Sketch 3: Week 2

My general ideas for the memory wall involved a recorded path that type could form across a surface. For the new version of the memory wall, I wanted to include the input and recording (memory) of typed words.

I had planned to use a similar form as the earlier version. Rather than the rollover activation, though, I wanted keys pressed to trigger the corresponding letters in the movie clip in random locations on the screen. I had difficulties involving randomness and depth and could only affect one clip at a time. This prompted me to focus on an individual letter (and helped by simplifying the process for the sketch).

Involving aspects of the animated text example from the last class and my previous week's version of this sketch, I used the input text to trigger changes in the buttons. This allowed me to create new multiple copies of the same movie clip (or letter) that could become superimposed upon one another. I added a slight increase in the x position with each newly created clip, thus producing a left-to-right path with the overlap.

By using a single larger image, I was able to explore more of the aesthetics of the created path. It caused me to look at the screen (or wall) as a blank canvas and encouraged me to include a button that would clear the screen. This way, a user could restart and create a new composition. The variety of possible compositions (and differences between them) particularly interests me.

For the future, I would like to more fully integrate the idea of path. The large letters when clustered only form a slight horizontal progression. I would like to see inputted text to travel along a line determined by the content typed. Continuing from this specific week's sketch, I would like to explore variations in overlap and degrees of clustering also based on the content of what is typed.

Here is the current form of the memory wall.