Wednesday 4 March 2015

Fantastic Voyage - OGR part 1

2 comments:

  1. OGR 04/03/2015

    Hi Charlie,

    I reckon the idea of converting Malaria into the language of a computer virus is a good one, though I'm less certain at this stage how you might map it onto the additional element of social media - or rather how you might align its effects with damage to these platforms - unless you show how a Facebook page is 'attacked/overtaken/degraded' by the virus - in other words you use the Facebook page or whatever as representative of a happy little ecosystem of interrelated connections, and then show how the 'computer virus' spreads and cripples the ecosystem. I wonder if 'the idea of malaria is like a computer virus' might already be enough of a metaphor, with the computer itself standing for the complexity of the human body? I'm open to persuasion on this, it's just it's not quite clear in your OGR what your intentions are.

    The other thing I'd note about your thumbnails is that they seem caught between two worlds at the moment - so you've got environments and components that remain very organic-looking, but you've got circuit board imagery and texture creeping in. To me it seems the joy of aligning the life-cycle with a computer virus is that you get to leave the representation of the human body completely behind and wed yourself completely to the metaphor; therefore veins don't become 'like' circuit boards', they 'are' circuit boards, and so your environments and models etc. become as stylised and pared back as this:

    http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/vector-circuit-board-sphere-28136463.jpg
    http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large/1-circuit-board-graphic-seisiri-silapasuwanchai.jpg
    https://danielsibanda90.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/circuit-board.jpg

    Indeed, as I type I'm reminded of this from the great Michel Gagne:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVWKtXDvr04

    In short, I think you should commit 100% to your metaphor and find a dynamic visual language that shows the spread of a virus etc that communicates without mixing its metaphors (i.e. it's sort of like the human body, with cells and everything, but it's sort of also like a computer...). Think about it this way; the London Tube map bears no resemblance to London, but is a hugely effective abstraction that absolutely communicates and guides. I think you could be bolder, leaner, neater and, ultimately, much more stylish... what do you think?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Phil,

      Thanks for the quick feedback, I completely understand what you mean. In all honesty I shouldn't of included my first set of thumbnails as they were for a different idea all together. I am willing to 100% commit to the metaphor and begin designing things appropriately. The social media idea isn't completely necessary, it was just an idea that came to me from looking at what teenagers spend most of their time doing. This is what lead me to the whole computer virus idea.

      Thanks for the lovely images and that charming animation, they will be extremely useful. So yes, I shall begin creating visuals that represent the world and thank you for all of the advice :)

      Delete