Weekly Update

     Hello all, the progress that I have made in my research this past week after all the snow days has been good! I have received good feedback on all of my questions posted on concept board. Now it is time to narrow my focus. I have narrowed my focus to two different areas. I will most likely develop each in tandem with each other as my research and the class continues. The human relationship with the sun and how it has affected architecture is the first area of intrigue I am currently developing. The question I posed on the concept board was "What historical examples of architecture show the relationship between human occupants and the solar orientation of the building?" To dive deeper into that question, I need to truly think about what relationship I am looking for exactly. Does the sun represent that humanity is part of something higher than themselves? Did ancient humans somehow understand that the sun is the source of all energy on earth? Or is it simply that it feels nice to walk in the sun on a warm day? From that relationship I can dive into the motives of "why" humanity felt that way. For example, was it because of the absorption of Vitamin D that drove humans to associate the sun with positive feelings? It is from my research that I have deduced that humanity strives to give reverence to things, to deities, to a higher power. Look to the nation of Israel; after God freed them from their slavery under the Egyptians and Moses left to get the 10 commandments, they created a golden statue of a calf to worship. Humanity desires higher things. Worship can come in the form of a career, self-image, reputation, another person, etc. This claim is essentially a personal worldview manifesto, however, there is plenty of historical evidence to support the human psychology of the need for a higher power. Ancient civilizations worshiped their king or emperor as a god in many cultures. 

    My second topic is about film design and how the visualization outcome can be draw upon from literature. Essentially, I have narrowed my focus to describing the process of creating visualizations from descriptive literature. An example of this process would be taking a passage from a book or any kind of written word and using that passage to create visualizations based on variables such as contextual parallels from the passage. An example of a contextual parallel from a descriptive passage would be "The oak tree was big." As observers of the natural world, we know what a oak tree looks like. We then take the adjective "Big" and come to an understanding of what the word means exactly. Are there other qualifying words in other passages that give clarity about what "Big" means? If the work is non-fiction, then I would have to look at other relevant works that qualify "Big." I have also given some thought to the application of this in a practical sense. How can one take a variety of information and put it into an "algorithm," per say, and come up with a way to create an image based on objective information. Essentially, the question is "How can I take the written work and make it visual without the help of imagination?"