Week 4 Generative Text + Reading

For the task of creating generative text, I thought of representing historical conceptual frameworks on machine to create a journey through the development of this conceptualization from literature such as Turing’s ‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence’ in 1950, as well as Isaac Asimov’s exploration of social concepts through the use of machines and robots as a literary medium.

I aimed to extend this literature to create an interactive journey, where the user’s mouse movements will influence the tone of the sentences generated , transitioning to a more hectic state.

 

I am particularly proud of being able to make the generative text based on a function  ‘mood’ which changes how the text is displayed. This required several iterations to nail down:

choosePhrase(type) {
        if (this.mood >= 0.9) {
            return random(this[`veryPess${type}`]);
        } else if (this.mood > 0) { // Use regular pessimistic phrases
            return random(this[`pess${type}`]);
        } else {
            return random(this[`opt${type}`]);
        }

The optimistic phrases display by default, but the method enables the dynamic changing of text which highlights the aforementioned purpose and intent. Other challenges I faced were making the text display within the correct boundaries, and just thinking of which sentences to formulate and how they would be perceived by the user to try to improve the interaction as much as I can.

 

READING

Something that still intrigues me and is of particular interest is the conceptual framework on interaction and the mediums by which we express it. There is no agreement of one single concept of interaction. As a consequence, the mediums through which this interaction can be facilitated are limited by our agreement and interpretation of the conceptual framework at hand. I believe it is difficult to reason about the other fundamental notions presented by the Norman without a detailed analysis of the causality in human-centric design, the reception of it, and as a consequence the dynamic improvement of this concept in literature.

I am able to apply the principles and notions presented by Norman by utilizing the methodology in which he discusses these concepts firstly.  Secondly, I am also able to utilize his critical analysis of concepts in psychology on human interaction and human perception to have a deeper understanding of how the end-user interacts with my generative artwork or projects. In fact, this part of chapter 1 is of key interest, where the analysis of a design takes a methodological approach in viewing instances of design and how humans perceive them, whilst hinting at a psychological notion and referring to psychological literature. This also hints towards a more experiential view of this principle of human design (whether it is human centric or centered towards something else).