Questionnaire Summary Progress Report #1

I only put the questionnaire up last night, and have only had 5 responses so far, but I thought I would post the progress of it so far. Here are some screen grabs of an analysis page;

As you can see, question 2 and question 5's answers are varying quite a lot so far. It seems that before things have even started, people only 'sometimes' read music publications in the first place, which puts into doubt whether or not the industry could afford to take such a big risk in propelling image reviews over text ones. At the moment it seems the two could go hand in hand. I think I should have posted a question about whether users would prefer an indexical or creative approach, however. If it isn't too late, I could add this question into it for future participants.

Design Revamp

Just realised I have never posted a screen shot of my reviews site for my pilot. Revisiting it has made me even more aware of how basic and unimpressive it is. I want to revamp everything to include more graphical buttons at the very least. It's too plain and boring at the moment. As well as working on my Isotype index, I will get to work on Photoshop, Dreamweaver and possibly Flash to give the site the update it sorely needs.

I am gravitating towards scrapping the 'music news' site approach entirely in favour of a simplistic linear, chronologically listed gallery approach, in order to maintain the 'up to the minute' aspect that music news websites incorporate. I want to avoid it being a static gallery such as that of an artist, because the entire nature of music reviews is its interchangability, with new releases achieving top spot within layouts etc.

I am kind of glad I revisited this work today, as I feel a lot more inspired to update it now, because it's a little embarrassing. I know I wanted to go for 'simplistic,' but there's that and then what I created. It belittles my skill as a web designer, really. I don't think I'm fantastic by any means, but looking back, this is a little embarrassing.

I still like the idea of a plain white background and basic black text, but something a little more dynamic and interactive would be preferable, such as the websites I mentioned previously. Kill Pixie's gallery amongst others. This past week has been very much research and background focused. Now I need to put all of the theory into practice.

Hmm

Have noticed a lot of traffic from a Russian/Ukrainian meme site today, very strange. Hello to my 13 Ukranian readers, I guess. And hello to Germany and the United States. No idea what is interesting to people who aren't involved in this project, but yeah.

Isotype Index

I thought I would post a few pre-existing Isotype images to see if anything currently existing could correspond with reviews I could translate. This is mostly for reference and to avoid cross-referencing.

As you can tell, the images seem to serve a very different purpose to what it is I'd use them for. Mine would cover far less propagandist imagery, and would serve more as an image-dictionary. Here are a couple of pieces I put together for my pilot;

The images are fairly crude and didn't take long to make, but as of today I plan on making at least 25 different images for a small index in time for next week's lecture.

Review Ideas - Maribel

Just come across a review for Maribel - Reveries. Whilst the text shows room for creativity, this word cloud I've made shows that most of the key words are just band-related and aren't really about the music. An interesting turn this has shown is that if you cut out all of the background information, it doesn't leave the review with much to 'visualise.' It's more a biographical review and that takes away from the image potential and highlights how much some reviews rely on the text element of their message.

Without all of the key words related to the band (i.e. Maribel, Reveries, Record, Aesthetics (the name of their first release)) and all of the words needed structurally (i.e. 'although,' 'much' etc.) all there really is is 'dreamy, stensil, radiantly, haunting' and so forth, which are very vague terms and almost rely on the text for a context, as I also noticed 'danger' on there, and I believe the review references a lack thereof, rather than saying the record sounds 'dangerous.' With a review like this, I think it would be much more interesting to create some original artwork which depicts the tone and mood of the album rather than try to simply replicate certain quotes, which may have been the case with my M83 review.

I was considering using this review for my experiment, but I don't think it's written well enough from a creative perspective - but then again, my project is designed to highlight this, rather than rely on something that translates well. Whether it works as a medium of replacement is what I'm trying to discover; but on first glance, I would say this particular review won't have much resemblance to the original text.

Genre Diversity

I have had a change in plan for the experiment I posted a group for earlier: Now, I think I will assign each participant the latest reviews I can find in different genres - one in Alternative/Rock, one in Hip Hop, one in Pop, one in RnB or whatever, and I will make a corresponding image for each. So I will make 5, and each other person one each, if time permits. If they could each do two each, that would be great, so there is more variety, but I think so far, all of my pieces have been too similar from a genre perspective.

I will pick a reviews website - gravitating towards Pitchfork right now because some of their pieces can be quite controversial, and select the latest review in each genre so there is no favouritism and more of a random element. Hopefully no one would have heard the albums in question, so there will be no bias and each participant won't know what to expect. I might not even read each review myself until the links have been distributed. I think it's a better idea to include some diversity. By this time tomorrow, I would have started on my images at least. I will put together a rough sketch for a layout update before I see my tutor in the morning.

Whoops

I could not figure out for the life of me how to check results for the first survey I created, so I made a new one. The link is http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2QFLJ68. There is an option to provide graphical reports on the results (which may be for premium members only) which could be nice. This survey takes up to 100 responses too, which is better.

Questionnaire

 As previously mentioned, I have just designed a short questionnaire to help with my research. It's only 5 questions long, but I was interested to see what people thought of the current state of music reviews and whether image-based reviews could have any impact on the industry. The survey will only take up to 50 results and lasts for 10 days, so hopefully I will get 50 of my Facebook friends to help me out. The results will just help to flesh out my research and could be included in future essays, if nothing else.

If any tutors reading this would like to help, the link is http://freeonlinesurveys.com/s.asp?sid=7hqio6h5n3jo24u10508 - thanks! Haha.

EDIT: Disregard the picture and the link to the survey - I couldn't log in to the website to check results! New one in next blog post.

Wheels Into Motion

Just created a group on Facebook for my experiment. Hopefully people will respond soon; my girlfriend, who excelled in art throughout her academic ventures, has also put herself forth to help. I will get a really interesting mix of graphical perspectives - myself taking a more collage-based approach, Nick, Josh and Kyle taking a more graphics-inspired outlook, and Eilish and Alex a more traditional artistic approach.

The response could be very interesting, paired with some of the reading I've been doing on language and linguistic interpretation (Barthes, as previously mentioned) and semiotics. Do reviews say the same things to everyone? Hopefully I will find out soon. I am about to create an online survey to advertise as well.

The Death of the Author

Been reading up on Roland Barthes' 'Death of the Author.' Interesting quotes;

We know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single 'theological' meaning (the 'message' of the Author-God) but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture. Similar to Bouvard and Pecuchet, those eternal copyists, at once sublime and comic and whose profound ridiculousness indicates precisely the truth of writing, the writer can only imitate a gesture that is always anterior, never original. His only power is to mix writings, to counter the ones with the others, in such a way as never to rest on any one of them. Did he wish to express himself, he ought at least to know that the inner 'thing' he thinks to 'translate' is itself only a ready-formed dictionary, its words only explainable through other words, and so on indefinitely

Really interesting stuff. So related to my project, the author of the review is not a 'voice of God,' dictating facts, according to Barthes. Instead they are merely compiling a variety of previous experiences in reading. And in turn, us as the reader is interpreting each text in relation to our previous experiences also. Barthes is questioning the need of the contemporary author, insisting that everything written these days is merely a reproduction of previous ideas. I could argue that my images do the same job, rendering both as essential (or non-essential) as the other. My original attempt at the project, in a way, was an aim to challenge language and linguistics, and the need for them. A lot of the readings I have done aren't really helping to guide me in a different direction. I think I need to look more into 'image interpration' and the legitimacy of indexical imagery. What makes Isotype, for example, as legitimate a source as it's perceived to be? Tomorrow's aim is to get Photoshop working and try to mock up a better draft of the 'gallery' incorporation.

Frustration/Isotype Revisited

It's incredibly difficult finding resources on Google sometimes. Pages and pages of results from searches such as 'image translated to text' bring up articles about how Google can translate foreign text embedded within images. A library day is needed, for sure.

On another note, I have been browsing for critiques on Isotype (during which I found the transcript of a talk given by Michelle Henning at Reading University, interesting!) and came across this video. My German isn't great at all (practically nonexistant) but it's a nice insight into the creation of Isotype and some artists' own versions.



I'll post my reactions to certain images included etc. in the next update.

Design Aesthetics

I have been rethinking my approach to the website aspect of my project. I agree with Rod in his thinking that there is no need for my website to function as a 'music news/reviews' site, in the same vein as NME.com's layout. Instead it could be even more minimalistic than its current form, mimicing a gallery. I have been looking for inspiration online, and have come across the Saatchi Gallery website.

I love the way the website is simplistic yet striking, no-nonsense and straight to the point. If I can hone my Flash skills, I would love to make a similar looking website. Simplistic but sleek and futuristic. 3D graphics buttons and the like.

As I've mentioned on here before, I also really like Kill Pixie's online gallery. The only danger in taking an approach like this is that then, the work becomes far more about whether or not the 'artwork' is good or not, and less about what each image can achieve as a translation. When approaching my pilot, I felt that I needed to put it in a contemporary journalistic context, because what I was aiming for was a replacement for the current format. The images are reviews in themselves, and the way you display reviews on the internet is on music websites like Pitchfork or the NME, who both utilise this blog-like, rolling, up to the minute layout, in chronological order of events.

As far as my pilot is concerned, it was a little disjointed in that I tried to incorporate the 'news' aspect by just using an RSS feed (which I thought was rather clever in that it was upto date as of whenever the viewer saw it) and keeping the 'reviews' separate in a kind of gallery-esque medium. So I think I need to decide on one or the other. At the moment I think it's more likely to echo a gallery. I would like a sense of chronology involved though, otherwise it becomes too static, which isn't particularly reflective of the industry I am critiquing.

Associative Imagery

After discussing my project with Rod this week, he introduced the idea of 'associative imagery' to me. After digging further into the area, I came across this piece by BJ Bueno of Cult Branding. Whilst the entire article may be contextualising an advertising website (I'm not sure, I have only read this article), some interesting points are made. This quote is particularly interesting;

Every image signals to consumers whether or not your brand is especially for them. Open up an L.L. Bean catalog and you’ll be struck with images of outdoor and indoor tranquility, with products on old, wooden docks, people engaging in dialogue by a lake, sitting on rocking chairs looking out at the trees, or indoors by a roaring fire with a yellow Labrador Retriever nestled on his bed. If you don’t have an affinity to nature, hiking, and quietude, these images probably won’t speak to you. If you do have a love for what this imagery represents, you may dive into their seasonal catalogs with joy and excitement.

Why do images have so much power? Our logos and marks are symbols. Symbols are triggers of archetypal images—energy patterns that rest in the unconscious. These primordial images are not personal to each individual, but are aspects of the “collective” of all of us. Eminent Swiss psychoanalyst Dr. Carl Jung highlighted that these archetypal images are the building blocks of thought. These unconscious, archetypal images lay the foundation for the experience customers are going to have with your brand. The images you create in your logos and marks—the symbols—are a signal to the customer of what the brand represents.

So with my original approach, what it seems I am achieving, according to Bueno/Jung's theory, is stripping away all of the imagery, getting rid of all of the filler lines, needless anecdotes and untranslatable pieces of text, and saying "This is what the author wants you to see." It is then up to the audience to determine whether or not the review works as a review, and ultimately whether or not the music is to their taste. The immediacy of using images instead of text in a context like this is interesting to me; it cuts a lot of time out of reading a 750 word review when within a few seconds, you could say 'the picture this review paints is quite bleak/dark/not to my taste.' All text-based reviews strive to do is paint a visual image of audio. Why not just cut straight to the visualisation instead of re-interpreting an interpretation? I am not saying the medium is better, necessarily, I just want to see if it works as a replacement.

I think in my work so far, using the M83 piece as an example, the 'branding' as such is within each individual image that makes the collage. The background I used was an image of the Joshua Tree desert; so if you read that as thinking there is a specific reason the artist must have decided to record there, this may be a key aspect. There is a visual interpretation of the quote "One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye" - which again sets the kind of tone the author thinks the record conveys - in my work, I think the inclusion of the heart and eye metaphor will clearly state that this isn't going to be a death metal record about going on a murderous rampage or whatever. Each part can be dissected and overall, I think the impression the viewer will get between the image and the text is fairly similar. I think the project will work out well; but all of these attempts at reimagining it aren't really working for me, to be honest.

Bueno sums up what it is I'm trying to achieve when saying 'These primordial images are not personal to each individual, but are aspects of the “collective” of all of us.' - I know the specific images I have chosen to convey my work on the collages is 'individual' or subjective, but I am trying to use the imagery in an indexical manner. I just want the viewer to acknowledge what the image is 'saying,' not whether it looks pretty or not. Whether it is better suited to do that with some kind of visual dictionary is neither here nor there. I think it would still achieve roughly the same thing. I either interpret reviews as they are written, as accurately as possible, or I listen to an album and simply list all the elements of each song with some kind of Isotype I have created myself, one for 'loud guitars,' one for 'male vocals' or whatever, but then how is that any better than what I have created already? So much to think about.

Mini-projects

I really need to kick start my progress with this project. By this time next week, I am aiming to produce about 5 different approaches to the project.

One will hopefully be this research experiment as previously mentioned. Another will be a more extensive Isotype-style index, another a 'recipe' based off a review. I have an idea to fuse the creative aspect with the indexical, and will try and use Juan C. Dürsteler as inspiration by including frequency spectrums (famously used by Richard James of Aphex Twin in some of his songs, as pictured below) or images of the sound files themselves, as to indicate whether the songs in reviews are loud or quiet.

Aphex Twin frequency spectrum; viewable through audio editing sofware after opening up his song 'Windowlicker.' The image is Richard D. James of Aphex Twin himself.


I am interested in getting art students to paint an interpretation without any use of Google image search. Still struggling to find an actual conclusion to reach, though. My original aim was to juxtapose text with image in order to see if an image could do the same job (albeit probably with rollover captions to explain things a little better, or else there would be literally no context) but with each stage of production comes more and more problems with my approach. Not sure where to turn, really.

Need to start reading into text visualisation. Finding the search terms has become a bit of a problem though. "Reinterpreting text as image" as a quote on Google brings up literally no results. It seems a lot of the research I can do at the moment is a little too vague to really directly impact my work; I'm having to reinterpret a lot of meaning, as I felt like I was with previous research, which I'm not really too sure about in regards to using legitimate theory. Time has ran away with me a little; so much work to do on my other modules, a lot of back-and-forth between England and Scotland trying to sort out living/working arrangements for next year. This month has passed incredibly quickly and I need to pick up where I left off as fast as possible.

Research Experiment - Drafting

Since my last correspondance, I have decided it would be interesting to do some research to find out if my approach really is as subjective and linear as it may seem. I have put out an advert on my Facebook page to try and gather some of my more artistically minded friends to help me determine whether or not my current approach to the project works.

Here is the specifications;

1. One review will be chosen by myself and given to 3-5 participants in confidence; none will know each other/be able to compare work.
2. The approach can be anything the participant likes; a collage, like mine, or a hand rendered sketch. Nothing too time consuming.
3. All final pieces must be a 600x600 image file, preferably PNG to maintain consistency with the rest of the work.

Since putting the advert up, I have had a positive response; my brother, Josh, a current first year Graphic Design student here at UWE, has said he will try to help if time permits. His housemate, Alex, has said he is interested in hand-drawing a piece.

Nick Alden, one of my coursemates, has said he will help also, along with one of his housemates.

Kyle Pritchard, a housemate of mine currently studying Product Design is interested, time permitting, also.

I am quite happy with the positive response; all of these volunteers got back to me within hours of putting the message up. I have an idea for which review I would like to use; there is a new record by a band called Maribel who I think could conjure up some interesting imagery. All of the work I have seen produced by each of the people I have mentioned have been to a very high quality. I don't want my project to turn into something more heavily reliant on people I know who can draw better than I can, haha. So I won't make a habit of asking for other people's help.

I will look into reviews shortly and let the participants know which I would like them to attempt. How far this experiment goes depends on the output - if they are just quick 5 minute knock ups, I will limit it to merely a blog research project, but if something greater comes of it, especially from the Design students, the artwork could feature more heavily in my final project. I think at the moment, in my head, the final project will be a collection of approaches to text translation and interpretation, as I cannot see one definitive path to follow. More on that later.