As I worked to develop my concept for this project, I realized that it presented me the opportunity to revisit a part of a previous project that was never fully realized. For the Urban Screens brief at the end of last year, I was working on writing a program that pulled on various RSS feeds to display on screen. I had managed to find, adapt and modify a program which uses Flickr API to search for images under a given keyword and within the Creative Commons licensed images.
Where I was able to get this functioning, I was unable to incorporate it with a different section of code I had written. So unfortunately I wasn't able to achieve this by the deadline for presentation but now it is something I'd like to revisit and integrate into this project in keeping with the ideas we'd discussed already.
Even as I was working to describe and visualize this concept, my mind was already wanting to move past and keep developing it. So this is still in it's early stages to be refined and developed through further group discussions and seeing how other group members are choosing to approach the concepts.
The concept:
The suitcase is a boring, banal, everyday object, not unlike the others which come around on the carousel at the airport. It is the contents which make it unique and this is determined by the individual who is using it, where they are going and where they are going. We take a piece of our lives with us when we travel, pack it up, condense and compartmentalize it to sustain us through our journeys. Through our journeys, we collects things to pack away to remind us of our journeys.
The aim:
I want to open up the suitcase for the viewers to determine it's content, bringing to it their experiences and letting them pack it themselves.
How:
I want to revisit a part of a project from last year which was never successfully realized; I want to use a program written in Processing which pulls photographs using the Flickr API and searches through images licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (BY) and with a safe search filter.
Viewers would be asked to submit words by means of texting, or some other form of input, worlds relating to their experiences of travel similar. This word would then be put in as the keyword to search for images.
The first or a randomly selected image from those generated would then be displayed on a screen placed inside the suitcase, over time stacked up to create a collectively packed suitcase. In keeping with the restrictions of the license, the owner of the photograph's name would also be printed and perhaps also the title to give more insight into the experience linked to the image.
As the content displayed would be that of someone not actually present and most probably overseas, it would draw on ideas of the shared experiences of travel and bring a more global aspect to it. Alternatively (or alongside), viewers could also send photographs from their phone their own photos. The medium of photography is one we rely on to try capture the experience of travel and to try share it with our friends. Many years later we can still recapture the experience of the moment when we look over our photographs. We try 'pack' the experience of a moment of time in a still frame as a way of taking it away with us. With the emergence of camera-phones, this is also representative of the idea of a moment you just have to capture, even though though don't have a traditional camera with you. The quality is often poor but it is enough to capture the essence of the experience.
Why?
Such an interactive exhibition would result in the content displayed to be determined both consciously from the viewers and unconsciously from those who submitted the photographs in the first place. It is about the personal and the shared experience of travel and what take with us and take away from us from these journeys, whether it is our whole lives we are packing up or just a small bit to take with us for a day. They are asked to pack the suitcase and take away with them another kind of journey and experience.
Where I was able to get this functioning, I was unable to incorporate it with a different section of code I had written. So unfortunately I wasn't able to achieve this by the deadline for presentation but now it is something I'd like to revisit and integrate into this project in keeping with the ideas we'd discussed already.
Even as I was working to describe and visualize this concept, my mind was already wanting to move past and keep developing it. So this is still in it's early stages to be refined and developed through further group discussions and seeing how other group members are choosing to approach the concepts.
The concept:
The suitcase is a boring, banal, everyday object, not unlike the others which come around on the carousel at the airport. It is the contents which make it unique and this is determined by the individual who is using it, where they are going and where they are going. We take a piece of our lives with us when we travel, pack it up, condense and compartmentalize it to sustain us through our journeys. Through our journeys, we collects things to pack away to remind us of our journeys.
The aim:
I want to open up the suitcase for the viewers to determine it's content, bringing to it their experiences and letting them pack it themselves.
How:
I want to revisit a part of a project from last year which was never successfully realized; I want to use a program written in Processing which pulls photographs using the Flickr API and searches through images licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (BY) and with a safe search filter.
Viewers would be asked to submit words by means of texting, or some other form of input, worlds relating to their experiences of travel similar. This word would then be put in as the keyword to search for images.
The first or a randomly selected image from those generated would then be displayed on a screen placed inside the suitcase, over time stacked up to create a collectively packed suitcase. In keeping with the restrictions of the license, the owner of the photograph's name would also be printed and perhaps also the title to give more insight into the experience linked to the image.
As the content displayed would be that of someone not actually present and most probably overseas, it would draw on ideas of the shared experiences of travel and bring a more global aspect to it. Alternatively (or alongside), viewers could also send photographs from their phone their own photos. The medium of photography is one we rely on to try capture the experience of travel and to try share it with our friends. Many years later we can still recapture the experience of the moment when we look over our photographs. We try 'pack' the experience of a moment of time in a still frame as a way of taking it away with us. With the emergence of camera-phones, this is also representative of the idea of a moment you just have to capture, even though though don't have a traditional camera with you. The quality is often poor but it is enough to capture the essence of the experience.
Why?
Such an interactive exhibition would result in the content displayed to be determined both consciously from the viewers and unconsciously from those who submitted the photographs in the first place. It is about the personal and the shared experience of travel and what take with us and take away from us from these journeys, whether it is our whole lives we are packing up or just a small bit to take with us for a day. They are asked to pack the suitcase and take away with them another kind of journey and experience.
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