The feedback received on my TCRE A1 submission was extensive and detailed. In order to better understand it and capture useful points to help me improve my research-based practice for the upcoming A2.
Notes on teacher's Canvas feedback:
"how do we explore dissonant experiences safely?" I guess I need to experiment this topic further before answering safely this question. At the moment I only have small experiments and exercises, which don't display not enough information to be called prototypes.
"Your project presents an ambitious exploration of how colour, light, sound, and their interplay within a 3D environment can evoke emotional resonance and affective valence". I believe this is a great summary and description of my work, probably better than what I wrote in my A1 proposal!
"delve into optical illusions": at the moment, looking forward to creating audiovisual prototypes, I would be interested in exploring optical illusions in the context of a 3D environment. Optical illusions are already tricky to understand when being represented on a flat 2D surface of a painting (I'm thinking about Escher, for example. Although his paintings evoke the illusion of a 3D impossible space, they are still represented on a flat canvas). I would like to explore if and how optical illusions can be represented in a virtual 3D space, and experiment with the possible outcomes of that idea (Would we still feel the same feeling of confusion and uncertainty that arouses when looking at a flat drawing, mimicking the idea of a third dimension? Or would this make things a bit more clearer, as we are able to fully look around the 3D asset and spot where the tricky element of optical illusion is hiding?)https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=a228ad004c92fec0&sca_upv=1&rlz=1C1ONGR_en-GBAU1081AU1081&sxsrf=ACQVn09_K7fndwsdzDmVKsZRM0jErE2KUw:1713225552611&q=3D+optical+illusions&uds=AMwkrPvL1rsto2AuXy0IpxZJPmL2i7C6jc18Efr2vyDgXr66FCzBOOAbB83FeCm_O_toNQQC2PeLfw4WLc0vfGQ69jmvhScE3xac8nTuTrx9AWtxsyvedJRS83nRl3UdH5UCtywddxdMj3iW_8KE6Nx85KpiP8_ZaB6H3a0hs3vlX0o8ARumJAlD2USVUKsgo-6jmmt4VCOXnO_XztmLJ8L-K9aoFkQRFWP7Fom3wcUwLqJ53_KSV3G_gaslTVRyBHqNyVg49Mtwq3SbHt3iQfZM2i71hxVzT3FPaZJY-f70SlhUGc8df1YbyzHQ_BgcqjzuP1ZxHEXi&udm=2&prmd=ivsnbmtz&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiy4e7DtsWFAxVk4zgGHdJmB6IQtKgLegQIEBAB&biw=1280&bih=585&dpr=1.5
"You're setting a foundation for a deeply immersive experience, and also a strong intention to grow through both research-led practice, and practice-led research": I definitely agree with the fact that this TCRE studio and the possibilities of my research and practice are an open door to further academic progress, growth and understanding. I'm not sure, however, if I want my prototypes to be deeply interactive. I haven't decided if I want my users to simply navigate the environment and immerse themselves into this illusionary space, or if I would also like them to interact with the space and its illusions, perhaps change and modify the illusions themselves and transform them into new ones (thus opening up to a possibility of a deeply transformative space as well).
"Considering the transformative nature of your project, how do you plan to document and analyse the nuanced emotional shifts experienced by viewers? " Interesting question. Since the project requires a certain level of motion and/or transformative qualities, I am expecting to encounter a wide range of emotional responses in relation to the different stages and parts of the project. Whether these emotions may differ or be similar, I still don't know at this stage. It will be interesting to experiment with different prototypes and annotate the emotional outcomes along the way, to understand if there is a recurring pattern or if the emotions I feel are completely changing/sporadic. I am definitely open to challenging conventional emotional responses, as well as biased audiovisual design.
"Focusing on personal and potentially universal emotional resonances, have you considered mechanisms for capturing and comparing these emotional responses in a methodologically manner?" Because of the subjective, changing and transformative nature of emotions, I believe it is challenging to look at emotions completely from an objective point of view, without letting personal feelings get in the way. However, I believe a more "logical/methodological" way of analysing emotions could be: introspection (self-questioning, self-report), emotional mapping, semantic mapping, regularly updating my journal, comparing emotions to words and expressions typical of other sensorial spheres (trying to understand and express the different nuances, colours and textures of those emotions. These terms and expressions could also be starting points to develop sound related to colours and emotions).
"As you intend to experiment with unconventional colour combinations (and the exploration of colour's potential beyond traditional palettes) how will you ensure these explorations remain accessible and resonant with a broader audience, potentially unfamiliar with such avant-garde approaches?" Interesting question here as well. I believe this type of work, being so unconventional, also becomes very niche. So, especially at early stages of the development process, it's kind of hard for me to ensure accessibility of the content to a broad audience who might not be used to such creative and abstract content. However, engaging with the content might, most likely, be resonant and accessible to anyone who is familiar (or at least open to) the concept of digital creativity, digital media, colour theories, 3D environment navigation and sound.
"How might you leverage digital tools to study the perceptual effects of these colour combinations before their implementation in the 3D space?" As I intend to experiment with problematic and unconventional colour palettes, it is definitely important for me to study carefully those colour combinations separately, as a form of their own, before implementing any colour-related decisions in a 3D environment. Some tools that might help me do so could be: semantic colour mapping, colour accessibility testing, colour contrast checking (maybe using tools online such as ). However, since my aim is to work with disruptive and dissonant design choices, I could use these practice-based research results and use them "in reverse". EXPERIMENT 1 I have already started experimenting with some online colour tools, and a practical and useful example that fits in this context is detailed below. If we think about colour accessibility, for example, a useful tool to use is Colour Contrast checker, which identifies the colour contrast ratio between foreground colour/text colour (on the left) and background colour (on the right).
In the example shown in photo above, I picked to random colours - red for the text, yellow for the background. Traditionally, in graphics and UI design, these two colours would not usually be the best choice to display text on screen. However, the colour contrast checker tool helps us understand that, although not the best choice possible, those specific shades of red and yellow, ensure enough contrast between text and background (Contrast ratio in this case, is 9.98:1 - a fairly high ratio which ensures good readability and legibility).
The image above shows us how these two specific colours pass all the accessibility tests, based on WCAG (Web Content Accessiblity Guidelines). According to these guidelines, normal text in 2.0 level AA (high quality) requires a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:, whereas for large text can be slightly lower: 3:1 (due to the larger size of the font, text may be more visible even if coloured using more problematic colours that show lower contrast ratios). WCAG 2.1 requires a contrast ratio of at least 3:1 for graphics and user interface components. WCAG Level AAA (highest quality and excellent accessibility) requires a contrast ratio of at least 7:1 for normal text and 4.5:1 for large text.
Red text #8A0000 and yellow background #FEFFF0 seem to be have really high level of accessibility. However, for the purposes of my TCRE studies, this doesn't seem to help much. I am looking forward to working with dissonant colour combinations, so for example, I might want to choose colours that have a lower colour contrast, among the others. Therefore, I decide to play around with colours to see if there are any particular problematic colour combinations that capture my attention.
Red text # DB0000 against # BECC00
Contrast Ratio is only 2.94:1, so this colour combination fails all WCAG accessibility tests. While scrolling the Luminance bar as well as playing around with the cursor in the colour picker tab, I realised these 2 specific colour captured my attention. Red and green are complimentary colours, therefore they are meant to compliment each other and create consonance, visual harmony. However, these 2 particular shades of red and green seem to completely dissonant with each other. In terms of UI and typography, it is understandable that these two colours are not the best choice, as they compromise visual contrast. However, in order to experiment if the same principle is valid with visual elements and graphics as well, I need to conduct some further research. I have opened my Figma project again, and started creating some illustrations using those colours (no motion or sound included at the moment, so that I can focus on colour alone).
Below are some results (link to the project file and screenshots below): https://www.figma.com/file/C7cPJNYd00XLx9VYGPnY3B/COLOUR-EXPERIMENTS?type=design&node-id=0%3A1&mode=design&t=AShdah4mqmZYvjsB-1
List some rough (or refined) ideas on how you might start to experiment more with this in prototyping
Write a short blog post about how revisiting certain concepts discussed in 6.1 lecture are changing as your research and practice ideas are converging - Concepts discussed in class: music theory basics to help with our audio design for a2 prototypes -
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