http://gothamberg.com/process process Tue, 16 Jan 2007 16:35:52 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en When I first get a New Yorker, the first thing I do is look at the Table of Contents. Not only the title of a piece, but the sub-heading which tells you a little more about that story. We've been unhappy with the Gothamberg interface only showing stories as animated ... http://gothamberg.com/process/new-interface/ http://gothamberg.com/process/first-screenshots/ An image by Chernikov that captures our interests. http://gothamberg.com/process/chernikov/ A few studies to show the building in 3D, which in the end we decided against. http://gothamberg.com/process/116/ First screenshot showing building, side of building, plumbiing and basement area. Sky responds to the time of day on host computer. http://gothamberg.com/process/first-screen/ A brief look at plumbing as a way to connect stories together. http://gothamberg.com/process/plumbing/ Martin and I got to talk about Cubism, and looked at how the use of gradients created a feeling of depth. http://gothamberg.com/process/cubism/ Illustrated manuscripts are an interesting example in which the text is combined with images. http://gothamberg.com/process/illustrated-manuscripts/ Monday February 20th, 7pm Take a look through the new interface layout, especially the text used, and be picky about how to change it. Detailed Notes on Interface 03 Currently the front page background matches applet/building background. Block strip at bottom. “Plumbing” general liked as a way to tie stories to author’s stories, other stories, ... http://gothamberg.com/process/meeting-notes-on-interface/ New interface screens, in progress… http://gothamberg.com/process/interface-03/ Monday 16th January 2006 at 7pm For the next assignment, take a story you have written or are about to write, and imagine you are inputting your story. Detailed notes on the interface Entry: - Enter the site either by clicking on Gothamberg title or on a name. - Names can be reorganized alphabetically - 955px x 600px size ... http://gothamberg.com/process/gothamberg-interface-notes/ Attached is a first draft of the gothamberg database layout. As the “slides” are updated, so will the database. The email will likely be the primary key for the user entity. I’ll begin writing relevant queries as things solidify… Chuck http://gothamberg.com/process/database-layout/ Some screens showing first layout. http://gothamberg.com/process/interface01/ People are asked to link to each other’s stories, so some stories form a narrative ‘web’ and others drift off on their own. The machine aids humans to create relationships. Simple keywords were questioned, perhaps other forms like word pairings. The machine creates relationships from the human forms. Martin has a ‘cliche’ application, ... http://gothamberg.com/process/strategies/ Some visual collages of what the building could look like.. http://gothamberg.com/process/word-building/ Last we spoke, the idea of incorporating "trackback" for Gothamberg was brought up. However, in our case, instead of leaving comments on a particular story, the user might write a story in response, and these would be somehow linked. There's a great short definition up at wikipedia, but I'll just ... http://gothamberg.com/process/trackback/ I live in a small apartment. Actually it’s only one room with a tiny kitchen. At the moment we are three people living here. People in my staircase don’t like that I always keep my front door open. But it is a way for me to get air. The apartment ... http://gothamberg.com/process/the-fire-in-the-garden/ Christiane created a hypertext version of Gothamberg using the 3D drawing by Johanna as an image map of the building. You click on each tableau and up pops the story associated with it. Hyperlinked into each story is another story that relates to it, so you can create a ... http://gothamberg.com/process/connect-hypertext/ Chuck picked out ideas, concepts or just categories of things that he found interesting. The stories then cluster around those ideas. It's interesting how these clusters throw your perception of each story, shifting them from their normalcy.We discussed the issue with keywords and their banality. They don't really let ... http://gothamberg.com/process/connect-category/ Vivian collaged the various 3D representations on top of each other. Whereas the individual representations worked, something about these layerings, where the building is not totally exposed, proved more intriguing than the sum of the parts. Perhaps this is because the perception of an apartment building is often itself fluid. ... http://gothamberg.com/process/connect-3d%e2%80%99s/ Monday 22nd August at 7pm. Our next assignment: “Free for all - Connect” That is, look thru the blog and find a connection between any two different themes/stories/diagrams. This may be in any form, a diagram, a story, an image, a piece of programming… http://gothamberg.com/process/meeting-7-connect/ Started a page on popups in books, curtesy of Vivian. In talking about creating a multi-dimensional building, it seemed interesting to start an analysis of popups, as they transform 2D to 3D… and they also include time. http://gothamberg.com/process/book-popups/ Our assignment: Make a sketch, diagram or other of the building Gothamberg. Include all the current apartments and other building spaces as defined in the texts. Do not add more than what has been described. Left Johanna created a series of tableaux that illustrate each story and tried to assemble them into a ... http://gothamberg.com/process/meeting-6/ Our assignment: Using characters already created in any of the existing stories, write a new story that places any of them in a different context in the building. Notes: The goal here was to see how the characters would develop if put in a different situation. Christiane placed Johanna's Smelly Man into a ... http://gothamberg.com/process/meeting-5/ Sitting in the waiting room, again. The doctor wants me to come in every month now, for check up, he says. What’s the point, I know I have a bad heart, and he ain’t making me any better. As long as Medicaid pays for it… They always make me wait ... http://gothamberg.com/process/in-the-waiting-room/ It’s Monday early evening, sometime after 6pm, and both elevators are backed up at the Gothamberg. Four residents of the co-op are waiting in the lobby to finally get home after a day’s work. Only one is an actual co-op member, two are sublettors, and one is the Super’s sleepover ... http://gothamberg.com/process/waiting/ To have a shower I have to walk out of my apartment, down the staircase and walk cross the garden and down to the basement where the shared shower room is located. During my walk I feel changes in the weather; early morning sunshine, wind, rain or snow. Discover the ... http://gothamberg.com/process/in-the-shower-line/ Dear Alex, Ira’s aunt entertains, even in her absence. Pearl’s annotated appliance manuals are the best read this side of a cereal box, and her shoe collection keeps me especially busy on those days when I just can’t face the tramp in the hall. Who knew I’d trade in visual for olfactory excess? Morning laundry ... http://gothamberg.com/process/dear-alex-2/ Sitting every day looking out at the courtyard of Gothamberg, behind my screens. Well I don’t want to meet those bums do I? At first it was sexual, you see a nice girl all tricked out and you fantasize, you know. Then I got to thinking, these fantasies, it’s in ... http://gothamberg.com/process/sitting-every-day/ On the first warm day of the year, The Sleeping Man entered Gothamberg through the back door by the dumpsters on the East Wing. The storage room brought him to an elevator. Late last night, The Sleeping Man decided to sleep outside. He found a short strip of lawn shielded by ... http://gothamberg.com/process/the-first-warm-day/ Soundtrack of Birth of Lint http://gothamberg.com/process/birth-of-lint/ Our assignment: 1] Create a meta-relationship diagram (that tries to combine those below) 2] Pass two of the stories through the the meta-relationship diagram. Notes: - The assignment was considered really hard, and also the point of it was questioned. The goal is to discover ways to navigate the various stories on the site. ... http://gothamberg.com/process/meeting-4/ Our assignment: 1] Connect to any of the existing stories. 2] If you can, connect two stories to each other. (Doesn’t need to be more than an anecdote) Notes: Many issues: - We created texts that link to any story, or link two stories. Turned out that this was easy and a lot of ... http://gothamberg.com/process/meeting-3/ He probably thinks I don’t care because I don’t know anything else but I do remember playing with friends outside. I remember all the smells, of trees, and grass, and garbage cans, lots of smells here, too, but it’s different. It mostly smells of me, which I don’t mind, I ... http://gothamberg.com/process/the-dog/ One morning I could not open my door. There was a sleeping man on the other side. First I got angry, because he was in my way. But later on I felt a little embarrassed that I had shouted at him to move. I had been morning myself in my ... http://gothamberg.com/process/the-sleeping-man/ At first Melinda was surprised that the homeless man who sleeps in the hallway on the third floor volunteered for her Phenomenology of Lint project. Then she realized it was a way for him to get his clothes cleaned. Not authorized to use the laundry room himself, Melinda volunteered to ... http://gothamberg.com/process/the-phenomenology-of-lint-part-2/ I’ve been here a week now and staying with Shaun, who is not a chef anymore, instead he’s a DJ at a place called the Mud Club, playing his 6 punk singles over and over. His apartment’s got an amazing view, it looks at the back of the Chelsea Hotel. ... http://gothamberg.com/process/dear-alex/ Our assignment:1] Keywords 2] Relationship diagram of keywords 3] What does this make you think of? (optional) Notes: We talked about 'keywords' and other ways to configure the text. However, we decided that keywords alone are not enough, and that we had to create ways to create relationships between keywords. After tagging his own ... http://gothamberg.com/process/meeting-2/ Notes: Each member was asked to write a short story or a synopsis. These texts are then used as material to discuss the site: http://gothamberg.com/process/meeting-1/ Melinda Feingold may live in a basement apartment, but she talks like she’s one hundred percent ivory tower. It’s saturday night and the twenty-six year old, single, post-doc student is nothing short of obsessed. The object of her late night fascination is lint. Not belly-button variety lint, but those long ... http://gothamberg.com/process/the-phenomenology-of-lint/ Every spring and summer, when the air shaft window was open, our apartment was invaded by the stench of urine. One weekend morning we noticed the cat litter overflowing from its bag on a broad ledge two floors down, across the airshaft. How he decided to start throwing condoms full ... http://gothamberg.com/process/the-malodorous-source/ So Lee calls me from the corner and has an hour to kill before going uptown to meet a client. He comes over and the lights go out and the pesky UPS’s are screaming so I shut down the computers. The East Village substation had a fire a year ago, ... http://gothamberg.com/process/the-roof/ While I was in grad school in the early 80s, I was sharing an apartment with two roommates, although most of the time there also were other people temporarily staying at our place — siblings, boyfriends, friends who were “in-between�? apartments. One night around 2 AM, my boyfriend, one of ... http://gothamberg.com/process/the-intruder-part-i/ I never met him eye to eye but I could smell him. The whole staircase could smell if he’d walked by. Him and I shared the toilet! I am not going to describe the toilet, I think you understand. But a good thing about him was that he never peed ... http://gothamberg.com/process/my-smelly-neighbor/ In our chelsea apartment there was a tradition that people would leave objects they wanted to get rid of in the foyer. the weird thing was that people would leave stuff that was valuable–interesting books, a large unopened bottle of good scotch, and so on. One day we had tickets ... http://gothamberg.com/process/foyer-favors/