One approaches a book written by a first-time author friend with some trepidation. What can one say if after the first few pages you can’t bear to read it, if it’s badly written or full of cliches and flowery language, or just lacking in any qualities that make a book good to read?
Fortunately, I didn’t have to face this dilemma in reading Fox Roger’s ‘Wanderer’. It’s well written, and well edited. The story flows well as the reader is invited to share the coming of age of the protagonist as he navigates his way through a pivotal time in the history of North Eastern Australia. It’s a book one can put down and come back to but there are also places where the story is compelling reading.
‘Wanderer’ is a nostalgic, honest, and sometimes horrifying account of Queensland in the 1970’s, but it’s also a journey through the experiences of growing up that many readers will relate to. Fox Rogers has been able to capture the essence of time and place and the journey of a young man into adulthood.
My first Tilt Brush Sketch – Australian Grevilleas
I’m not a gamer. I don’t enjoy quests and shoot-em-ups I’m interested in creative applications – in using 3D VR to create artworks and creative experiences, so my first serious foray into headset-based VR has been with Tilt Brush. I was using an HTC Vive headset at Noosa Library Maker Space as part of Matt Godden’s ‘Mnemomic’ project.
THE HEADSET
It didn’t take long to get used to the HTC Vive, but after a while, even with the airconditioner set to 23 degrees Celsius I became uncomfortably warm and started to sweat inside the headset. Because I was in a public library there was a protocol of cleaning the headset with antiseptic handwash gel before using. After using the headset for 3 hours, by the time I got home I had developed itchy eyes, and reddened and sensitive skin around the area where the headset had been. I’m not sure if this is from the antiseptic or a reaction to wearing/sweating in a headset, but a quick web search for similar reactions found it’s not uncommon. My irritation lasted for around 48 hours, with the skin irritation lasting longer, so I’m not sure now if I want to try the headset again. I’ve read you can buy cotton face inserts, so maybe that’s a solution for me, but once you start reading about eye and skin infections from shared headsets you’ll probably never want to try the one at the Library or any public place.
THE CONTROLLERS
The controllers are sleek and the Tilt Brush interface is easy to get used to and use, but like many things in life the controllers are built to a ‘standard’ hand size not mine, which is small with one hand missing part of one finger which made squeezing the side buttons difficult. Not being a gamer I’m also not used to pulling a trigger rather than pressing a button, so that took a while to become intuitive. Still, it’s an improvement on other gaming controllers which I’ve found confusing and counter intuitive for occasional users.
TILT BRUSH
Tilt Brush was fun. I had a learning session of about 2 hours with Matt, going through the various brushes and possibilities and then a week later a session of about 3 hours to create my first sketch. It took me a while to get used to the idea of moving myself or the world around to draw; of changing my size to change the size and perspective on what I was drawing; and to understand the balance between detail and size; but generally it’s easy to use and I can see someone could have a lot of fun and produce something within minutes of starting as a raw beginner.
THE VERDICT
As an Artist
There are certainly possibilities, but from what I’ve seen of other’s work, and from my limited experience in Tilt Brush, what’s being produced is a ‘sketch’, limited and somewhat crude 3D drawings and not very sophisticated output in terms of 3D building or art. Experienced users are probably producing better much work. See https://poly.google.com/tiltbrush for lots of examples.
The problem for me, as an artist, is in the sharing. What can I exhibit? To really experience what I’ve made someone has to wear a headset. Images and video are possible with the inbuilt camera but I was not very happy with my own results. Inside the app. one is ‘painting with light’, but my camera images were all dull and moody. Maybe I needed to play with the lighting? Like all things developing expertise comes with experience. I understand there is also a high resolution option for video.
VR in the Real World
I’ve long been a user of and advocate for virtual reality, both screen and immersion based, but have argued that anything tied to using a headset will never become mainstream, and will not fulfill all the brave, new things that advocates are claiming. I know that headsets have come a long way in terms of fit, weight and comfort, and there are modifications yet to come, but wearing a headset is still a solitary experience excluding others, it’s hot and uncomfortable and perhaps questionable in terms of hygiene when shared between many. There are other ways to experience VR and I’m hoping we can be freed from the headsets for some of the best experiences in the future.
We were throwing around ideas for an exhibition at a recent Christmas party, and I put ‘Fact or Fiction’ into the mix. But in the general din of a lunchtime pub my friend Zela heard ‘Fat Girl Fiction’ instead. And so an idea was born for a new zine. A place to write ridiculous things or to be serious about serious matters. It’s for writing, micro stories in text or comic format with maybe a few cartoons thrown in. Here’s the cover of the very first edition.
For a change of pace from learning programming (still) I’m doing a graphic illustration course with Junichi Tsuneoka from the Cornish College of Arts. It’s been a great break from the keyboard and screen, sitting in my studio listening to the radio and wielding a pen. I’d almost forgotten the meditative power of drawing just for nothing much in particular, just drawing. First exercise – a self portrait with different line weights, textures and at least 3 repeated shapes. I know I look incredibly solemn and foreboding. It’s because the only way to draw myself is to stand in the studio bathroom in front of the small shaving mirror with a sketchbook and pen. Which means I need my glasses to see the sketchbook and no glasses to see in the mirror. Not a good look.
Second exercise a narrative self portrait. I found this hard. What to include that says who/what I am. In the end it was family, gym, swimming, and computer, with a few flowers thrown in because it’s Spring in the gardens.
I’m looking forward to the rest of this course, and will post more work as it progresses.
I attended the Queensland Arts Advocacy Group forum on Thursday via webinar. If you’ve read my previous post you’ll know that a mini forum chatters away behind the real life conference, commenting on the speakers and the issues and adding their voice to the on-line forum.
The introduction to the forum supported a bi-partisan (meaning non-political?) approach to arts advocacy, although given that the arts is still reeling from Liberal Govt policies at State and Federal government this might be hard to achieve.
Half way through Thursday’s webinar someone asked ‘how much involvement does the Arts Party have in this group?’ I was wondering the same thing, because in the on-line version of the forum, right from the start, there was an aggressive sell of the Arts Party as THE advocate for the arts. A subtle undermining of the purpose of the forum.
On the surface a party that supports and advocates for creativity, cultural activity, and more arts education and funding might seem a good thing. It’s something I can agree with, something I care about. So what’s wrong with it?
Way back in the 1960’s I joined the Australia Party, and then when it morphed into the Democrats in the 1970’s I campaigned for them too. In the 80’s I joined the fledgling Greens movement. I saw it as a way of recognizing the biggest issue facing the World and giving my support to those who cared about the environment.
The trouble with burning issue parties is that if and when they do get some seats in Parliament they have to broaden policies away from the narrow issues that brought them into existence, especially if they hold the balance of power, or are part of a block that holds the balance of power. A recent example is the Senate Motoring Enthusiast Party member.
Ricky Muir may have set up his party to further the interests of motoring enthusiasts, but by being elected to parliament he is in a position where he has to make decisions on other major issues facing the whole country. The people who voted for him might have thought they were supporting motoring enthusiasts, but in reality they were giving a powerful political position to a party or a person whose broader views they really didn’t know.
I still care deeply about environmental issues, but I don’t vote Green, because I don’t agree with their stance on many other issues. I’ve come to the conclusion that single issue parties don’t fit well in our political system. We need to either change the system or be more wary of giving power to minority groups and independents.
On the surface the Arts Party looks like a great deal for those who have an interest in lobbying the government about investment and support for the arts. They say they will field Senate candidates at the next election. What then if one or two members are elected?
It’s possible they could hold the balance of power. It’s possible they will be making decisions about budgets, pensions, family payments, defence, infrastructure projects, health, education and foreign policy. But as far as I can see, on their website, they are a single issue party. Which is why I am afraid.
As an aficionado of virtual worlds, MOOCS and multi player on-line gaming environments participating in five or six text conversations while watching television, filling out my tax forms, moving an avatar around on screen and doing some 3D building on the side is not a big ask.
A webinar meeting should be just as easy. Modern technology gives us the ability to be there and particiapte. Sort of.
The trouble is I am out here in the sticks with a bleary wobbly picture of vague shapes and colours streamed imperfectly over the third world speed internet which is your lot if you live outside the city and not in a marginal electorate.
Maybe the real world presenters don’t realise that the white board they are using to record pertinent points is a tiny blurry cluster of pale pixels for us, and the large sheets of butchers paper they are waving around and inviting us to read look like flying doves they have just produced from under their hat. WAS that a hat or did he just have a lot of hair? It was hard to tell.
We have technology like electronic whiteboards and links to handouts etc. It should be used.
If the picture is wobbly there’s sound to fall back on isn’t there? Well, yes, sort of. But until the speakers learn how to effectively use a microphone a lot of the proceeds sound like the auditorium and the speaker are gurgling their way through a sudden flood.
The ideal webinar presenter
A good presenter for a webinar is one who stands behind a fixed microphone at a lectern, who doesn’t gesture or EVER move their head in any direction, who stares woodenly ahead and speaks clearly into the microphone. Not many presenters see themselves as wanting to live up to this standard. They like to wander around and gesture and look down at their notes and around at the person behind them.
The Actual Presenter – Great Performance
Behind the physical meeting place, a webinar is like those ‘worms’ used in political debates. There’s an undercurrent of conversation that rises and falls depending on whether we can actually hear the speaker or just a few words once in a while when they remember to speak into the microphone or whether what the speaker is saying is actually engaging. It’s a little mini conference going on in the background. People with their own agendas to push, comments to make, discussion, agreement and disagreement. Sometimes it’s more fun than the actual conference.
In fact, most times it’s more fun.
Today I attended the first meeting of QAAG via webinar, participated in the discussions, said too much as usual, and while I attended also did some yoga, edited some videos, posted on Facebook, talked on WhatsApp, checked my emails, created some animations, edited some images in Photoshop, went for a walk in the local park at morning tea time, and became afraid of the Arts Party.
Whether QAAG becomes a force for good in the Qld. Arts sector or not remains to be seen. Right now I don’t think there’s a clear idea about who they will be advocating for (because of course advocacy implies you are doing on ‘behalf’ of someone or some principle), nor about what they will advocate for (advocacy implies a goal, a desired result) . Today’s forum showed just how broad and diverse ‘the arts’ sector is, that it is a disparate group with different needs, agendas and priorities, and that there is competition between opposing points of view. I guess it is ‘Watch this Space’ for now.
My thanks to Scotia Monkivitch for her patient and tireless coordination of the webinar.
Playing around with ipad apps. for a workshop I’m doing at Caloundra Regional Gallery on Wednesday as part of their Pocket Sized Projects. Just working out how the gifs work from Plastic. Enjoy.
Great little app. that can get some pretty good animations as well as make gifs. I’ll be interested to see how quickly 13-18 year olds can pick it up. I found the interface pretty intuitive and easy to understand.
When the ipad 1 came on the market in 2010 (was it really only five years ago?) I was fascinated by the apps that let you draw, that interacted with your finger in bursts of particle colour, or created trees or flowers or whatever right there when you touched the screen. At the time I was also taking my first steps in using projection, and the ipad provided a brilliant way to make interactive artworks, animations and colourful displays that rivalled fireworks. It still does, but I wanted more. I wanted to be able to understand how it worked. I’ve done a few on-line computer science courses since then, stumbling my way through mindsets totally different to mine, until I came across Processing.
While almost every coding course will start with learning how to get your computer to say “Hello World”, Processing usually begins with getting your computer to draw a shape. That’s the difference. While it’s coding, it’s a coding language for visual artists. It’s a way of understanding the digital tools artists use and a way of turning your computer into a tool to make art.
With all the advanced and well written software there is on the market, and with so little time to master it all I’m not sure why I’m bothering about learning coding, but I am. Call it insatiable curiosity or a desire to be the master of all, or whatever.
Anyway, all of this is by way of venting the inevitable frustrations one comes across as a raw beginner in a new language, and explaining to my friends why I might seem to be away with the fairies in the last day or so. It’s because I’m trying to figure out how I can reproduce one of Bridget Riley’s paintings using coding.Yes, a somewhat silly task, but if I can do it I will give myself a medal.
So far I’ve got the checker board just fine, and a lot of variations, but I think I’ll have to start again to get anywhere near Riley’s painting. I’ll keep you posted. Expect a finished product anytime round about 2019.
judybarrass 