Keri Smith

Our first homework task for Digital Media required us to be an explorer of the digital world. The idea of being an 'explorer' developed from Keri Smith's book 'How To Be An Explorer of the World: Portable Life Museum' (2010). Before I completed the task I did extensive research about Keri Smith to accumulate my own ideas and opinions of her work and character. After reading through her blog and scanning through her books, I have concluded that she is an innovative and irrational thinker, who wishes to share her spontaneity and creativity with others through the medium of books and her blog. As a result of this I have invested in another one of Smith's books named, 'Wreck This Journal.' (2010) I am hoping the spontaneous activities which have been created in the book will stimulate exciting and original ideas for my final creative project and transform or adjust they way I look and think about things.

After completing a few of the tasks in the book, I felt I was more prepared and open-minded to complete the homework task.

Moreover, this is what I have recorded from my time of being an explorer of the digital world:

I began by typing 'digital media' into Google Chrome and clicking on the fifth link down which lead me to the digital media section on the Guardian website. I am a regular reader of the Guardian newspaper, so I assume this is why I was drawn to the link. After scrolling down the page I was introduced to an article named 'Tech Weekly Podcast: Gesture control techonologies.' (link is seen below.)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/audio/2012/sep/25/tech-weekly-podcast-gesture-tech-audio

The article contained a podcast which was presented by Aleks Krotoski; nine minutes into the podcast they began discussing gesture based control technology. They gave an example of raising one's hand infront of the television to adjust the volume. I found the podcast very interesting and an insight to the future of the digital world.

After listening about future techonology I wanted to explore something more visual. Thus I decided to explore data visualization, which is one of the digital media briefs. I typed 'data visualisation' into Google Chrome and was drawn to the link '50 Great Examples of Data Visualization.' (link is seen below.)

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/06/50-great-examples-of-data-visualization/

The website offers brief explanations of data visualization and examples. I was drawn to an example which visualized music tracks.

To the right is one of the examples on the web page. I love the clarity and simplicity of the visualization.













Bibliography

Chapman, C. (2012) 50 Great Examples of Data Visualization. Available from: http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/06/50-great-examples-of-data-visualization/ (accessed 1 October 2012).

Krotoski, A. (2012) Tech Weekly Podcast: Gesture control techonologies. Available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/audio/2012/sep/25/tech-weekly-podcast-gesture-tech-audio/ (accessed 1 October 2012).

Smith, K. (2010) How To Be An Explorer of the World: Portable Life Museum. New York: The Penguin Group

Smith, K. (2012) Keri Smith: This Is A Website. Available from: http://www.kerismith.com/blog/ (accessed: 29 September 2012).

Smith, K. (2010) Wreck This Journal. New York: The Penguin Group