Unit2 Essay

My project proposal is to explore the relationship between simplicity and complexity. In Unit 1, I’ve spent much time on research and development of my project. After some practical works during Unit 1 and getting reference of some artists and their works, such as Andreas Gursky, Chris Jordan and Powers of Ten (Charles and Ray Eames). I’ve got a quite clear direction to develop my project.

In the feedback of Unit1 assessment, tutors let me continue looking at broader range of artists, ask more questions about their works to myself and reveal my thinking. In my opinion, the key reason of their works in the balance between simplicity and complexity is they are made of lots of tiny small things and constructed in a whole simple shape. The clear contrast makes a simple but strong visual impact. For example, Gursky’s May Day V, 2006 (as shown in figure 1), at Matthew Marks. We can see hundreds of people walking, standing or sitting through the windows. It seems like these people are in a huge grid box, and when it’s in a large scale, every detail is seen clearly by us. What a busy and complicated scene. Because of the position where the photographer in, we look at the photo and feel as if we are standing outside the complicated scene. It’s a simple feeling behind the image.

Not just visual contrast, Gursky’s work has a clear theme in it. He is always drawn to large, duplicate and visually complicated spaces, such as stereotyped buildings, stock exchange and 99 cent retailers in the high speed developing time. In one of his best known photos, 99 cent II, it depicts an interior of a supermarket with numerous rows of goods which are bold and rich in colour and detail. The vivid colour of these orderly goods reminds me of a grim and machine-made modern society instead of a colourful world what it should be.

Gursky's May Day V (2006), at Matthew Marks

1.May Day V. 2006

99cent II 1999

2. 99 Cent II.1999

His works reminds me of one point in John Meada’s book Simplicity where he talks about sometimes technology make our life more complicated instead of simple. It reveals a relationship of simplicity and complicity in this high-tech time. And the point is one of the original inspirations of the relationship I wants to research on as well.

Inspired by the interesting comparison and layout in Gursky’s works, I had a clearer direction that I should find something not just visually express the relationship of simplicity and complexity, but also deeply in meaning like issues of modern society.

I tried to find out a subject which could be used as presenting my idea about simplicity and complexity. I walked through the high-rise buildings with my camera looking at the rush of modern life. These buildings under construction and newly-built architectures provoked my interest. One was very complicated because of a tangle of the steel bars, but sometimes was covered by a huge cloth which made it look better. Another one, new office buildings, was clean, simple and similar in appearance. They are all a presentation of the high-speed modern life. I took some photos of these different buildings, and chose two floors of them and cut off rest of buildings to clarify the comparison. The remaining parts of the photos are long scrolls which should be a strong contrast to the simpler work in my thought.

At the same time, I was trying to use a digital work to present the relationship better, because the media I used was only photography. In the MA term, Processing was an interesting program I learned, and it’s very simple and complicated as well. The reason that I think it’s simple is because of the tiny, easy operation. The amount of all buttons of the toolbars is only 6: run, stop, new, open, save and export. What I need to do in the only workspace is typing codes. However, the application requests me to think every command of every step it should do. It’s all about writing logical algorithms which is a sequential list of instructions. It never automatically operates anything you don’t write in. So actually it’s a complicated and difficult program. But if familiar with the algorithms, just enter some simple words, the visual output could be amazing complex.

Because of the interesting features that match my theme, I chose Processing as the program which can process my pictures and present my theme. In Processing, the photos were transformed to linear moving images based on the pixels of them. The linear moving images reduced much information of my original photos. The only connection is colours of every pixel of the photos. All the subjects constructed by these tiny pixels are disappeared and restructured.

During the Symposium 2, I showed several pictures about this development of my project. Tutor and peers said the image constructed by the long scrolls and the Processing work in small size looks interesting, but there were more deep thinking that I should add in my project.

Andy suggested me to think about the relationship of simplicity and complexity of two buildings in both two dimensional and three dimensional. The complexity of buildings which were under construction is external, so is the simple glass wall. Actually there was another dimension behind the glass wall, the working space. It had another meaning of complexity which is three dimensional which could make my project deeper. I need to know how audience understand my project, do they make scene of what I try to express.

I emailed Paul Coldwell whose research was about digital surface. He was kind and recommended several artists to me, among them I noticed Tim Head whose artworks were clearly associated by me with my project. Especially in his work Treacherous Light 2000, each pixel of the computer screen has been enlarged to become a distinct visual element. Audience can see lots of clean and ordered squares in front of his work, and a complicated illusive screen’s surface which is formed by great numbers of light-emitting pixels when they stand back.

During the tutorial after Symposium 2, I saw some artworks of Rachel Whiteread whose sculptures are interesting and casts of ordinary domestic objects which were never seen before. For example, her work House 1993 (figure 3) shows the interior space of a house. We live in a house, walking, looking at the space of it, but actually we never know what it looks like if the walls or ceiling disappear. Her sculpture transformed the inside space to outside, which gave audience a chance to know the inside space of a house which is always covered by the surface. It’s impressive and imaginative. The work showed inner space through casting the house, and breaking the original walls. Audience can see the big sculpture from street (outside) where is in front of the original house. It’s standing outside to look at inside.

House 1993

3. House.1993

I considered way of presenting my project with the direct idea of showing the house. In my work, the windows or glass wall of new building covered the inner space that might be a scene of busy life. The key to express my aim is glass wall covering and simplifying the busy scene behind it. Whiteread’s house showed the inside of a house to the people who were outside of the house; I want to do a project to show people in a building what the space they are in looks from outside, which is transformed by glass wall.

Because my project is about complexity and simplicity, which exist in many object. I’ve chosen two kinds of buildings as the objects to express my aim, and I shouldn’t add too much information in my project to present my aim directly to audience. “Less is more” should be considered again and again in my final process. I found my previous Processing works of linear moving images were too much when I saw some brilliant works and reconsidered my work through audience’s angle. The linear moving images made in Processing were a kind of complicated because of flickering linear images when much information had been reduced than the original photos. Besides, audience may ask, “Why is linear image, not quadrate, or circular image?” So I need to make a closer connection between Processing work and the pictures to avoid misunderstand.

After the consideration and inspiration of other artists’ works, I think about the way to capture a live video and convert it to the simulated scene could be seen outside of glass wall. I wrote some codes and experimented in Processing to see which output fits my aim better. And I went to the ground of our degree show which was a room with only one skylight. I imagined as if I was an audience passing, and seeing two long printings of a part of building under construction with many steel bars and a clean glass wall of a new office building. The contrast is obvious, one is messy and another is simple and new. But I may understand it as representing influence of high speed developing in modern life; or comparison of developing and developed, that is thought in term of an audience who knows nothing about my project. There is no any connection with the busy inner space behind the glass wall which I’d like to let audience notice. So when the live Processing work of simplifying the inside scene like pretending to be seen outside shows, I will know the project is trying to focus on the glass wall and the three-dimensional space. The interactive work shows images that can be seen in the street outside at once, and it gives a chance to see the appearance of people standing in inner space from outside a building. It’s an image in a photographer’s eyes and can be considered the effect of the glass wall which separates and simplifies the complicated inside from outside.

In the beginning of Unit 1, some of Hiroshi Sugimoto’s photos were reference for my project, which had deep thinking behind the works of simple visual language. Through the research and developments of the two units, my works has been improved to a similar state that contained a deeper meaning under the surface of them, instead of some shallow moving images I tested in Unit 1. I’m so glad to see the progress, and hope it would continue.

Because of the aim strongly interested by me, I want to keep focusing on it. The aim of my project is broad and can be developed in any media and subjects. What I’ve developed through this year was a beginning of exploring relationship between simplicity and complexity. From presenting it visually and outwardly to meaningfully inside; from photography and film to interactive Processing work. It has been changed and progressed much, and still has much space for development. As yet, I’ve found the relationship from the buildings of modern life, and expressed my aim in this theme. There are still many more subjects containing the relationship I’m interested in. Take an example mentioned above. Processing is complicated but simple software, which contains the relationship, and can be explored as well. And another example that I interested in and talked in a tutorial was about earthquake-stricken areas in China. There are numberless collapsed houses, which are made of a chaos world. Thousands of people lost their families, homes. Meanwhile, there is only one simple wish among them—to rebuild their homeland. When they face the messy place, how simple their dream is. I hope that I can go there to look for something can be explored.

At the same time, the project work can be developed more. I have explored the relationship of the surface and the three-dimensional space covered. The clean and simple surface is separating outside and inside. Actually, there are many pure surfaces covering the complicated truths. For example, parents always like shutting the door when they are quarrelling, which is covering up for their kids. The relationship among the parents, the door and the kids can be explored and presented. I may ask these questions for development, “Dose the surface works, or what’s the real function of it?” “What’s the kids thinking when they see the surface but know the facts?” “Is there any other surface covering between parents and children?” The issue is broad, not only exists here, but also many relationships. My project still has room for future developments. And if it be continued, the key for me will be keeping simple. Because I was good at making it complicated which I’ve found in my previous development.

In the interactive or digital media field, there is much more room to continue. Like my project, photos of architectures were not fresh, but after combined with the interactive work, they presented my aim better and understandable than only themselves. The technique will be an important tool, especially the significant Processing. I need to learn more and experiment more about Processing. The transformation by it is close to my theme sometimes. Like input a great number of data, and get simple visualized output. Anyway, technique is still a tool which can help presenting my thoughts well. In my opinion, developing and digging into a subject is much more important than technique in my future development.

Reading or Creating a Story: Immersion in Storytelling Media and Simplicity

Hong Zhang
Digital Arts
hongzhang.chichi@googlemail.com

Abstract
I want to explore difference between immersion in narrative media and simplicity. It seems more information viewer received, the duration of viewer’s experience would be better. However, sometimes too much information might divert viewer’s attention or lead a wrong direction; minimum information might offer immersive experience with a broad space and a chance to create. The purpose of contrast is to prove there is another direction about immersion we can consider instead of saying which one is better.

Research question: How immersion in new narrative media and simplicity affect audience’s habit of thinking?
Key words: immersion, information, narrative, simplicity, minimalism

1. Introduction
Immersion: the action of immersing someone or something in a liquid. ∎ deep mental involvement [The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English. 2009. Encyclopedia.com. 6 Feb. 2010 .]

There are no universally agreed definitions for immersion. It is audience’s subjective nature [P1 drowning in immersion]. Immersion in a virtual reality (VR) environment depends on many factors, including the audiences’ physical senses and mental states, technology involved and types of interaction involved. At the same time, immersion is wide, not just appears under the condition of high technique. It is a derivative analogical term from the physical experience of being dipped in water. I see a couple of different definitions of immersion. Combining these definitions and my points, I understand it to be a feeling of deeply engaged and being surrounded by a make-believe world. Whatever the world is imagined by participants or presented by advanced device. The most important quality is participants with a mental sense of being in an environment and forgetting the real world they are in. One of the most famous examples may be Don Quixote’s story.
He filled his mind with all that he read in them, with enchantments, quarrels, battles, challenges, wounds, wooing, loves, torments, and other possible nonsense; and so deeply did he steep his imagination in the belief that all the fanciful stuff he read was true, that. . .
–Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote de la Mancha, 1605-1615

He got an immersive experience from a book, and totally focused on a world, which was in the book and created by him as well. However, it’s a period that story only could be presented by printing press or word of mouth. Nowadays, in the age of technology, people always associate immersion with the 3D technology, telepresence, video game and so on, these new medium which are filled with newer and newer technology. This is the mostly direction of modern age: we need faster and better computer configuration to process more complicated operation, to play more exciting video games; we need more functions in mobile phone which can solve all inconvenience and kill time with games when we go out, even hope it would be able to turn off oven when we forgot. New technologies are coming to the scene to simplify our lives, offer the enjoyment of sensual pleasure. Meanwhile, people might unable to solve something without computer, or gradually forget how to reflect and enjoy the process from simple, pure and natural things.
What I want to discuss in this paper is difference between immersion in new storytelling media and in a minimal artistic work. I can give a simple explanation now, immersion in a storytelling like reading a story by someone, immersion in a minimal artistic work like creating a story by you. I can’t say which one is better, or worse. There is no answer.
Then I will introduce the two types of immersion, and contrast their processes, objectives, advantages and disadvantages.

2. New Narrative Media and “Simplicity”
2.1 What is New Narrative Media?
What’s difference between storytelling media and “simplicity”? Let’s have a look at new narrative media. New Narrative Media is media as emergency of digital, computerized, networked and interactive technology with narrative, includes interactive multimedia, video games, cyberspace, and virtual reality. I select virtual reality as a representative of new narrative media, not only because of its complex and new technical requirement, but also it can be applied to games and interactive multimedia.
Virtual reality: A computer simulation of a real or imaginary system that enables a user to perform operations on the simulated system and shows the effects in real time. [The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, 2009, Houghton Mifflin Company.]

By using various sensors and input devices users can use their own movement to interact with the virtual environment. Many devices and applications have been designed to achieve the objective of virtual reality. I only take one example from a fictional story. The holodeck, comes from an American science fiction TV series Star Trek, is an enclosed room which is a kind of VR cave. The user interacts with the 3-dimensional simulated environment and characters in first person “subjective mode” which the user becomes a character in the fictional world. It’s a fictional facility in similar system with VR, but still more technology required than current VR technology is able to provide. The one of reasons I introduce it is its proponent Janet H. Murray whose review of the holodeck in her book Hamlet on the Holodeck will be cited as a view in this paper.
The holodeck, Marie-Laure Ryan, a prominent literary scholar on new and narrative media, stated that “the holodeck has been proposed by theorist as a model of what narrative could become in a multi-sensory, 3-dimensional, interactive virtual environment” (Ryan, 2001, p4).

2.2 What is “Simplicity”?
“simplicity”: the quality or condition of being easy to understand or do. ∎ the quality or condition of being plain or natural. ∎ a thing that is plain, natural, or easy to understand [The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English. 2009. Encyclopedia.com]
It’s really difficult to define “simplicity” in artistic works. The word is broad and artistic works of “simplicity” are included in many different art forms. In order to distinguish it from new narrative media and relate to my project, I will focus on minimalism especially digital minimalism and abstract film.
Minimalism describes abstract, geometric painting and sculpture executed in the United States in the 1960s. There is no agreement as to what kind of artistic work belongs to Minimal Art. David Batchelor writes as first sentence in his book Minimalism, “There is a problem with Minimal Art: it never existed” (p6). It may not seem like an appropriate art form to represent simplicity. However, Batchelor gives some samples of works which are identified as minimal art, and summarize the common ground of these works, “uncomplicated” (p8). That demonstrates the direction of minimalism is reasonable. The most important reason that I must choose an art form is theory or conclusion of minimalism will be able to support my point of view instead of the unfixed art of simplicity.
I want to focus on artistic work with much obvious visual content comparing with work with much less narrative or visual content. So I will discuss the merits and demerits of immersion in new narrative media and simplicity with the particular focus.

3. Immersion in New Narrative Media
3.1 Immersion in narrative
Immersion is the key to defining virtual reality, is the sense of being in an environment. So users should be physically based in a real environment but their mental environment is an illusionary one.
To achieve the effective immersion in VR, a life-sized virtual environment is a basic environment where a user must be able to explore in and be able to change perspectives seamlessly. The user should be able to view anything in the environment and the angle of view should change according to where the user’s eyes are. Not just visual component, a virtual environment experience must possess a wide range of information if it stimulates all your senses, such as audio component, sense of touch even sense of smell and taste. These components still contain hardware and software problems what a number of scientists and engineers looking into. Let’s put the technology problems aside, and suppose the holodeck could be made as a VR system. The holodeck requires whole fictional world must be created in very great detail as we said about virtual environment before. What does a number of information mean to the user? What kind of enjoyment will the user receive?
According to Murray, becoming a character in a fiction will be both a pleasurable and learning experience: “The Holodeck, like any literary experience, is potentially valuable in exactly this way. It provides a safe place in which to confront disturbing feelings we would otherwise suppress; it allows us to recognize our most threatening fantasies without becoming paralyzed by them” (1997, p25). In Star Trek, the crew members- we can call them the users- use the holodeck for relaxation and entertainment. Most use of VR is similar to that of the holodeck, including use of the future advanced VR system. The user can do everything they can do in virtual environment, to experience a totally different world. If VR is designed under a plot, the user may feel the joy, anger, fear, hope and grief in the first person mode. It seems like a video game, the user faces many situations and problems, and can react in the environment, hug, beat, run, hide and so on. The difference is the user can have more sensory experience and interactivity in the VR; one of common points is the user always being under the control of plot whatever the user interact or not. In VR, the user can interact with the virtual world, motivate and choose one of the plot branches and eventually will be led to different endings, but the user cannot create a character or landscape by them. Creators must design the images of the system.
Narrative of the system has a problem about leading users to a direction. It’s dangerous if users immerse in the VR environment.
“The ramifications of media systems whose representations are perceptually indistinguishable from their real-world counterparts is both exciting and terrifying—exciting because of the possibilities afforded by such systems to experience distant and nonexistent worlds, yet terrifying because of the blurring of distinction between representation and reality.” –Jonathan Steuer, 1993, p14

Immersive experience is the goal of VR system. That means more immersive users have the better. So the narrative plays an important role to lead users into a new world. Like the Holodeck, users can be a new character in the system to experience some fresh things.
On the bright side of VR, users can experience new world even new lives through their new characters; they can do and experience everything they cannot or dare not to do in real life, like flying freely in the sky, hunting in forest, swimming in the deep-sea world…… Immersion in these concrete virtual environments is really pleasure and instructive experience. The more detailed environment users experience, the truer they feel, the more immersion they get. However, there is not only one kind of fun the virtual environment offers.
Video games are similar to the holodeck, especially in narrative and function parts. They are just not so high-tech such as the interactivity and graphic processing. Some of today’s video games are extremely violent. With the development of computer technology, especially in graphics processing units, the average first person shooter features realistic graphics, physics, and weapons. Video games may lead to aggressive which is a consensus and that is why the ratings of age groups exist. Many video games only allow players to push buttons for interacting at present. What if the virtual reality technology be used in the violent video games? It’s no doubt more aggressive behavior will be led by the virtual violence. Through the advanced technology such as a data glove, the user may feel difference between cutting a body by utility knife or kitchen knife. The real experience is dangerous in this state. The more immersive experience users have, the easier concealed violent temper will be revealed. One of reasons video game violence has much more concern than television violence is the first-person mode which is subjective and self-centred, it lacks of an objective judgment.

3.2 Visual details of immersion in new narrative media
I examined above immersion in narrative theme term. Let’s look at effect of the concrete new narrative media on users’ habit of thinking. Recently many people are talking about James Cameron’s Avatar—just broke several box office records which had been hold for previous 12 years by Titanic which is a James Cameron’s film as well. I watched it twice. First time is traditional two-dimensional projection because tickets for 3-D had been sold out when I went to the cinema. I was impressed by the amazing world on Pandora. Every detail of these creatures on the moon deeply touched me. Then I saw the movie in 3-D. I was immersed in the vivid 3-D world created by James Cameron. It seemed like I experience all these exciting things with Na’Vi. Thanks for the detailed 3-D picture and most advanced technology. Without them, audience couldn’t have so immersive experience. Many reviews from imdb and a movie forum in Chinese I saw are mostly positive, they show that the movie communicates well in China as well.
However, let’s discuss it from another angle. When we are talking about how beautiful the Pandora is, how magnificent the Hallelujah Mountains is, do you realize they are both utter Cameron’s world? In an interview, Cameron said his inspiration was “every single science fiction book I read as a kid”, and it has same theme in several films. I believe that when he read these science fiction books, he had a unique image in his mind, that’s a visual imagination which makes the remarkable film. If Cameron’s first inspiration is from a science fiction movie, could he create so many independent details, wasn’t he visually influenced by the movie? It’s really hard to say. As everyone has experienced, if we watch a film adapted from a novel at first, it’s difficult to get rid of the characters or scene of the film when we read the novel. However, after reading a fresh story in text, we can have a number of visual imaginations. Too much visualized detail could limit audience’s imagination because the first impression of visualization is always stronger than text. When we read a book and immerse in it, we create a world that must be different from the world in a movie adapted from the book. I’m sure about that if we do a test of imagination, the result will be more interesting when inspired by text rather than by visual work. How boring the world would be if everyone’s imagination were fixed or influenced by other’s visual work? That’s not what we want to see. So through the creativity side, more information and more immersion are not better than the simplest narrative media.
Back to the interview, Cameron didn’t say anything like using a texture of a tree from a movie for reference. For an example, when we watch a film, you might find some similar narrative parts with other films but hard to find a similar picture in detail. These visual details must be created in a new way, or be distinguished from other movies at least. To new narrative media, the important position of a great story is not replaceable. All the most advanced technique, remarkable pictures serve for a perfect expression of a story. About many kinds of narrative media, the story itself has the most powerful ability to offer audience a remarkable experience. Like Cameron’s words, “returning to classic tales is a powerful thing…I’ll go to a “Transformers” film for the fun of seeing the spectacle but, personally, my soul craves a little more story, a little more meat on the bone and characters and that sort of thing.” (Los Angeles Times, 2009. James Cameron: Yes, ‘Avatar’ is ‘Dances with Wolves’ in space. . .sorta http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2009/08/james-cameron-the-new-trek-rocks-but-transformers-is-gimcrackery.html) [Accessed 29th Jan 2010].)
Not that these great details are not important, but they’re changeable. It is like imagining and creating a new visualization when I read a novel and it does not effect the immersion in it. Besides, if the characters or settings are designed to another visualization in a movie, I will enjoy and immerse the same as the original one.

4. Immersion in Simplicity
4.1 More kinds of immersion
Immersion can be thought of as the experience of someone becoming totally surrounded within and transformed by an environment. The “environment” contains reality, virtual reality and imagination. Immersion in imagination, such as daydreaming, dreaming while asleep and so on, is a kind of feeling of deeply engaged. For example, someone could be quite unaware of their current surroundings as they are waiting in queue and daydreaming about something. And a dream can seem vividly real through individual imagination. Oswald notes that some people can have dream experiences when fully awake and in more or less immediate contact with reality. (P2 Drowning in Immersion) So it’s entirely possible to be immersive as see minimalism works because they are reality and could be added imagination into it.

In virtual space, both historically and in the present, the illusion works on two levels: first, there is the classic function of illusion which is the playful and conscious submission to appearance that is the aesthetic enjoyment of illusion. Second, by intensifying the suggestive image effects and through appearance, this can temporarily overwhelm perception of the difference between image space and reality.
— P17, Oliver Grau, Virtual Art: From illusion to immersion

4.2 Immersion in minimal art
Feeling immersive from minimal art may be challenged. Minimal art is abstract, repetitious, simple and lack of expressive facture. Many viewers consider them as contributing factors to the boring. The viewers are bored when they see minimal art work, and might just quickly walk through these works. Basically, minimalism is not for people in a hurry, it needs to be treated slowly. According to Robert Morris, “Such work would undoubtedly be boring to those who long for access to an exclusive specialness, the experience of which reassures their superior perception.”(1990 cited in minimal art, p118) About the audiences feeling bored and unable to deal with the boredom of the new art, Susan Sontag gives an important saying, “There is, in a sense, no such thing as boredom. Boredom is only another name for a certain species of frustration. And the new languages which the interesting art of our time speaks are frustrating to the sensibilities of educated people.”(1990 cited in Minimal art, P118) Boredom is the audience’s state of mind, should not be used to describe the minimal art.
Actually, the abstraction, simplicity and minimalization become one of the reasons for immersion in simplicity for these audiences who really want to see the work. Because of all obvious information is reduced, the remaining information must be focused on by audiences, which is the essence of creator’s thinking. Sometimes, there are not only one understanding audiences have, we can immerse in the unknown imaginary ocean. From information aspect, the Figure 1 shows contrast of two types of immersion in new narrative media and simplicity. When we immerse in the new narrative media, we receive a large number of information, especially for visual side. It’s like creators did everything for audience, the only thing audience should do is being relax and watching it. Immersion in simplicity is a process audience creating information which is a thinking process.

Figure 1
Let’s discuss it through an example. The figure below is Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square (1915) which is one of the most famous creations of Russian art in 20th century. And the geometric abstractive painting is forerunner of Minimalism in 1960s. The whole painting is just a black square on white field. However, as we know, it’s far beyond that. In a 1920 letter to Mikhail Gershenzon, Malevich wrote: “This is the form of a new living organism… It is not painting; it is something else.” And he continued: “perhaps the black square is the image of God as the essence of his perfection on a new path for today’s fresh beginning.” During my investigation for the painting, I found other understanding, like “The square=feeling, the white field= the void beyond this feeling.” (http://www.csulb.edu/~karenk/20thcwebsite/438final/ah438fin-Info.00001.html) [Accessed 9th Feb 2010]
In fact, lay aside these critics’ reviews; let me talk about my feeling about the work. The black square is a deep desperation that will nearly spill over on the white field. When I first saw the painting, the black square is like the black hole pulling me into it, that was an amazing experience. It’s just a black square, but it seemed like contain a magical attraction which made me keep an eye on it. Malevich excluded all narrative, images and details from his painting, and reduced them to the pure shape. That gave me a feeling that the painter wanted to send out a number of information, which all be contained in the black square. I can’t help immersing in the simplest shape and color.
Kazimir Malevich, 1915, Black Square, [Oil on Canvas] (State Russian Museum)
This experience of this work reminds me another interesting project “Printed Eye (Light)” by Fujimoto Yukio. In this artwork, the time viewer watching it is very short, a few second. The viewer looks at a hole of the installation and their eyes are exposed to a weak strobe light of an image of word “light”. That’s it, the viewing is over. But the residual image of “light” is perceived by each viewer as a metaphysical experience created by “light”. Even they close their eyes, still see the image, and can’t get out of it. The word will disappear in four or five hours. The unusual experience is caused by such a simple but powerful work. The lingering feeling is just what the Black Square gives to me.

4.3 Immersion in text
“A stirring narrative in any medium can be experienced as a virtual reality because our brains are programmed to tune into stories with an intensity that can obliterate the world around us.” (Murray, 1977, p98) Just like the example of Don Quixote I quoted in the introduction, text can give immersive experience. These simple words can construct a virtual world that I can experience everything with the characters and even forget myself. Ryan describes the immersive reading experience: “The reader plunges under the sea (immersion), reaches a foreign land (transportation), is taken prisoner (being caught up in a story, being a captured audience), and loses contact with all other realities (being lost in a book)” (Ryan, 2001, P93). The immersion created from textual to visual simulation is not less than that in new narrative media. It’s a virtual reality in my head, a totally mental absorbed in the story.
Like many other book fans, through textual world, I immerse myself in the creations of my own vivid imaginative experience. It’s a unique picture in my mind, not a copy of other’s imagery. I can create my fictional characters, landscapes, and a rich sensory environment from text. It’s the most exiting experience that reading offers.

Conclusion
I compared immersion in two different types of media. And discuss different types of immersion especially on the information aspect. I found that much information might affect the immersive experience and habits. And the effect is not positive. What we are experiencing more and more is neither the only direction nor the best for audience. It’s like the position of technology for life.
Technology can simplify and make easier for our life, at the same time, it makes us unable to solve problems without it. When we immerse in the new narrative media, we are facing problems in the same way. When more and more complicated details prepared for us, we are losing ability to create and think by bit.
As a consequence, our visual habits are becoming more superficial as we strive to absorb the most important information as quickly as possible. A study of the perceptual habits of Google users showed that most users take the time to look at the first three links in a Google search. But from the sixth link, half of the test subjects stopped their investigation. The attention span is only limited to a few top listings. But as we know, besides relevance, sequence of the search results depends on page views and advertising fee which are not needed by Google users.
In this age of information flood, we should reflect, choose and solve more. Otherwise, we will only able to attend to and remember a limited amount of information.

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Rieser, Martin, and Zapp, Andrea. New Screen Media: cinema/art/narrative, British Film Institute, 2002.
Ryan, Marie-Laure. Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media, the Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.
Ryan, Marie-Laure. Beyond Myth and Metaphor – the Case of Narrative in Digital Media, The International Journal of Computer Game Research, Volume 1, issue 1, July 2001
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a Definition of Research Paper

On Wednesday we talked about the abstract of research paper. My research question is too board. Andy talked about immersive experience in a new storytelling media (like a huge 3D screen) is different from an immersion in a minimal art work (such as a room with nothing in it). That’s an interesting contrast and I think I can compare two immersions and to express the viewpoint that there is another way to offer viewer an immersion without advanced technology.

So I need to narrow my question.

I want to explore different between immersion in new storytelling media and minimalism. It seems more information viewer received, the duration of viewer’s experience would be better. However, sometimes too much information might divert viewer’s attention; minimum information might immerse themselves in work or a musing with a board space. The purpose of contrast is to prove there is another direction about immersion we can consider instead of saying which one is better.

And I have a new title for my research paper,
Reading or Creating a story: immersion in new storytelling media and minimalism

Abstract+Research Question+Key Words

Abstract:

I want to explore can (how) “less is more” (The phrase as adopted by the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe as a precept for minimalist design) work in Digital Arts particular emphasis on spectator’s experience. More and more complex technology and gorgeous pictures are used in digital media (such as interactive multimedia, moving image) to offer viewer an immersive experience. It seems more information viewer received, the duration of viewer’s experience would be longer. Actually, we can experience and muse more through a simple digital work. Because of simplicity is about abstracting the obvious, and adding the meaning which we can feel more deeply. My argument is simplicity could not be boring or lack of immersion in digital media. Instead, it could give viewer a musing or a pure immersion. And I will combine practice- based research which could prove sometimes “Less is more” works in digital media not just reducing but also adding with theory.

Research questions:

    Can (How) “less is more” work in Digital Media particular emphasis on viewer’s experience when visual effects of the industry is more chaos and full of complex technology?

 

Key Words:

•     Simplicity
•     Less is More
•     Viewer’s experience
•     Meaningful
•     Digital media

questions I want to explore in paper

My project is about simplicity and complexity particular emphasis on simplicity in digital arts. The question I want to explore is:

How “Less is More”(The phrase as adopted by the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe as a precept for minimalist design) work in New Media?

This question seems oppose two myths examined by Pierre Gander in his paper Two Myths about Immersion in New Storytelling Media, “more sensory information, more immersion”; “more paticipation, more immersion”. 

I can explore through some aspects to define the board question.

1. “Simplicity is the art of complexity, is about substracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful.” — by John Maeda
2. Does simplicity reduce an immersive experience in new media? Or instead, it may increase with appropriate methods and how.