Pin Lane Mission Statement

When first going to Pin Lane I instantly noticed the Co-Operative shop at the bottom of the street. This shop seemed to be constantly busy and as a result of this there was a lot of rubbish along the street which had been bought at the Co-Operative. Following my first thoughts of the area of interest moved to advertising and branding. This interest has now moved towards branding and advertising of ourselves, this lends itself to looking into narcissism. My project would take the shape of an online presence but through this online presence change an object that can be found in the street. I am doing this project because I want to look into how we brand ourselves online using online media.

The input data which I will be collecting for us within my project will be in the shape of an online questionnaire, I wish to use Pin Lane as more of a space to show the output of my work rather than Pin Lane being make input for my project.

So my mission statement for my project is:

‘To create a project that explores the way in which we promote ourselves online and this as a narcissistic trait and revealing this through Pin Lane.’

What My Final Project Will Be

My final project will take the form of a web application which works with the google street view api. My project is based around symbolism and branding. The idea that certains brands have desensitized us to the actual products or services which they provide. The idea will be that users will log onto the website and will be able to move around the world using google street view, most of the large cities in the world are currently covered on google street view. The areas which aren’t will eventually and this will give the project longevity as new untouched areas will constantly appear within the project. Users will be able to search for a specific location or simply move around in the street view. Within the street view they are thousands of brands, logos, advertisments and streets which hold special memories for specific people. Once the user has logged on and is searching through google street view, when people see a brand or a logo people have their own views on the meaning of the logo/brand and what it resembles. So the project will allow users to replace logos, brands and advertisments with their own images/symbol which they feel better represents what that company means to them. Aswell as being able to replace your own logos users will also be able to add links, stories and possibly videos which the user wants to add to the logo/brand.

Once a video, image or text has been added to the logo/brand others can then add their thoughts on it too, thus creating a community of as users who can add their own stories about specific brands and what they mean to them. So it will essentially create a world which can be rebranded by the users, they can insert what they think a specific brand truly stands for, e.g whether a user has had a bad experience with them or a good one.

This project could also be opened up as a interactive world where people could tag areas all around the world on google street view and people could add information stories about areas, people could add film reviews to posters that they find of that film.

My question to others is whether they know any other projects which look specifically at symbolism and branding.

Pulling It Together

I recently found a very interesting article which asked the question:

‘Social Media , Pure Narcissism?’

A survey was given to 1000 students at university and the results showed that:

‘57 percent agreed that that people in their generation use social networking sites (i.e. Facebook, Twitter and MySpace) for self-promotion, narcissism and attention seeking.’

This got me thinking about ourselves as the actual brand and how we advertise ourselves. If we think as ourselves as a brand it gives us the potential to interact directly with our customers in  a unique way. It allows you to build a community around your brand and increase loyalty. Visibility through social networks could increase your brand awareness (information about yourself) and draw in new customers (new friends).

This idea holds links with Salvador Dali’s painting ‘Metamorphosis Of Narcissus’.

The story behind the painting is that Narcissus (from greek mythology) fell in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. As he was unable to embrace the image of him in the pool (as it was a reflection) he pined away from it. This is the idea that there are two sides of everything. We have our physical side and personal attributes, compare this to our virtual space where people can learn about us.

So I am thinking about the idea that everyone has a naughty and nice side to them, this is something that could be revealed as you move along the street. It would essentially reveal the true person as you move along the lane. This is the idea which I want to focus around, I’m not sure of the exact details of how I go about creating it yet, but I’m sure it will come.

Maybe pulling in some information from twitter and facebook and also allowing people to fill out some sort of questionnaire that then is displayed somewhere along the street. Whatever I display along the street needs to change depending on where people are standing, this could be changing colour or an object that looks different depending on the perspective from which you are viewing.

Location Data Collection

It is important that we collect some sort of data for Pin Lane that is relevent for our project topics. When collecting information that is relevent to advertising there are only a few ways to go. I have been thinking about collecting rss feeds (for example amazon rss feeds which advertise their products). As my ideas are based around advertising, I want to connect this with narcissism and personalizing advertising to specific people (adding it as an attribute attached to each person). The ability to have something revealed as people move along the lane is some I also want to incorporate.

Along with collecting rss feeds and using as the data, as my projects are mostly based around personalizing advertising to a specific user. You could collect information straight from people walking up and down the street via a form of questionnaire.

For the project in this module I was thinking about taking rss feeds from a number of major advertising and branding blogs and also rss feeds from amazon. However after attempting to put the rss feeds into flash it appears that twitter doesn’t allow users to access access their information from a different domain. This leaves you witth the option of reading the rss feed and saving it as a .xml file and then reading the .xml file. The problem with this however is that because the application would be online the .xml would be out of date and you would have to re-upload the .xml file everytime new information appeared on the rss feed.

So I am going to have to rethink using rss feeds as my data collection method as it isn’t really viable.

What Would My Object Consist Of?

When thinking about the object that I want to put into Pin Lane I want some data to use within the object, the object needs to represent some form of data feeds collected. I have been thinking about taking rss feeds from advertising and branding sites and using this information and feed then into the object. One way of using these feeds within an object could be with colour change, ie if the rss feeds holds information on a particular advertising brand like cleaning equipment then it might go blue. I would like to make the relationship between colour and the brand more subtle however or maybe not even use colour at all.

Physical Object In Street

Following on from my previous post about obscura cameras. I have been thinking about creating an object in the middle of Pin Lane and this will be the object which is somehow revealed to the users of Pin Lane as they walk up and down the lane. The obscura camera fits in with my preivous pieces that looked at the way in which we view things through our retinas (ie. the retina flips everything we see). The oscura camera works on the same principles that the retina does so those ideas really go hand in hand.

As I have been looking at the way our eyes work. I have started to think about our sight compared to our other senses, for example why is it that our sight is the sense we trust the most but it is also the sense which is furthest from us. What I mean by this is that our sight can see objects miles away but we always trust what we see no matter how far away it is, compared to something like hearing or taste. When looking at a food we often decide whether or not to try it depending on the sight of it rather than the taste even though taste is theoretically one of our closest senses.

So what about a way to display or reveal other senses (not sight) of an advertising brand as users walk down the lane, through the use of sight?

And Let There Be Light!!

After another Production of Space lecture today I have a good idea of the direction that I wish to take my project. I have been looking at the work of Michael Webb, particularly his piece on Temple Island. Temple Island is a  fantasy project starts off as a series of doctored photographs of the Henley Regatta and mutates into the design of a strange, mutant submersible that travels up the Thames to Temple Island and the small Doric temple that sits on it. Whilst travelling along only certain parts of the temple are revealed along the way. I like this idea for something along Pin Lane, that only certain parts or elements of the lane are revealed as they travel along it.

The idea of adding a physical object into the lane and use this as being the object/structure that I slowly reveal as people move down the lane.

A way of creating this could be to look at creating a camera obscura. A camera obscura can best be described as the following:

‘Go into a very dark room on a bright day. Make a small hole in a window cover and look at the opposite wall. What do you see? Magic! There in full color and movement will be the world outside the window — upside down! This magic is explained by a simple law of the physical world. Light travels in a straight line and when some of the rays reflected from a bright subject pass through a small hole in thin material they do not scatter but cross and reform as an upside down image on a flat surface held parallel to the hole. This law of optics was known in ancient times.’

For further details on this go the Magic Mirror Of Life Website

 

I think as a good practice I need to attempt to create my own obscura camera, it may be difficult to create one on Pin Lane as it’s all out in the open, I can however create one in my room to get a feel of how it actually works in practice. Im not quite sure how I would put one of these in Pin Lane, but maybe just create the effect of one artificially.

Dissertation First Meeting

On monday I had my first meeting with Hugo regarding my dissertation. My dissertation is based on Censorship within social networks. The meeting went very well, hugo liked the subject matter I have chosen and the information which he gave me is all very useful. He has given me a number of law articles to look at. As a lot of my points in my essay seemed to focus around journalistic views and political censorship he said I should think about focusing just on this on opening it up slightly wider. I like the idea of researching a lot of law to put into my dissertation as law is something which does interest me and there should be lots of information out there on it, I do need to make sure though that I don’t overuse all the law information as I am doing Digital Arts rather than a law degree. Overall though I am very happy with how the meeting went and my next step is too research into these law articles and define my argument even more. Whilst also getting a chapter Structure which I am happy with, and changing a few tiny parts in my abstract.

Production Of Space Project Piece

I have been thinking about ideas to put into practice for a final piece for my Pin Lane Production Of Space project. Over the past few weeks I have been having lots of ideas and moving into different areas but I need to pull all of these different ideas together and incorporate them into one project.

The areas which I have been looking at over the past few weeks are:

• Advertising As Personal Attribute
• Window Narratives (Everybody walking by has a story)
• Narcissium
• Branding
• You The User As Part Of Art Piece (Reflecting back from the camera lens and reflections in windows)
• Other Objects As Windows With Stories (Mobile phones as communication window)
• How Our Eyes Work (Retina switches image so we can do it the correct way up)

Narcissism

I have been looking into Narcissism:

‘The term narcissism refers to the personality trait of self-esteem, which includes the set of character traits concerned with self-image or ego. The terms narcissism, narcissistic, and narcissist are often used as pejoratives, denoting vanity, conceit, egotism or simple selfishness. Applied to a social group, it is sometimes used to denote elitism or an indifference to the plight of others.’

Narcissism fits in with my other ideas about advertising being a personal attribute. Narcissism can be seen as another type of personal attribute that is attached to a person, the idea that self-image and branding go hand in hand. People must be seen in the latest brands of clothes to feel like they fit in with society.

One sub category of narcissim is corporate narcissism, Alan Down is a leading organizational psychologist and has a wrote a book called ‘Beyond the Looking Glass: Overcoming the Seductive Culture of Corporate Narcissism’. This book looks at two high profile corporate leaders Al Dunlap and Robert Allen and how they are so obsessed with profit and money and think about nothing else.

‘To Die For’ is a film starring Nicole Kidman who is a narcissist who marries a gangster to help her get into the acting business even though she has little talent, as the gangster is financially well off. She then kills her ganster husband as she no longer needs him. it shows just how narcissists are so self-obsessed.

I like the idea of incorporating our self-obsession, our self-image and ego into the lane. This can link in well with my ideas about advertising and branding, as previously mentioned our self-image is usually all to do with what we wear, and this is dominated by brands and clothes lines. Then you can look at how these are brands can be seen and advertised on the lane. How can these brands become part of us?