Week 12

After a mad overnight rush, I think my work is finally ready to be submitted. Just burnt the website to a cd-r, need to print the cover sheet, and then I have just under three hours to add any more key details to this blog. Phew.

Production Schedule

After quite a lot of tedious HTML coding, here is my production schedule for this term.

Week	Plan
1	Finalise draft of proposal, start background research into data visualisation.
2	Figure out what questions need to be addressed during the planning stage of project, research review styles.
3	Decide which methodology to undertake. Focus on creative aspect of writing or more of a content analysis? Further research into style; which genres bear the most fruit creatively?
4	Decide on final layout structure for website, start designing and creating the basic template. Revise proposal.
5	Research further into music visualisation. Read more on Tufte's ideas on boundaries in data realisation.
6	Think about the significance of genre - compare drafts and see which types of reviews evoke the best imagery. Further develop web site for pilot.
7	Further research all fields - put ideas into theoretical context. How does the project sit within the subject? Continue with website development and experiment with images.
8	Revisit any further required Flash/Dreamweaver techniques. Start organising web site design for submission; make sure files are rooted correctly, folders sorted.
9	Continue working on images. Are recent reviews better, or is a certain genre worth visiting in depth for better results?
10	Clean up all images made to date, start implementing them into the web layout.
11	Clean up workbook/blog. Look in to how to submit the work, start preparing the website for the final piloted version.
12	Make sure everything works; double check blog images to make sure they display correctly, burn the pilot to disc for submission, add any more relevant theoretical work to the workbook. SUBMIT THE WORK!

Proposal

My project is set out to explore and critique the relationship between text and image, focussed specifically on music reviews and the visual image they often try to create. Is text or image even relevant or helpful? To achieve this, I aim to take a mixture of existing music reviews and pieces I have written and had published myself in order to determine whether or not the medium of the music review in its current, arguably limited state really serves the purpose it's set out to do. If this is not the case, how image can possibly develop and improve the output?

I will predominantly collect and modify images from the internet in order to create an image in Photoshop that corresponds with a particular review, in a visual translation not too aesthetically dissimilar to Neurath's Isotype, providing a recognisable corresponding image to accompany key points made within the text. These points will be determined by identifying the most significant visual imagery used in each review.

Does the mental imagery within the text serve its purpose when trying to define music? The project will not rely on skilled artistry, but rather the actual issue of whether or not the images I produce gain the same reaction that the text version sets out to achieve. A key aim in my approach is to highlight the difficulty in visualising a format with no physical entity, and to highlight how the images created largely reflect the style of music they are based on, or even the particular writer's skill in their work itself. Drawing upon theoretical influence from Tufte's idea that data presentation should not be limited by its original format, I aim to focus on the possibilities that Web can provide to break down the barrier that the journalism industry currently adopts.

Research Report: Bibliography

Books/analytical writing:

Chandler, D. (2002) Semiotics: The Basics. London: Routledge

Dürsteler, J. C. (2005) Visualising Music [Digital Version] (Retrieved from http://www.infovis.net/printMag.php?num=161&lang=2 23rd November 2011)

Hanna, S. (2008) 'Composers and animators - the creation of interpretative and collaborative vocabularies' - Taken from the Journal of Media Practice, Volume 9 Number 1 2008

Neurath, O. (2010) From hieroglyphics to Isotype: a visual autobiography. London: Hyphen Press.

Tufte, E. (1990) Envisioning Information Connecticut: Graphics Press

Websites:

Information Is Beautiful (http://www.informationisbeautiful.net) [Accessed throughout the duration of the course.]

Kill Pixie (http://www.killpixie.net) [Accessed in early November 2011]

Research Report: Production Planning

Thus far, my project has consisted of making collages sourced from images found on the web, specifically from Google Images searches. Almost everything I have used has required cleaning up, cropping, resizing or cutting in Adobe Photoshop. Obviously with the fact I am dealing with collage, I have arranged each image myself in order to correspond with the texts I have used, again in Photoshop. Throughout the term, I have been brushing up on my Adobe Flash skills, and have revisited motion paths, cursor behaviours and other basic skills learned over the duration of the course in order to perhaps implement them in future approaches to my project.

For the planning stages, I was beginning by sketching out images of how I wanted my website to look, and made data based accounts of my thought processes also. I have sourced the majority of my reviews which have been used for conversion from http://www.nme.com, but I am keen to use reviews I have written myself in the next stage of planning.

When creating the website, I have been using Adobe Dreamweaver, and made use of my competent HTML coding skills, as well as seeking out tutorials from websites such as W3Schools.org. The majority of the web layout was created as image files in Photoshop, and then image mapped in Dreamweaver. Currently, the website is very basic visually, but I thought it was important to get the coding done as a placeholder if I decide to make the layout more interesting.

(249 words)

Research Report: The Pilot

In my attempts to realise my idea for the pilot, I found that the images I have produced really echo the scale of creativity displayed in the original text. When converting M83's 'Hurry Up, We're Dreaming,' I found that just by genre and artistic definition alone, there was a lot more of a visual palette to use. A lot more imagery in the text to work with than there was when I tried experimenting with a Black Keys review. This has made me wonder about the approach in data visualisation. There must be a correlation between stronger data and better imagery in Tufte's work, for example, as there seems to be in my own.

I feel that my pilot deals with my core ideas and theories well, but I think to progress, I need to explore different types of information to display. Now that I have tried to visualise creativity, I think it would be interesting to progress by seeing what happens if I create a wordcloud or something similar, based off a review, and try to visually re-imagine that.

In the process of designing and creating the website and my images, I have learnt that there are so many approaches and processes I can take. The possibilities are near-on endless, which I think serves as evidence in my question of why music reviews seem so limited by the text format. For example, I haven't even considered the possibility of adding motion to my images, I have yet to create any form of data based research stemming from content in the reviews, and there are so many specific little details I could include even from these much broader topics. At the moment, I feel the website could vastly expand in regards to the approaches I take.

(296 words)

Research Report: Research

As a base for my project, I thought it was important to revisit my initial understanding of semiotics and intertextualisation. Initially I researched Daniel Chandler's thoughts on the boundaries imposed by audience understanding.

My main source of theoretical inspiration and research, in practice itself in regards to realising my project, was based around Edward Tufte's ideas of data visualisation. I am aware that Tufte is a renown practitioner of 'cognitive art' himself, but it is his reasoning and his theories that stand out to me. Tufte (1990: 9) believed that "To envision information (...) is to work at the intersection of image, word, number, art." Tufte's challenges of the boundaries and disregard for the limits are exactly what my research and the project itself is trying to highlight.

From this, I have tried looking into more music-based approaches and theories, and came across Juan C. Dürsteler's (2005) thoughts on music visualisation, which is a lot more based around literal visualisations of frequency spectrums and so forth. This was an interesting take on how to visualise music, as it takes away the sense of creativity in writing that I would be focussed on, and masks literal, matter of fact data in a visually pleasing way. Aside from this, there really does not seem to be much in the way of relating music and imagery. Hanna (2008) gives a brief insight into animated accompaniments to music over history, but aside from this there is a lot left to be desired.

In my design research, I looked into Otto Neurath's Isotype. I am yet to really develop the idea in the context of my own work, but the way Neurath tried reformatting written language into visuals using a "language-like technique" (2010) is something worth exploring, especially in a web based context. My current obstacle is how to go about illustrating each aspect of the data I retrieve, but I will look to further develop these ideas in the future.

To progress, I need to look more into music visualisation itself, and determine what the closest attempt to echo my idea has been so far, and from that, find out why. Tufte and websites like Information is Beautiful have brought up a lot of key points in my methodology, but relating it to music and researching the discourse around the link between music reviews as a text based format and music as audio is the next key area I need to research.

(408 words)

Research Report: Similar Work

In essence, websites such as 'Information is Beautiful' (http://www.information-is-beautiful.net) are trying to achieve what I am aiming for. To take something in its existing format, which in Information Is Beautiful's case is data collection, poll and survey results and so forth, and mine to take key elements of creative writing and present them in a way that is far more visual and arguably engaging for the viewer. This has influenced me in the way I am looking to approach my final piece, as I think it would be interesting to take some quantitative data from reviews and represent them in a different format, much in the way that Information Is Beautiful does.

I have searched extensively and have not found any websites who specialise in image-based music reviews, so a lot of the work that has inspired me has belonged to other fields which I can relate to my own. It is unclear to me whether this means that the idea is flawed, it may be seen as too gimmicky to actually work as a profit-drawing website, it may take too long to produce each review and cost too much, or anything else. Visually, in regards to the website, I was inspired by websites such as Los Angeles artist Mark Whalen (also known as Kill Pixie) who adopt a minimalist style. My interpretation was that I will let the images speak for themselves, and since my experiment is less about creating works of art, I am keen to avoid overshadowing the images with an overbearing website.

(256 words)

Research Report: Theoretical Context

My project examines the relationship between text and image, and what limitations there may be to that when trying to juxtapose the two beside each other, in an attempt to convey what is essentially the same message. The message I am trying to look into is whether or not visual imagery really works when trying to write about a non-visual thing - in my case, music reviews. In my understanding of the field, it seems to me that websites currently specialising in music reviews are not really making the most of what the medium of the web presents to them, and that is an unlimited palette for painting the visual picture they currently just present in written form, to accompany the music they are reviewing.

I am exploring themes such as intertextuality, semiotics and data visualisation, and am particularly interested in Edward Tufte's ideas that data should not be limited by its format. I feel personally that music reviews almost limit themselves by not at least exploring the idea of visual accompaniments, as so many writers seem to strive to make their interpretations a far more visual realisation. It usually comes down to the style of music and the skill of the writer when determining how well a review works as an image, so for that reason, Tufte's concepts become slightly alienated. It is not data in question here, it is a creative interpretation, and that provides problems. I feel that Tufte's theories can merely translate to a creative process, but his ideas articulate my own.

(256 words)

Week 11

This week has been pretty much all about tightening everything up; adding images to blog posts I hadn't had a chance to format/upload, working on the website and making sure everything works (even though it is a bit basic at the moment) and generally rushing around to add more bulk to everything. About to finalise my proposal now.

Week 10

I thought it would be interesting to cover an album by a band who don't really make music in the same vein as the other bands I have been covering with this project. The Black Keys are an American blues-driven garage rock band, who are much more straight and to the point than M83's dreamy soundscapes, for example. The difference in my image speaks for itself really, with the writer comparing The Black Keys to a lot of other artists rather than painting a visual picture of how the music sounds. This, comparatively with images like the M83 one, really highlight what it is I'm looking into here; how language and imagery relate, and whether or not it works in helping the audience to know what to expect. The following image was just kind of done on a whim, so it's far from finished, but already you can see that it's a lot more matter-of-fact, a lot more 'this is what happened when the record was made, this is who it sounds like' rather than being too visually descriptive.

7/10 It feels pretty strange to be typing these words, but of late The Black Keys have undoubtedly become something of a big deal. Their last album ‘Brothers’ scooped three Grammy awards (Best Alternative Album, Best Rock Performance and Best Recording Package, whatever that is) and sold over a million copies worldwide. They recently announced a second show at London’s 10,000-capacity Alexandra Palace after the first sold out in under a week.

How did these jobbing blues-rockers from Akron, Ohio, suddenly get so huge? One persuasive theory is that they’ve merely inherited 'The White Stripes’ fanbase, with Jack and Meg’s demise creating a vacuum in the world of rootsy guitar-and-drums duos that the nominally similar Black Keys have rushed in to fill. In fact, they’ve outlasted almost all of the other bands who rose to prominence during the garage rock revival a decade ago (whither now the likes of The Datsuns and The Von Bondies?) and simply by being the last men standing in the vicinity of a vintage Fender Twin, The Black Keys have cleaned up.

But that’s only half the story. Over the last few albums, with the aid of regular producer Danger Mouse, The Black Keys have been gradually evolving from bluesy bar-band scufflers into streamlined rock ravagers. ‘El Camino’ had to be a record that justified the band’s elevation to the arena circuit, and it comes up trumps with a fat-free set of thumping uptempo rockers and primitive soul stompers.

Whereas previously the pair would never discuss tactics before entering the studio to jam, here every song sounds purposeful and premeditated. Single and opener ‘Lonely Boy’ sets the tone with its rabble-rousing rockabilly rumble. Even for committed minimalists like The Black Keys, the song is brutally simple, with Dan Auerbach refusing to wait for a reciprocal glance before yanking his heart out and slapping it on the table (“I don’t mind bleeding” he sings, blithely). ‘Run Right Back’ borrows its sleazy strut from Queens Of The Stone Age’s ‘No One Knows’, succinctly sketching out another fatal attraction scenario (“Finest exterior/ She’s so superior/ But she won’t allow/And I’m wounded now”) to a rhythm that feels like a finger jabbing in your chest. ‘Little Black Submarines’ is more ambitious, starting out in Johnny Cash territory before exploding into a psycho-blues freakdown.

‘Sister’, with its insistent ’80s pulse, is simply the best out-and-out pop song they’ve ever written, while the brilliantly demented cowboy glam holler of ‘Gold On The Ceiling’ is boosted by the band’s new trio of female backing singers wailing for all they’re worth. It’s a lot of fun, although The Black Keys have (presumably unwittingly) just rewritten Super Furry Animals’ demented cowboy glam holler ‘Golden Retriever’. ‘Money Maker’ also sounds comfortingly familiar, with a primary riff that’s a ringer for The Hives’ ‘Main Offender’ (although that’s OK, because it’s not like The Hives are around to play it for themselves).

Ultimately, when you’re working with such basic, well-worn materials, none of it is going to sound particularly original, but ‘El Camino’ is at least thrusting and urgent and very quickly to the point. Whatever Danger Mouse has done to galvanise The Black Keys – and thankfully he’s left his trademark soporific shuffling drums at home, the Keys’ Pat Carney being more of a bare-knuckle bludgeoner – he’s got the band operating at maximum efficiency.
The Black Keys will never really be able to boast the fizzing sexual tension and weirdo intrigue of The White Stripes, the dazzling dexterity of White Denim, nor the strutting showmanship of The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, The Make-Up or The Hives. But for 37 rollicking minutes, they give it the full gun, meeting the challenge of being the biggest garage rock band in the world head-on.

Sam Richards