My project to create a sculpture of a CD using the equivalent amount of storage space in floppy discs has proven to be quite difficult so far, as floppy discs aren’t as popular as they were when they were the main way if storing data. Sourcing the floppy discs has been very difficult as many places did not have the required amount of stock, had exorbitant prices, were based in the US and wouldn’t ship to Australia or had shipping that was going to take an extremely long time. I eventually found someone who was Australian based and had the required number of floppy discs on eBay. Having to buy them from Australia meant that they were very expensive and I had to settle for a single colour (yellow) because no Australian based seller had enough stock in multi-coloured packs. After trying to locate a canvas big enough to fit my sculpture of 486 Floppy discs in the shape of a CD, I have decided that that would be unrealistic as they would be too heavy for the canvas or getting the size of canvas required would be too large. I have done large amount of research into how I should go about way of making my sculpture and have decided to the glue the floppy discs together through the use of a hot glue gun that I have purchased from Officeworks.

Trying to figure out how I was going to lay out the Floppy discs out in the shape of a CD was a greater task then I had first anticipated with my original idea not working out and many subsequent ideas also failing. I finally decided that I would glue the floppy discs together into 24 stacks of 20. From there I would lay the 24 stacks out into the shape of a CD and glue them together from there, this has taken a very long time as the process of gluing each individual floppy disc to another isn’t as easy as I had anticipated. The glue guns tend to overheat when they are used for an extended amount of time, waiting long periods of time for the glue to dry and being aware to not get excess glue stuck on the floor (as my apartment is mostly carpeted and I am renting) or stuck all over the other floppy discs was also a problem. These have been the most troublesome tasks to overcome in the process of completing this project.

So far I have almost finished most time consuming part, of gluing the floppy discs into their stacks of 20, next I will glue the 24 stacks into the shape of a CD. I am confident that my method of the gluing the stacks together will provide me with the finished sculpture as I had envisaged, while I was thinking of the idea for this assignment.

After my interview with louis, I became much more interested at how far technology has come in terms of the evolution of equipment. This inspired me to create something that showcased the transition and progress between old and new equipment. When I was in class, my friends gave me an idea that I felt was perfect for what I wanted to explore with project brief 4, the idea was to explore the evolution between old and new media by constructing a sculpture of a new form of media with a form of old media as the material. I feel this concept will show the contrast between old and new very clearly and get my point across quickly.

My goal for Project brief 4 is to create a sculpture that captures people’s attention. At first, I was thinking of using floppy disks to model an 8gb USB drive to showcase the vast differences in storage space. Thankfully, Daniel suggested I use a CD instead as an 8gb USB drive would be the equivalent of 5555.55 floppy disks, which would have been an absolute nightmare to acquire.

After some research, the cd did seem to be the best choice for the comparison I wanted as it was the most doable and least expensive to make. I will be using floppy disks as my material to create the sculpture of a CD, I used plenty of floppy disks back when they were the most popular form of media storage, I am excited that this project allows me a chance to interact with them again. I will be using the storage equivalent of a common compact disc(CD) to determine the number of floppy disks I would have to collect in order to fill up the sculpture. I have calculated that I would need 486.1 individual 3.5 inch 1.44mb floppy disks in order to fill up the 700mb of storage in a standard cd.

I am hoping to find a website that sells the colourful blank 3.5 inch floppy disks that were very popular back when they were they were widely used, they used to come in five different colours and would be a good variety of colours for the sculpture. I will be looking for packs of 50 that I could buy in bulk for a hopefully reasonable price. I would also need a canvas to make it on, I will look online and in Officeworks for one that could I fit the sculpture on. I am looking forward to starting on this project and I hope I will be able to source the materials that I need in time as floppy disks are not as widely available as they used to be and could possibly hinder my schedule of the sculpture.

Word cloud

my day in a pie chart

For my third media element I tried to make a replica/sculpture of a old film cutter using a couple of simple materials. I chose to do the cutter because I thought it was the simplest to make and gets my statement across quickly even though it didn’t turn out as nice as I imagined. I used a black cardboard box, some black styrofoam, red and orange playdough, scissors, paper,a black marker and a pc graphics card pin cover to make it. I started by folding the black cardboard into the shape of the film cutter that I wanted, next I started cutting out the shapes I had to put on the box, next I used playdough and the graphics card pin cover to replicate the button and the handle.

Editing is what makes the difference between a film and a shot, it is one of if not the most important aspect of film and videomaking, but we didn’t always have the efficient editing software and hardware that are available to us today. Back in the old days, editing required editors to manually cut and piece together rolls of film with tape and glue in order to create the common camera cuts and transitions we see on every edited piece of media today. They did these with film cutters of varying sizes ranging from big and bulky to compact versions like the one I tried to replicate in my sculpture. Looking back at what editors had to do it really was bold of them for doing what they did as any person of this generation would most likely never have to go through the hardships of piecing a whole film together with a razor and tape.

We have come a long way in terms of high end state of the art editing software now and are far beyond the time of manually piecing together films, with practically overflowing options and tools to better improve the quality of film. We are provided with a whole range of options to tweak our videos or film , allowing us to create essentially any effect needed, from flames, to muzzle flares, to explosions and even superpowers. But with access to such a large range of toolsets, it may be confusing to figure out exactly which is needed for what purpose, thankfully that’s what the internet is for. With so much information on guides, techniques and settings for the various editing programs, anyone is able to simply look up a quick step by step guide on google or YouTube to create the effect they wanted. Ironically there are options for recreating the “old film effect” using programs like adobe premiere and iMovie as well.

Bibliography

• Hollyn, Norman. Film Editing Room Handbook : How To Tame The Chaos Of The Editing Room. 1st ed. 2010. Print. [ONLINE] Available at : http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1433956

• Cellania, Miss et al. “Old-Fashioned Analog Film Editing”. Neatorama. N.p., 2017. [ONLINE] Available at : http://www.neatorama.com/2013/01/02/Old-fashioned-Analog-Film-Editing/

• “Old Film Effect Tutorial: How To Create The Old Film Look For Video”. Tubular Insights. N.p., 2017. [ONLINE] Available at : http://tubularinsights.com/old-film-effect-look/

For my second media element, I decided to do the collage of photos that I brought in to class, I chose these pictures because they best represent nostalgia through old media to me, I simply made the collage in Photoshop using pictures I had previously taken during different times of my past. Nostalgia is that longing feeling you get when reminiscing about the past, many various experiences can trigger the feeling depending on the person. About 15 years ago, the concept of living in the past rather than the present wasn’t a particularly favourable personality to have, people associated it with yearning for things that will never return and nostalgia became in a way frowned upon at the time.  It had even been considered as a mental illness thanks to a 17^th century swiss army physician who coined the term based on reasons of the poor mental and physical health of a few soldiers suffering from homesickness. Things have obviously changed and nostalgia a not only not frowned upon but is now considered a “driver of empathy and social connectedness, and a potent internal antidote for loneliness and alienation.” (Adams, Tim. “Look Back In Joy: The Power Of Nostalgia”. the Guardian. N.p., 2017.)

Whether it be looking at old pictures, listening to an old song or watching a movie, everybody has their own personal ritual of remembering the past through these powerful items.  In order for an object to trigger nostalgia, it has to represent to the person a relatively clear memory of that point in their lives through it, the stronger the person’s connection with the time of the objects creation, the stronger the feeling of nostalgia they get from interacting with it. Nostalgia can make people yearn to relive their past experience again or better appreciate the future by looking back and analysing previous versions. For example, in video games, there is such a huge expectation on technology advancement that newer state of the art hardware are being made and are flying off shelves every year, as such we get games with photorealistic graphical fidelity and while compared with games from just 15 years ago we can see the immense changes made and gain a deep appreciation for future advancement.

Because we know we can never have the same experience again, capturing these moments through visual and audio media such as videos, songs or maybe even voice recordings store the memories forever depending on the object form and day to day quality maintenance. If the object is well looked after and can stand the test of time, they continue on as the person’s memories in physical form that can never be recreated and could possibly even be passed down through generations.

Bibliography

• Mensvoort, Koert. “Innovative Nostalgia”. Next Nature Network. N.p., 2017. [ONLINE] Available at : https://www.nextnature.net/2014/01/innovative-nostalgia-design-the-future-by-referring-to-the-past/

• “The Power Of Nostalgia: Linking The Past With The Present In Today’S Music Scene”. The Huffington Post. N.p., 2017. [ONLINE] Available at : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-power-of-nostalgia-linking-the-past-with-the-present_us_57f554f8e4b087a29a548538

• Adams, Tim. “Look Back In Joy: The Power Of Nostalgia”. the Guardian. N.p., 2017. [ONLINE] Available at : https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/09/look-back-in-joy-the-power-of-nostalgia

For my first media element, I decided I wanted to convey the message of my statement ‘old media is obsolete’ by doing a series of drawings showing the timeline of VHS being the standard for media playback devices to DVD’s globally taking over the role. I wanted to hand draw it at first but I felt photoshop had all the tools I needed so I decided use it, I felt three drawings in a series would adequately get my message across so I started with drawing faces on the items to show them being happy or sad based on the timeline. Then I added in the year and things people said about the item at the time, using the pencil tool I managed to make it look more handwritten but drawing with a mouse is still annoying, the second drawing is showing a couple of people looking at the new DVD platform thus making the VHS sad, and the last drawing shows the DVD completely taken over and the VHS being dead and obsolete.

Technology has progressed so much within the last 20 to 30 years, and at the rate its going, it wasn’t a surprise that older technologies like the VHS were going to be replaced by a better, cheaper, more convenient and more efficient form of storing media and playing it back. This came in the form of the DVD, a small optical disc capable of storing more data and higher quality media playback, couple this with the price of DVD players going down and people were quickly adapting. With the VHS era coming to a close, video rental businesses like blockbuster suffered massive losses due to not being able to adapt to these newer technologies. As DVD’s took over, even newer technologies emerge to try and replace it, one that makes videos and movies accessible far beyond the capabilities of physical products like the VHS or DVD. This came in the form of streaming, the invention of the internet created a platform of infinite potential for sharing media and multiple companies such as Netflix and Spotify have taken advantage of this by selling it as a monthly paid service, although DVD’s have not completely been discontinued, newer technologies like streaming will surely render them obsolete in the future as it becomes even more streamlined and convenient to consumers.

Because of the current digital age that we live in, having a personal computer seems commonplace however it wasn’t until the late 1980s to early 1990s that computer parts were advanced enough to output video and audio. Thus, needing physical objects like the VHS to play media, however with newer and newer cutting edge technology being discovered, older technologies should be reserved for nostalgia purposes as better options are now widely available.

Bibliography

• “Technological Transition: From The Humble Video To Digital Downloads | The Artifice”. The-artifice.com. N.p., 2017. [ONLINE] Available at :https://the-artifice.com/technological-transition-video-to-digital-downloads/

• “DVD | Technology”. Encyclopedia Britannica. N.p., 2017. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/DVD

• Plus, PC. “How Internet Video Streaming Works”. TechRadar. N.p., 2017. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/how-internet-video-streaming-works-1095211

This is a collage of the photos i brought into class

I used a light green leaf with white stripes i found to make this one, i put it in the                                                                                               folder provided and set it in the sun while using my books to stop it from moving                                                                                               around, i didnt think it would have any changes because it wasnt sweating like the other                                                                                 leaf but i was surprised with the end result and turned out better than i expected

I used a bigger different leaf for this one, it didn’t turn out as well as i thought because i felt the leaf had a lot of moisture so i was hoping for a more vibrant color. I would say this was a bad choice for me.

This is the  Kodak Easyshare DX3215 zoom digital camera and was the most affordable camera in the Kodak easyshare line.

It has 4X zoom capability and 8 mb of internal memory (with the option of adding more memory), an MMC/SD card expansion slot,  and with a 1.3 megapixel CCD(1280 x 960 resolution) the camera provides great quality prints up to 5×7 inches.

It and Kodak’s easyshare line offered consumers more options for taking Kodak quality pictures at home or outside, these digital cameras deliver outstanding pictures as large as 11 x 14 inches the new Kodak digital cameras make picture taking and sharing one button simple.

The Kodak Easyshare camera dock makes it easier than ever to move pictures  from the camera to a computer by automatically uploading images with a simple press of a button, pictures can be viewed, enhanced, emailed or printed as the camera dock

simultaneously charges the camera’s battery pack.

Displayed here is a different design of the shelve used to transport books