2.2: Second Tutorial and Idea generation

This weeks tutorial was interesting....

I started to develop some ideas for each of the categories but the ones that stood out for me were Suburban and Virtual themes...


Suburban:
 The presence of 'Woolworths' in the Paddington Central site presents us with some difficulties because this particular store relies heavily on tactile experience and being able to leave the store immediately with what you need. I started to develop and idea around making the store a sensory experience, a market place that employs chefs to cook using their produce. Comsumers pass around the store looking at and trying to the various foods. Once they have decided what they want recipe wise, its uploaded to their smart device. They can then ad and take away products that they dont need or do need. They can pay for the products there and then, and by the time they get home the products are there waiting.


Positives:

• educational
• creates a relationship between the culinary world and woolies
• employment of young chefs
• develop a wider appreciation for international cuisine
• learn to respect our produce
• learn about new ingredients
• becomes and experience, not a chore
• lists can be stored in the iPhone/iPad
• payment is quick and easy
• delivery system cuts out transport and distribution to each Woolworth's store

Negatives:

• may be a little more time consuming
• what about people who don't have smart devices and internet banking
• cutting jobs of checkout staff (however they could be trained in other areas, like customer help etc)

Im quite excited about the potential of this idea so this week I'm going to continue to develop it and see if it is viable or not.






I also continued my research online after Yasu inspired us in the lecture with some interesting videos. I came across this video and thought I would share it.



Metropolis by Rob Carter - Last 3 minutes from Rob Carter on Vimeo.

Metropolis is a quirky and very abridged narrative history of the city of Charlotte, North Carolina. It uses stop motion video animation to physically manipulate aerial still images of the city (both real and fictional), creating a landscape in constant motion. Starting around 1755 on a Native American trading path, the viewer is presented with the building of the first house in Charlotte. From there we see the town develop through the historic dismissal of the English, to the prosperity made by the discovery of gold and the subsequent roots of the building of the multitude of churches that the city is famous for. Now the landscape turns white with cotton, and the modern city is ‘born’, with a more detailed re-creation of the economic boom and surprising architectural transformation that has occurred in the past 20 years.

Charlotte is one of the fastest growing cities in the country, primarily due to the continuing influx of the banking community, resulting in an unusually fast architectural and population expansion that shows little sign of faltering despite the current economic climate. However, this new downtown Metropolis is therefore subject to the whim of the market and the interest of the giant corporations that choose to do business there. Made entirely from images printed on paper, the animation literally represents this sped up urban planners dream, but suggests the frailty of that dream, however concrete it may feel on the ground today. Ultimately the video continues the city development into an imagined hubristic future, of more and more skyscrapers and sports arenas and into a bleak environmental future. It is an extreme representation of the already serious water shortages that face many expanding American cities today; but this is less a warning, as much as a statement of our paper thin significance no matter how many monuments of steel, glass and concrete we build.

References:

Carter, R (Writer, Producer and Director). (2008). Metropolis (Vimeo file). Brooklyn, NY, USA: Rob Carter Productions