Die Sehnsucht/Missing my Flash...And some mistakes.

I need to explain some delays in the production of the final project. And present some developments of the idea. And identify and analyse some of the production problems and mistakes.

Due to sickness I did not manage to finish even the main chunk of the practical side of the project. I am away without Photoshop etc until 04 January 2009 and I miss my work so much:) I wish I could do some images but as I am staying over Christmas vacation I am bereft of all this nice software... I did some work on the theoretical side though- finish my adventure with Simone de Beauvoire and her book titled The Other Sex (that was really chunky). I managed to refine some texts for the section on FGM (circumcision) I decided to use shocking bits from Waris Dirie's book where she described how she was circumcised at the age of about 5 years old... My friend had a look on these excerpts and was absolutely outraged and smashed! I have some links to the organisations which fight against FGM and they provide some statistical data, I will provide these links in my website too, as hidden links maybe? But as my website is more about expression and feeling, I will try to play with emotion rather than with ratio.

Just one thing worth mentioning relating to extending my visual library. As I am spending Christmas in Wroclaw (Breslau, quite big city, quite "close" to Berlin, not in Germany though:) I met my friend Ewa, whose photographies I am using in creating images for my project. Ewa took me for an exhibition in the Wro Art Centre For New Media for a retrospective of NAM JUNE PAIK. I was so happy to finally see his works as I recently read a bit of Fredric Jameson's writings and he relates to Paik quite often... I don't think I will use links to Nam June Paik in this project, as I am already overloaded with the ideas and inspirations... However, I felt as if I were a child of luck as the exhibition was for free:))

One more note regarding AUDIO. I have some nice new music for the project. I got a completely new album by MASSKOTKI as an Xmas present and I found some interesting bits I will convert into mp3 and use in the Flash composition in my website. I got also a new album by MARIA PESZEK, a young Polish actress who is famous for her outstanding style and lyrics which deconstruct playfully the ideas of femininity, sexuality and gender identity. Although she sings mainly in Polish, I want to use bits of her songs for their ambience of sensuality and pleasure.

I finished reading David Gauntlett, Susan Faludi and Judith Butler (her Gender Trouble was a nightmarishly difficult book to read://) I will rovide full Harvard references to their books when back to London- so in less than a week from now:) And I am just about to read some linguistic papers on sexism, sexist language and what can be done to reform it. I am so much into these theories and ideas that I am really enjoying myself collecting all the materials and texts, but I can now see that my time management is very poor. I get easily distracted by some interestingly- looking stuff such as promising titled articles in the academic books. And I get inspired far too easily... Too many things have been catching my attention in relation to the research. I can now realise how difficult it is to narrow topic down and stick with the original idea in the situation of excessive amounts of materials to be used in the project. I find such time-information-research management really challenging! And it took me too much time to find proper idea for manipulating the images and too be honest I took too much time to produce a series of images I actually cannot use in my project. In the student crit session I presented images in the portrait orientation whereas I know now that I need images in the landscape one (it's better for websites as it doesn't require scrolling down as much as portrait orientation)
I try to cheer myself up and think that I can use them for my poster I only started designing before Christmas. (This still needs to be finished off:/)

Well, it sounds there is still much to be done. None the less, I hope I am able to catch up with everything and submit my website on time.

confusion c'd

Just a quick note on what I am doing now. I finished working on the images for my website. However, as they're all vertical I think I will have to produce another series of (this time:) horizontal pictures. 

I am still working on how to structure my website. Here you can see some of my doodles and drafts... but I still don't know how this is going to end up....

c'd

 This is my card; it is not really visible on the bright background, but I am sure it will look nice once it is printed out. I designed a few versions of my card, but finally decided to stick to this one. 

I am almost done with producing images of the feminine forest for the main body of my website. I am planning to start working with Flash this week and produce small interactive pieces that will be placed on the pages of my site. At first I thought that I would produce just one chunky SWF file which I could embed in Dreamweaver. However, due to discussing it with one of the MA Digital Media mentors I decided that I will produce a few pieces as this will give me more flexibility.  

The way I see the general structure is that on each page there will be an interactive SWF file. By clicking on an image of a woman (I will place invisible buttons in Flash) my audience will be able to open a scroll text window and read a text on the issue of the page. Then by clicking on other buttons audiences will be able to continue their walk in the forest and will be taken to other pages/issues. I do not know whether it is possible to produce invisible buttons in Dreamweaver that would be links to other pages? Or maybe I could add buttons that would say go left/go right/go straight and via these my pages would be linked? I feel I have to try this in practice to assess how useful it is:)

I still need some advice how to make a scroll text in Flash.. I found some tutorials online but didn't manage to follow them successfully... Hope my tutor will help me:)

I am still considering the theoretical content of the website. The more I read the more I feel inspired, that's the problem:) And I get inspired all the time, the most often completely by accident, for example whilst listening to the radio or shopping:) I really feel engaged in this project and it has a lot of meaning to me as it is a sort of personal reflection and account as well.. But I don't want to dwell on that too much:) Anyway,  I want to cover positive and negative aspects of femininity:

POSITIVE

beauty and strength 

independence

power of creation/creativity (including cult of Ioni- I will explain it later)

NEGATIVE

sexual violence

female genitals mutilation

abusive language

terrorism against reproductive freedom of women

Then, I want to get to some final reflections such as Judith Butler's suggestion to go beyond the male/female binary and some tips towards social and linguistic revolution to make the society more equal. In my opinion patriarchy is bad both for women and men and we should consider what can be done to change the status quo. My focus on femininity is caused by the fact that I am female but personally I deem patriarchy to be harmful both to women and men. (I agree with Susan Faludi that patriarchy is also oppressive for guys) So in the conclusion of my website I want to stress that we have to re-think the inter-gender relations and in doing so we should first of all RESPECT EACH OTHER. 

Ok, so this is brief description of the content for now. By the way, I feel like I am constantly getting more and more materials and I am getting overwhelmed by the amount... But I know I will have to narrow it down to keep focused. 

Tomorrow we are having a group critical session and I hope to get some invaluable feedback...