TV is Boring

TV is Boring was a Digital Media & Interaction Design brief run by Hellicar&Lewis in 2013 for Stage 2 BA students and first year MA students of Graphic Design at Central Saint Martins, London. During the course we will were re-inventing television – making new shows, experimenting with new formats and using code to think about broadcasting in some altogether new ways.

Please familiarise yourself with the previous project that Joel ran, Visual Machines, if you didn’t take it already. There are 20 places available – students from other stages are welcome, but please be aware that if you begin attendance of this brief you are expected to see it through to the end – you will be denying other students a place if you don’t.

The starting point for this brief is the premise that TV is boring! Contemporary television remains a rather passive medium for the viewer in spite of a wealth of new creative and technological possibilities. How can we make it better? What would you like to see on Television? What can we broadcast? What should we broadcast? What if every Television could broadcast content as well as receive it? How can we intervene and change the fundamental nature of what TV is?

The course will run from 1030-1300 in room K201 (Cyan) on the following dates:

  • 23rd October 2013 – introduction, case studies of previous work and paper prototyping
  • 30th October 2013 – presentation of paper prototypes, development of prototypes and selection of code.
    • PDF of Lecture Notes can be downloaded here.
  • 6th November 2013 – Software, art direction and prop creation
  • 27th November 2013 – further development of code, art direction and props. Rehearsal.
  • 4th December 2013 – go live!

We will be using openFrameworks to create software platforms to bring our creative, interactive concepts to life. This workshop is a great way to extend your knowledge of coding and openFrameworks in particular.