Our action plan:
- Phase 1: A re-working or refinement of design and programming i.e. to produce the release version of each project.
Having performed various public experiments we have identified the following problems with the current versions of Riverrun and Colourwall:
- Riverrun: The number of participants is fixed. This rigidity is problematic. People may leave unexpectedly, ruining the dynamic of the event. Others may find themselves having to queue in order to participate. The solution is a more fluid programming. Story /image should expand and contract should people enter or leave the story. Participants should be able to indicate they wish to enter or leave by clicking on a button. If a participant has been inactive for some time, dialog box should ask them to confirm their presence. If they do not click, their line is removed.
- Riverrun: Usability on Riverrun seems fairly good. Participants find the interface quite easy to understand. By necessity the design needs to be simple, but perhaps improvements could still be made here. There is quite a lot here already which could act as a guide to the new programming and design process.
- Colourwall: Usability and the design look on Colourwall need to be addressed. Can we do this without the participants having to download an app.?
- Riverrun: The radius of visibility should have two operating modes: automatic (in proportion to number of participants set) and manual (for scientific experiments).
- Riverrun: There should be a manual font/s selection mode. (We plan to introduce a wide selection of custom-made fonts.)
- Riverrun: Participants should not be heavily restricted in the amount they can write. They should also be able to see the whole content of those within their radius have written or drawn.
- Riverrun: The projection visible to global viewers should show the whole global text at all times. Text should therefore expand and contract as necessary. This global text will be mapped onto the architecture of the exhibition space.
- Riverrun: It should be possible to output each text in an interesting visual form (in terms of typography, colour scheme, scale etc.) not just during, but also after the event. This will allow us to build an archive of experiments which can be posted on the web so that visitors can vote for their favourites and exhibited in physical space.
- Riverrun and Colourwall: There should be a prominent hyperlink to another page on which visitors can vote on the artistic quality of previous projects.
- Colourwall: Participants should be able to import and use a broader range of visual elements, such as found images and even, for example, mobile camera video.
- Riverrun: Visualisation (for non-participants) of the entire story, as it evolves, could be improved. This is a design (graphics and typography) and programming issue.
- Riverrun: Options for outputting the entire process as video after the event are required. A simple sequencing application which automatically orders the timing and placement of contributions and sets the typeface to be used is required.
- Riverrun: As in the trial version, a textual record detailing each change to the global text, along with its timing and position, will be generated for each experiment to facilitate post-event scientific analysis.
- Riverrun: The program will include the codification of the participants’ creative decisions as sound in real-time. By adding sound codification, the project will try to bring visual, textual and sound elements together into a common field of relations for the exhibition visitor.
- Phase 2: Perform experiments and present exhibitions. We plan to project the evolution of each story or image on a screen in an exhibition space in real time, so that the public present can witness the ongoing outcomes of the creative decisions taken by the dispersed online collective.
- Phase 3: Scientific analysis and publication. Publication of theoretical texts.
- Phase 4: Publicity. The results will be presented to diverse institutions, with the aim of organising future international and intercultural creative events.
- Phase 5: Expansion. Owing to their online nature, there exists a clear opportunity for national and international collaboration. Experiments could be undertaken as, or form the bases for, practical workshops. We would gratefully accept invitations to develop such events.
We will also explore the potential for analogical versions: (Further information is available)
Analogical versions could be produced to work in the same way as the online digital versions, except for the fact that the writers and artists would write and draw on a material object in a physical exhibition space, after having read instructions pinned on the wall. This version would have no sonic codification.
These analogical versions would work for a determined length of time, such as a month, without pause. Each individual action would be documented, so that later a time-lapse film of the whole evolution of the image or story could be produced and viewed.
It would be possible to give a specific theme to each Riverrun or Colourwall experiment undertaken.
