Website Rationale

Re-uploading because for some reason it didn’t work before. My bad.

Rationale:

For Project A I chose to curate an online exhibition, such as I have talked about in a previous post <a href=”https://networkedgirl.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/project-a/“> Briefing-Draft</a> so for the rationale I decided to further extend upon some of the points that I illustrated before.

Short of the technical processes used to create this online exhibition, <a href=”http://girlvsart.wordpress.com/“> Girl Vs. Art </a>, I found it to be most taxing in the creative pursuit of the website. My first idea was to use a more basic designed layout for the exhibition, hoping to enhance the affect of the photographs that I wanted to display. As I was creating ther website though I found myself focusing more on the social view of the photographs that I had taken in previous years. Such photographs were created for commercial appeal and distribution but I found the cultural integrity of the pieces too constricted by a basic layout and thus decided on a more illustrative layout, giving a brief idea about the website and the type of photography that may be displayed.

As for the social integrity of the photographs, I wanted the design of the website to further instigate the idea of daily life and how the beauty of it is often overlooked for more magnificent, rendered views of the world. I believe that the layout I chose helps to illustrate the idea of simplistic beauty that I have tried to reproduce in my photographs.

The technical process of building the website was rather basic and simplistic in itself, which I found more complicated than could be warranted. Although it was easier to use and more constructive I found certain constraints of the layout and templating to decrease my satisfaction with the overall product of the website. In terms of technical support wherein the layouts, I found, as I have been familiar with WordPress before, that they could be altered rather well without affecting the overall scheme of the layout though it requires a lot more time than first thought.

The technical and design aspects of the website came together rather well in accomplishing my goal with the exhibit. Even though I am not completely satisfied with the website I cannot deny that with the easy and accessibility of WordPress it was most likely my best choice compared to HTML & CSS or Dreamweaver.

I also thought to take into the account the skills and knowledge of the consumers of the online exhibit. I wanted it to be easily navigatable and able to display the most recent information or photographs first. WordPress allowed all of these such things in a way that even someone inexperienced with blogs and/or online exhibitions in general would find it quite comfortable and not intimidating to navigate the website and access all necessary information.

Considering the value of the online exhibition and the few peer reactions, I think I accomplished it well. I believe that the exhibition actively portrays the image of real-world beauty and that the design and technical aspects also add to this theme.

All in all, I first and foremost chose the online exhibition due to the level of freedom supplied with in it and the creative options I was provided with.

Lecture Free

“In a world where everything makes sense, everything is either boring or brilliant.”

Say hello to HTML, XML and CSS.

I’ve missed HTML. I really have.

My past experience with anything HTML was back about two or three years ago when I was designing page layouts for people using uncredited images, song lyrics and designs.

I’m thinking I’ve grown up since then.

Fresher course:

HTML = Hyper-Text Markup Language

XML = Extensible Markup Language

CSS = Cascading Styles Sheet

Now since I had had some experience with these three “things” in my past it was kind of odd to be taught about them again but anyway, it was quite nice to have a re-fresher course  in such things considering I’m going to be designing a webpage at some point in the near future.

I’m finding I can’t say much about this topic, but I will say this: I had a lot of fun playing with it again. It’s odd for something that I used to do for fun has now become part of my education but I guess that happens alot when you’re studying something you’re interested in.

I will also say this: my internet has been screwing with my lately. I have no idea why, I’m not very good with electronics, or rather, some points of electronics, i.e. finding out why my internet keeps disconnecting randomly without any real reason.

But then again, electronics can be just as temperamental as humans at times so it is understandable.

So this is a very short blog, but what else can I say?

I enjoy HTML. CSS kind of annoys me because I used to do all my styling in HTML, but I’m learning, I swear I am.

– Cal.

“It only points to reason why everything is boring then.”

Project A

“There’s a perfectly good reason for everything I do.”

What’s a Project A?

I’ve decided it might actually be beneficial to start thinking about the upcoming Project A.

To be truthful, ever since first seeing it in the unit outline I knew I was going to curate an online exhibition. All the more room for me to expose myself and do a bit of self promotion because we all know that I’m shameless. (Or at least I know that…)

I’ve also decided that instead of driving myself crazy and actually making a website I’m just going to attack another WordPress blog and curate it that way, chuck in a few categories and whatnot.

So, that’s how far my planning has reached in regards to the project, but now (and it’s probably because I’m tired, sick and hungry) I’ve started to really think about what I want in it, how I want to present it and just what exactly do I want to present. I estimate that at the rate I’m going I might have the project finished by 2016, so that’s my goal anyway.

Now, specifics…

Specifically it’s going to be photography, mine of course (see shameless!), and perhaps lighten it up with some poetry here and there. It’s basically just going to be a way for me to further express myself and gain attention from the cyber-world but hey, we’ve all got to have some attention don’t we?

If you can’t tell, I am horribly tired, sick and hungry when writing this so it possibly makes completely no sense and lacks all of my usual talent when it comes to writing but you can’t always choose when inspiration hits (or determination to actually do something worthwhile).

So this is my inspiration:

An online photographic exhibition.

A series of collections. (Though I don’t know which ones yet).

Pretty photographs.

AND THAT’S ALL I’VE GOT FOLKS!

Aside from being choked a little by my belt I find it sad to say that I’ve actually run out of things to talk about with you very attentive public. I might have to actually sleep and see if that helps my cause. If it doesn’t, well, we might just find this blogpost mysteriously disappears with absolutely no reason why.

That’s the price you pay for having a ‘delete’ button, but if we didn’t have it then we’d be complaining like all hell.

I might also so that Paul Dempsey is awesome.

So despite all my random ramblings, there was actually a point to this blog and that point was about Project A and my vain attempts at motivation in regards to it.

Hope I was entertaining (as always).

– Cal.

“That reason is: Because I want to.”

 

Lecture Too

“If we look harder everything we want to see is already there.”

Lecture 2 is non-existent.

Well, it wasn’t, but I’ve been looking for past notes on it and can find nothing on Moodle.

I can say that it was on blogs, blogging, the blogosphere and everything else that makes no utter sense what so ever if you’re actually being rational, but truthfully, that’s all that even attempted to enter my mind.

So, blogging, I can only really speak from my perspective because well, I can’t look into other people’s minds, even though I might wish I could.

To me blogging is one of those thought mediums that leaves a lot to chance. There’s a chance that you enemy might stumble upon it and send everybody a link to the embarrassing spirals of your insane mind, then there’s the chance your ex-lover will suddenly find out the real reason why you broke up with them, and then there’s also the chance that your boss will find your blog and realize just how much you truly despise him. See, a lot left to chance.

It’s a good thing I’m currently lacking all three of those people otherwise I might be a bit more careful with what I end up putting on this blog, but since I wouldn’t care even if I did have them three very important people, well, that leaves me everything to say and not enough letters to say it in.

I, as I have said before, am a fan of blogging. I love putting a piece of myself out there for the whole world to mock and see and observe and everything else they might see fit to do with my information. Either way, whatever they do, it doesn’t really bother me all that much… Maybe it should?

Blogs are very interesting things as well, and not just on their basic design.

I mean, blogs are meant to be private, online journal-type-things but they’ve slowly evolved into shameless self promotion tools (like how I use them) as well as becoming subject orientated so that the only importance of the blog are those people who are reading the text on the screen. That’s what I like about blogs, they’re now so versatile they can do all your bidding, whether it’s being an actual ‘gossip girl’ and writing about all the hot rumours that fly around the town, or say, an art exhibition online, or they might even be just a classic blog.

Blogs can also be an assignment for the Media course.

You just never know how they’re going to turn up, out, in, down or all-around. It all depends what you want, what its like and how much you want to put out there for the general public of the cyberworld.

It’s not really focused, and it’s all a little insane but that’s all that I can give you at the present time, so just accept it, live with it and if all else fails, just buy a puppy and call it Freddy.

– Cal.

“But if we look too hard it can just as quickly disappear.”

Lecture Won

“If I had the ability to fly I wouldn’t wear spandex or call myself Superman.”

Blogging is making my head hurt.

Why is that though? I mean, blogging should be relatively easy. All you really have to do is discuss things that you care about, put up a few odd links here and there, not to mention generally making a fool of yourself out there for the whole world to see even though none of us even care enough to pay all that much attention…

Blogging makes me head hurt because within this blog I actually have to have something that is worth reading and that’s a little scary. I don’t consider much of what I write as something that is necessarily worth reading but we’ll consider that all later. Right now, I’m here, I’ve got a deer and I’ve cut off my own ear just to bring you my very vivid and complex review of my first lecture… which was two weeks ago now so.

MY LECTURE REVIEW:

It was a lecture that it told us a lot of random information, as such: the course we are studying is Networked Media Production; Michael Honey works for Icelab; they expect us to ask intelligent questions; that we are here to learn; we will acquire ‘interesting ideas’ in our time and that in Week 8 we’re kicked out of classes for a while.

This is where my stupid, idiotic, mildly annoying sarcasm should really go and take a holiday to Jamaica but because airfares are just so damn high currently (well for me anyway), not to also note that I am a little terrified of heights and would probably have to be knocked out before even looking at a plane…

[Hello, I am a space where Cal is meant to write something that isn’t rambling. I don’t expect to be filled anytime soon but… Wait… Oh… She’s writing…]

Okay, in all seriousness, that first lecture couldn’t have told me something I didn’t already know, whether it was about Uni in general, the unit, or the actual context of the unit but it did do something a little amazing: It got me interested.

Now some of you might go on to write actual fact in your blogs, I’m not one of those people. I prefer to give my own opinion freely, get mocked, change my opinion, get mocked again and eventually just throw cyber-torpedos at said mockers.

I barely ever write factually unless of course I am asked to. My writing comes from this miniscule place in my head where bunny rabbits bounce about making patterns in the melting, desert sand while cactuses dance wildly to ACDC. This place is obviously insane and makes absolutely no sense, so neither will my writing. That’s what makes it so fun to read.

I’ll admit, there were some standout points in that lecture which amazing penetrated (I can hear the dirty remarks…) my skull and I’m actually going to write about them a bit today since my one post was looking a little lonely all up there on its lonesome. (Don’t you love repetition that isn’t needed with need?)

“We want you to be participants, not spectators.” –

I think this is an important statement in all parts of our lives and I think that a lot of us forget what it means to actually be a participant in anything. It’s easy to go along and not put yourself out there, think that everything is alright if its mediocre and just passes the grade, but me, I prefer to push myself further and stick my neck out for pure torture. That’s also what I want to see with others.

I’ve found in my past two years of perpetual isolation from the education world at large that I’ve developed ways of being a participant without actually being around other people, a good example of this is with a blog. Now I’m challenged to be a participant with spectators of my own, most of whom will also be participants and most likely have me as a spectator to their efforts also. I admit that I had forgotten just what I felt like to be around others and to not be my own focus in my media world.

Participating in media is actually quite simple, we all do it already, it’s just giving your participation direction and focus that majority of us forget why we even wanted to go it in the first place. I am a prime example of this.

Sure I write a lot but most of it is indecipherable to the average, sane person whereas, here in this blog, you might actually find something worthwhile to read instead of my incessant dribble. At least that’s what I’m trying to do.

I’m participating, and probably making an arse of myself currently, but hey, we all need someone to be an arse don’t we?

“We want you to be citizens, not consumers.” –

Citizens, consumers, consummation; too many C words. All entirely different though if we actually look at what we’re talking about in terms of passive and active communication or deliberation in an area (excluding consummation of course).

I believe I’m an active citizen. Why? Well because on occasion I use my vague intelligence to take responsibility for what I’m reading, learning, taking-in, putting-out, distributing and advising. I like to think that I have some form of influence to people who read what I write, but I’m not fool enough to believe I can really change the world all by myself.

Being a citizen means, not just contributing, but pulling information back in a critical manner. Looking at what will be useful and what is utter bollocks that we should just discard now instead of having it take up an infallible amount of room in our brains. A citizen is someone who doesn’t take Yes or No for an answer; someone who takes their own time to evaluate what is being done and whether or not they like it. This is the type of person that the world needs more of.

“What is networked media?” –

We received a fairly detailed account of what ‘networked media’ is in the lecture, but I wonder if our view of what it is will change after we’ve finished out course. We received a lot of information that we had to collate into an intelligible idea, such things as: mediums, time, space, culture, networks. So what does all this equate to?

To tell you the truth, I’m not sure currently. I haven’t yet acquired all the information I can, so I will continue being a participant, an active citizen and a sarcastic blogger some more.

And of course there was a lot more information in the lecture than what I just discussed but I deem not to repeat the Mr Michael Honey in case he takes offence and thinks he did an awful job (which I highly doubt but my own gigantic ego takes place over my doubt).

Any opinions?

– Cal. 

P.S. I apologise for my horrible incoherency and word mix-up if you find any.

“Instead I would wear leather and call myself Epic-biatch.”

A Real Introduction

“All my favourite quotes are things I have said before.”

I decided to write a real introduction…

And then maybe ramble on about the past two lectures that I’ve attended.

I’m Cal, and 18-something student who really has no idea what she’s doing most of the time. Cal spends most of her time playing around with electronics, breaking said electronics and then furiously pounding them with her fist because she believes that the action will immediately alleviate the problem. Cal also has a bad sense of humour.

I spent the past two years studying for a Diploma in Business which I eventually received a Credit grade in as well as being granted TAFE Riverina Student of the Year for 2009. I’m very proud of this achievement and will disregard any comments that give the belief I should feel otherwise.

I write… alot. This is currently my fifth blog to date but is the second one I currently own. I’m not going to put a link up to my other blog because it’s personal and only special people (as well as some complete strangers) have the right to access it. But if you do happen to stumble upon it, why not exploit it and put it on your blogroll?

I also take alot of photographs. I’m camera crazy and majority of the time I enjoy taking the photographs far more than I do editing them or actually producing something that is worthwhile. I believe that I have a good eye when it comes to aesthetically pleasing art, photography or cinematography and I believe that this is mostly because I can’t see three meters ahead of me without glasses.

I am, and I will probably state this again later, a complete and utter nerd-geek and nurkle. I have a tendency to over-analyze things and then that leads me to the tendency to completely take my mind off the task at hand and do something entirely different than what I originally set-out or was told to do. Don’t blame me, it’s not my problem.

I’m a chocolate addict and I believe that if the world really was made of Cadbury (like the ad says)  then people would pay far more attention to climate change. I mean, who wants a melted world?

I’m rather insane if you can’t tell. If you can’t tell you’ll soon find out if you spend enough time talking or hanging out with me. I have irrelevant thought patterns that can leap from one subject to another one without so much as an offer. I also have a tendency to get carried away when I’m talking so it’s always helpful to have a nice, big dose of ‘shut-up-please-you’re-wearing-me-out’ available on-hand if I’m in the vicinity.

I have far too many ideas and not nearly enough lifetimes to complete them all. These ideas can be something as simple as a blog (like such) and can stem to a whole TV series that I would, most probably, be the only one to understand and enjoy.

I’m determined and I get what I want. This isn’t me being cocky this is just a rule of my life. If you want something bad enough you have to work for it and you have to work hard no matter the cost. I believe this should be everybody’s motto but as we know some people can just not be persuaded to get off of their a**es.

What else can I say about myself? Too much probably…

I’m not very good with people. I don’t know why this is. I have great talents with dry humor and sarcasm, and yes I am aware that sarcasm is supposedly the lowest form of wit. But truthfully, I think it can also be one of the funniest. I also warn that I made dirty jokes in far too common circumstances to be considered to have any tact at all.

I believe in having a strong voice and being truthful to yourself so you’ll most probably find that all my writing is going to be a little like this. I also believe that writing is one of the best pursuits of peoples time whether you actually have something useful to say or not. But then again it all depends on your audience.

I’m, of course, studying Media Arts and Production because I thought it would be the most interesting and might teach me something. I use ‘might’ because there are times when I my brain is anti-receptive and everything just goes in one ear and out the other. It’s a serious problem and I’ll definitely be cracking down on it… eventually.

I don’t considered myself that intelligence in all honesty but I can say that I know alot of useless information that rightly, nobody in their right mind would know. An example of this is the Level 7 cheat for Bubsy (a Super Nintendo classic if you ask me) which is STGRTN. Why do I remember this? No idea, maybe I’m still trying to impress my big brother in some way.

As stated I do have a big brother and he is the one person in the world who I think actually understands what I’m on about half the time, while the other half of the time he’s simply disowning me. You win some you lose some, but whatever happens, you’ve always had some.

I should probably stop talking about myself now and actually discuss what I’m meant to be discussing but sitting here, and being a blogger of pasts, I’ve started to wonder about the exposure as well as the pros-and-cons of each blog-space that we have been invited to use (i.e. the ones that were noted in Week 2s lecture). I’m thinking, if I can be at all bothered that I might invested in a FREE (thank-the-lord) account in each of these and do a weekly comparison of at least one feature, but I’m not sure if I’d have the time or the internet capacity.

But that’s just one of my random ideas.

I’ve also decided that because I haven’t seriously blogged in awhile that I might start a recount of my Uni endeavours (e.g. classes and lectures and work and whatnot…) and maybe even put up some of my other writing, just because I’m an absolute spam-self-promotion-whore.

This is all speculation anyway…

So that’s my introduction, and I’m…

– Cal.

“And all the things I have said before are bollocks.”