be called a very superficial translation between religion and money, with many directions to be explored, it has given me a more mature reflection on how to choose the theme of the project within the given time frame. When confronted with a topic that has a wealth of information, it is important to try to take a small perspective and to detail the object of research so that the project can go smoothly and in depth rather than just scratching the surface of the topic.

Methods of translating-written response

Re-present In Defense of the Poor Image with the structure of Exercises in Style

In Exercises in Style, the author keeps telling the same thing repeatedly, the only difference being the style of the story. In this case, to “re-present” In Defense of the Poor Image, in which Hito Steyerl mainly talks about the disappearance and resurrection of the poor image, I decided to repeat the process of the poor image with three factors – technology, economy, and political system. From a translation point of view, it is not only the various ideas in the text that are rearranged but also the information they contain about time, place, and culture. If I use this prompt to reflect on my project, what I have done so far is just to translate the text into another medium through some very random elements, and in the process of translation, a lot of the hidden information behind the text is lost, and such a translation is no different from putting the text in translation software. Changing mediums is a reasonable way to translate, but an inappropriate medium only translates a one-sided message.

Technology 

The hierarchy of images is distinguished by sharpness and resolution, which means that images in cinemas are images in flagship stores, while the images circulating on DVDs, broadcast television or online are poor images. During the period when poor images were developing underground, they were copied via VHS and circulated secretly in the form of tapes. However, with the advent of stream video online, the poor images that once disappeared have reappeared. People have access to download, re-edit and upload them, and the results circulate on the P2P platform. 

Economy

The focus becomes a new economic element. As high-resolution images look more brilliant and impressive, consumers insist on 35mm film as a guarantee of pristine visuality. Moreover, because of neoliberal policies which include the concept of culture as a commodity, experimental and essayistic films have no place to live. The cost of them being seen in cinemas is very high and therefore poor images lose visibility and are denied the right to be distributed in the public sphere.

However, as more and more audiences become producers by editing and posting poor images again, the value of the image is not limited to the material dimension, an immaterial state that is compatible with the semioticization of capitalism and, this also adapts the poor image to the conceptual turn of capitalism.

Political system

One of the reasons for the marginalization of the poor image is its mismatch with social values. And this condition relates to post-socialist and postcolonial restricting of nation-states, this means that the original archives lose the support of the national cultural framework. And in certain countries, monopolies of audiovisual are established, those experimental images have to survive underground, spread among specific organizations or individuals. 

Nonetheless, because the production of culture is seen as a national task, this allows the poor image to spread in the void, as it is extremely difficult to go about maintaining the distribution infrastructure.

Bibliography

Queneau, R. (1998) Exercises in Style. Richmond: John Calder. Extract pp.17-26.

Steyerl, H. (2012) ‘In Defense of the Poor Image’, in The Wretched of the Screen. Berlin: Sternberg Press, pp. 31-45.