DML Project #3: Share Denver

Digital media is the context of our generation. Both children and adults are having to learn new technologies and new trends in the form of “new literacies.” These types of literacies are consider new ways of communication that stem from technological advancements such as social media platforms and streaming networks. Together, they create a complex system of information and networking individuals that engage in learning together. Our DML #3 project is called Share Denver. The goal of our project is to address the problem in the local community of underrepresented digital creators and their’ artwork. We felt this type medium is sometimes constrained to social media, and artists do not get the chance to display their work in a more personal setting (like a gallery or art space). Our project aimed to utilize these new literacies in a way that connected both cultural influences and social learning together for the artistic community, providing both artists and individuals with a platform to embrace connection together.

Terminology played a key role in the project as we developed and evaluated it. Academic learning practices, specific types of learning that focus on the importance of becoming well-versed in a pre-set “core curriculum” laid out by an educational system, were not really relevant to this project since it focused more on “pulling” rather than “pushing” learning. While a core curriculum is “pushed” onto the individual with minimal effort from them, this project utilized “pulling” learning in which the individual actively engages in their learning and seeks new information. Along with that “pulling” learning, social learning practices were also used. These are considered learning outside of the scholastic setting and goes hand-in-hand with the “pulling” of the individual to inform themselves. The project heavily utilized participatory culture, putting emphasis on contribution and making the contributor both the producer and consumer, as art and knowledge is both shared and consumed. Civic influences were key to our project in the form of the surrounding digital art community and the people interested in digital art. We targeted affinity groups by incorporating digital artists who share a love for the art they make and targeting people who love art and the sub-affinity group within that of people who love digital art.

@pepperplease612 on Instagram

In regards to the community, we wanted to make sure a diverse population was asked to be included/provide feedback on our project. When our group first began gathering data for Share Denver, we started to ask people around the building what they think would attract them more to our site. We first received feedback on our Twitter page and how to make it look more inviting to people who might discover it, from an individual who is not well versed in both social media as well as art. We then proceeded to figure out what graphic design worked best for us, and what colors were most effective. We also learned from our conversations with both people and artists specifically how we would like to receive and display the public’s art. This discussion and involvement with the local community helped us set up the website for displaying a slideshow to showcase artists’ work. The people we talked to furthermore explained what ways would likely be the most effective for artists to submit their work to us, in a convenient fashion, so that we could display it. We decided we would take submissions by email or direct message on social media accounts and implement whatever we received into the presentation. This way we would easily get new content for our site while also giving creators a platform to share with the rest of the digital art community. The advice given to us by faculty, friends, strangers, and Mr. Geisel was essential in the making of our project. We made sure to take everyone’s opinion into account when deciding what direction we wanted to take with Share Denver, and utilized diverse perspectives in the creation and fulfillment of our project.

@anthrolandart on Instagram

We not only took those ideas from people around us to influence this project, but we also used the opinions as part of the iterative design process. The iterative design process is basically a design that comes in iterations, or increments. These types of designs lead to stronger designs time goes on, as well as a stronger final product. In more simple terms it’s a process we design, prototype, evaluate and repeat. We experienced this when designing out logo. The 1st design of the of our logo went through three different changes because of this process. This also occurred with our Twitter page. The feedback we got from our community was that the page looked to simply and doesn’t capture the attention of people. We altered the design of our twitter page, asked around again, then changed it again to try to meet our communities needs. This was part of our user-center prototyping and feedback. What that means is getting our project in front of people who would potentially utilize it. They can then use this experience to test out the product and provide constructive criticism in the form of feedback. The way that we tried to expand our DML across media was through social media pages. We started a Twitter page and Instagram. We did this because it was easy to post and share different works of art however, the hard part was getting a following big enough to expand across denver in a month, but this doesn’t stop our Share Denver community from learning from one another. The way that we learn is not really formal, but it does bring us knowledge and perspectives of different people. It makes us pull on our own learning and showcase how we interpret the world around us.

In the end, our project was not able to be carried out to its fullest potential. This was due to a number of factors such as time constraints, availability of spaces for artwork displaying, artists willing to participate, etc. However, this does not disqualify it as a strong DML project. As mentioned above, many different digital platforms were utilized to have Share Denver be a project that properly demonstrated new literacy and technology concepts. Aspects such as participatory culture, social learning, civic engagement were effectively incorporated in the planning and production phase, and carried out despite the ineffectiveness of our reach on our platform. As a whole, the project was a success, applying the skills and concepts we learned in the class in a real-world and innovative way.