The Process of Effective Critiques
- Newcomers lack photographic vocabulary
- Put forth a criteria for critique
- Critique is about suggestions and not absolutes
- Show examples of good work
- Talk about characteristics
- Focal point(s)
- Prominent elements
- Unity
- Rhythm
- Balance
- Technical innovations
- Color
- Composition
- What does the photo communicate
Whittington, J. 2004. The process of effective critiques. Computers & Graphics 28, no. 3 (June): 401-407. doi:10.1016/j.cag.2004.03.007. http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0097849304000330.
Give and Take: A Study of Consumer Photo-Sharing Culture and Practice
- Kodak culture vs Snapr culture
- Photo sharing on Flickr is equal to photo blogging
- Has traditional photo aesthetics
- Some critique and photo hints
- Snapr culture participate in an active organization of photos
- Tagging photo is done for ‘others’ sake
- Flickr is not Kodak culture, but rather “art photos”
Miller, Andrew D, and W Keith Edwards. 2007. Give and Take : A Study of Consumer Photo-Sharing Culture and Practice. Methodology: 347-356.
A Structure for the Critique of Student Photographs
- Critique does not equal an ‘evaluation’, stay away from the term evaluation
- Critique is a two-way communication
- Post-facto -> a priori (crit happens after a photo is taken and informs the next photo)
- Critique should talk about artist intention, subject, technique, composition
- Likert scale works well for critique
- Critiques should appreciate the formal and the technical
- Critiques should involve an active participation which leads to a “re-education of the perception” (Dewey)
Cary, Rick. 1985. A Structure for the Critique of Student Photographs. In Annual Meeting of the National Art Education Association.
Using Design Critique as Research to Link Sustainability and Interactive Technologies
- Critique as a method of research
- Focuses on the particulars instead of generals
- Critique adds to design discourse
- Critique can be used as a tool for design
- Critique is a comment on the ultimate particulars
Blevis, Eli, Youn-kyung Lim, David Roedl, and Erik Stolterman. 2007. Using Design Critique as Research to Link Sustainability and Interactive Technologies. Communities: 22-31.
Double Blending: online theory with on-campus practice in photography instruction
- There is both a factual and interpretive meaning to a photo
- Should use critical theory in ‘read’ a photo
- There is a second meaning to ‘good’ photos
- Reading photos impacted taking photos
- Common criteria for critique
- Focal points
- Quality and direction of light
- Composition
- Depth of field
- Relationship between foreground and background
Abrahmov, Shlomo Lee, and Miky Ronen. 2008. Double blending: online theory with on-campus practice in photography instruction. Innovations in Education and Teaching International 45, no. 1 (February): 3-14. doi:10.1080/14703290701757385. http://www.informaworld.com/openurl?genre=article&doi=10.1080/14703290701757385&magic=crossref||D404A21C5BB053405B1A640AFFD44AE3.
Formalism and Structuralism
From Clive Bell, Wolfman, Hebdige, and Polhemus
- Formal elements are intrinsic to the artifact
- Formal and stylistic characteristics may be conceived as structures
- Formal qualities can account for most visual culture
- Formalism neglects contexts such as class, gender, and ethnicity
- Significant form
- Style is the consistency in the treatment of formal qualities
- Structures of formal qualities equal pairs of oppositions
- Structuralism can help account for social context, mainly through the notion of style and relation
Formal elements: elements of an artifact that are intrinsic to that artifact
Style: a collection of formal elements used to intentionally communicate a message
Barnard, M. Approaches to Understanding Visual Culture
Technology as Experience
- Formal tools influence pragmatics while social context shapes use
- Going from rationalism to practice
- Culture must engage with felt life
- Experience as a totality of acting, thinking, feeling, and sense making
Intone: how individual’s make acts their own
Aesthetic Experience: simultaneously sensual, emotional, and intellectual
- Aesthetic experience consists of: cumulation, conservation, tension, and anticipation
- Dialogics?
- Dialectics?
- Dialogue between self and other: I can only imagine your pain, I can never experience it.
John McCarthy, Peter Wright. Technology as Experience
Dewey’s Four Threads of Experience
- Sensual – concerned with the senses
- Emotional – qualities of particular experiences, value judgments
- Compositional – relationships between parts and the whole
- Spatio-Temporal – relating to the space and time of an experience
John McCarthy, Peter Wright. Technology as Experience
Gadamer’s Aesthetics
- Truth as a hermeneutical experience
- Art is a form of truth
- Art is not a representation of truth
- Art uncovers truths about ourselves
- Art gives us access to truth
- Art raises our sensitivity
- Truth is not how A represents B, but is rather in how humans perceive A as B, an experience
Lawn, C. Gadamer’s Aesthetics. In Gadamer: A Guide for the Perplexed, 87-104.
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
Flow: “a state of concentration so focused that it amounts to absolute absorption in an activity”
- 8 components of enjoyment
- We confront tasks we have a chance of completing
- We must be able to concentrate on what we are doing
- The task has clear goals
- The task provides immediate feedback
- One acts with deep, but effortless involvement, that removes from awareness the worries and frustrations of everyday life
- One exercises a sense of control over their actions
- Concern for the self disappears, yet, paradoxically the sense of self emerges stronger after the flow experience is over
- The sense of duration of time is altered.
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. 1991. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Design Issues 8, no. 1 (January): 80. doi:10.2307/1511458.
Understanding Affective Interaction : Emotion , Engagement , and Internet Videos. Emotion
- Provides a methodology to understand affective interaction
- Triangulate data sources to see and understand how each “tell the same story”
- Physiological
- Emotional self report
- Open ended prose
- Behavioral
- An Experience
- Purposeful progression
- Contient synthesis
Bardzell, Shaowen, Jeffrey Bardzell, and Tyler Pace. 2009. Understanding Affective Interaction : Emotion , Engagement , and Internet Videos. Emotion.
The Form of Human Experience: Interpretation
- Experience is interpretative
- Synthesis of temporal passing
Experiences: synthetic process of imaginative interpretation
- Phenomenon express in calls to action
- Memory and expectations shape meaning
Russon. The Form of Human Experience: Interpretation. In Human Experience, 9-20.
Staying open to interpretation: Engaging multiple meanings in design and evaluation
- Multiple interpretations can be good
- Comes from
- Expansion of computing (work->home)
- HCI’s interest in the arts and humanities
- Sociology of HCI
- Alternatives to a single interpretation
- NOT an “anything goes” interpretation
- 6 design strategies
- specify usability
- support space of interpretation
- block expected interpretations
- unfold new opportunities
- downplay system authority
- thwart consistent interpretation
Sengers, P, and B Gaver. 2006. Staying open to interpretation: Engaging multiple meanings in design and evaluation. Proc. of DIS 2006, ACM Press: 99-108.
Activity Theory in a Nutshell
“Activity theory proposes that consciousness is shaped by practice, that people and artifacts mediate our relationship with reality. Consciousness is produced in the enactment of activity with other people and things, rather than being something confined inside a human head. Activity theory began in Russia with the work of Lev Vygotsky in the 1920’s, continuing through his student Aleksey Leontiev, and then through students of Leontiev. This work has been influential in education, organizational design, and interaction design. Activity theory works well with design because activity theorists have always tested their theories in practical ways and believe that application is an outcome of theory, not a separate activity. In some of my writings I have discussed how, as a psychological theory, activity theory can be scaled to collaborative settings without losing sight of individual participants in an activity.” (Bonnie Nardi, http://darrouzet-nardi.net/bonnie/, 11/6/2010)
Nardi. Activity Theory in a Nutshell. Word Journal Of The International Linguistic Association.
Creativity in amateur multimedia: popular culture, critical theory, and hci
- Three views on creativity
- HCI, Rationalist, instrumentalist
- Post-Structuralist (death of the author)
- Technological Determinist
- All see creativity as a discourse contributing to knowledge
- The useable is the message
- Found art drives meaning
- Creativity as primitive art management
Bardzell, Jeffrey. 2007. Creativity in amateur multimedia: popular culture, critical theory, and hci. Creativity 3, no. February: 12-33.
Do Clothes Speak? What Makes them Fashion?
- Formal qualities evoke style
- Style equals fashion
- Fashion helps create social identities
- Clothing has a code, which equals a style
Davis, F. Do Clothes Speak? In Fashion, Culture, and Identity.
