01 Research
Introduction and first steps
As I move into researching for my final major project on my MA Immersive Arts course, I return to brainstorming the myriad threads I am interested in, new and old. The challenge here being that I am interested in so many things that it makes it difficult for me to commit to one project idea, in part because that also means choosing to not do many others.
As part of this process, I decided to define some of the limitations I might face during production of my final project, and use these to guide my decision making to the extent that I can rule out some options along the way.
In thinking about the timescale of the project, and my fairly limited availability, and acknowledging the technical difficulties I have faced with various technologies new to me, for the sake of this project I have decided to try to define some key technical aspects of production which should help me develop the practical side more quickly;
- Lean on my past experience with audio.
- I am very comfortable working with audio and audio engines such as digital audio workstations.
- Treat the project as a prototype.
- This will inform my tool choice. Instead of trying to make something which can be distributed widely, for example to Oculus Quest, or an app store, I will choose tools which allow me to work fast, rapidly prototyping and testing ideas.
- Take an agile approach to product development during the production phase of the project. I have prior experience applying this process so it comes naturally to my approach for work. Further, by developing minimum viable products, testing them with users, using this to influence and adjust the product, and iterating, decisions are steered by people, rather than me best guessing if things will work with audiences.
My approach to research and ideation happens through a process of content consumption (videos, articles, podcasts, books, academic papers), along with ideation and note taking. I keep most of these notes within a knowledge graph in the cloud which I manage using LogSeq. I find this approach excellent for logging all of my thoughts and snippets of useful content. But it is less useful for submitting to tutors who will grade my research module because it will only really make sense to me, and is in effect a way to augment my brain through this process.
Here is a graphic showing my knowledge graph to date, with this research project highlighted pink and connected nodes in purple. Nodes are either daily journal pages where I enter all captured knowledge during that day, or dedicated pages where I collect more topic specific knowledge over time.
My chosen Research approaches
For my technical research I’ll adopt a positivist philosophy paradigm. This paradigm is suitable because technical aspects of an audiovisual system can be described accurately using mathematics and science.
When looking at human-computer interaction and audience experience I’ll adopt a constructivist research paradigm because every user’s experience will be different to one another depending on their unique perspectives.
When conducting any prototype technical experiments (such as exploring if a particular audio or visual idea is possible), I’ll adopt a pragmatist research paradigm.
The research methods I choose will vary depending on the above three approaches.
