Thanks for the feedback on this piece. I've removed it to put back in the forge.

         

Do you think that this could be better if you used a PC? I use a mac and most of that software, so most of it made sense to me, but considering that your average joe has probably never used a mac, I wonder if stuff like the dock and the way some things look would seem weird. Perhaps if you used an old PC, or even your own designed animation, it would more obviously say 'This is a computer'.

         

Thanks, leo_b, this is an interesting thought. I was wondering whether I should use the bottom docket at all, whether I should bring in the arrows, the bounce etc.

No matter what operating system I use it will be foreign to some.
A bit foreign is ok, I think, as long as it reads as a computer (after all, 4 years from now this video will look ancient).

From the hits to my site most people who view my video use macs (by a slim margin). I also have to admit that the idea of starting from scratch is more than I can afford to do right now as I have six other videos to shephard with this release.

         

my worry is that its only going to work when viewed on a computer as opposed to viewing on a tv. it worked for me cus it felt like my computer was taking over!

         

nice a.d.d.-exercise. as tilla said, feels like the machine's taking over, and it's good fun chasing the words in just the places your eyes skip to... the aftereffects tiers-of-hell moment's nice too.

the msn and sitepal bits are too much of a slowdown. you should really keep up the pace all the way through.

as regards the subject matter... i'm a little uncomfortable with such a flippant approach to such a deadly subject. maybe to avoid this impression of superficiality, you could try to calibrate the significance of the applications with a little more "weight". dunno... (to be honest i don't much like the song either in this respect.)

         

thanks thetilla & progosk for the feedback. the only way I intend for this video to be viewed is on the computer.

I'm interested progosk about what you say about the flippant approach. If that was yourimpression then it certainly is a valid one. That was not my intention with the song or the video.

Maybe I need to be more explicit about that because both the song and the video are nightmares that the north tower is having before September 11th, as it says towards the end, "but it's just a dream, I'm still here, standing in the cool september air".

The last thing I want to do is offend through flippancy because I take all of this seriously and what I'd really like to convey is supreme alienation & the grotesque display around Sept. 11th. Sparking dialogue is what I'd like.

Any other specific ideas about how to make it less flippant? Like what parts stuck out in that way. How do others feel regarding the political aspect?

         

COADY: I don't really understand this piece at all. I don't know what you're going for and the comments above don't really help. For instance:

"both the song and the video are nightmares that the north tower is having before September 11th" - are you saying this building is dreaming in/on a mac computer interface that ultimately forsees its demise?

Does that even make sense? This building is having a prescient nightmare, and it just so happens that this nightmare's lens is an apple computer utilizing apple programs that synch themselves to a poppy soundtrack of organs and comp vocals?

The idea that a building 'dreams' is something both absurd and entirely interesting. To then suggest it dreams of its own mainframe. And then inside that mainframe is a 'vision' of itself collapsing which just so happens to be very directly linked to a well known terrorist attack is so crazy. This idea is so big and so complex, the above doesn't even come close to pointing us in that direction, let alone walk us thru it.

Progosk is absolutely right about the flippancy. Cause aside from the obvious; paper football, pinball, google, msn messenger, and a whole slew of rappidly unfolding tutorials of apple's top programs, we're roaming around MAC OS land. No no no.

You can't expect any of this to be "serious" or in any way a display of "supreme alienation" if multicolored smily icons are everywhere.

Think about Leo_b's comment. If this is a building dreaming, wouldn't that building have it's own mainframe dream logic? For instance, we all experience dreams but each has their own way of experiencing them, their own lens. So if the logic is; dream lens = operating platform, then why don't we see a platform that would relate to that financial center of a building....?

You're a talented designer, go crazy with this. It could turn into something really cool. But I would very strongly suggest moving away from such a dead on portrayal of things sept11. Let the idea abstract itself and simply be suggestive of said event. Think pleix's "sometimes":

www.pleix.net

Still the best little meditation on a falling building.

         

yeah, based on some of lusk81's suggestions, couldn't you at least modify all the little details of the computer to tie it in more with the 9/11 idea? Details like how your HD was called 'Rockwell' and you have a certain desktop and applications open are all clues that the viewer looks at and tries to make meaning from. Maybe if you changed all this stuff really cleverly, you could even have a whole other layer that you could only truly appreciate on a second viewing? I think this video has a lot of potential if you sort some of this stuff out.

         

Ok, this is why I put it on this board, because it's a hard idea and I know what I know about it, not how it's going to be received.

Lusk, I hear what you're saying about the os, but I don't agree that you can't find it alienating if you have multi-colored smiley faces everywhere. I live in downtown Manhattan and that's exactly what you have down here and it's entirely alienating in a way that gothic grays and black can not convey. As for the paper football and pinball, those games are intentionally being lost, which gives it significance beyond just playing games on a computer.

That being said, I am going to work on it, pull it back from when I wanted to release it and I very much appreciate the frankness mixed with direction of all your commentaries.

         

BTW: Clarification, I didn't mention it perhaps but this is a video for a song which is why the activities "synch themselves to a poppy soundtrack of organs and comp vocals"