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Background

As The Guardian newspaper reporter wrote, “More than 300 languages are spoken by the people of London, and the city has at least 50 non-indigenous communities with populations of 10,000 or more.” London is no longer really an English city; it is the “capital of the world”, and even “A WOLD IN ONE CITY”. It is the city that is full of people who come from different countries and cultures, speak different languages. While seeing the great experiment of multiculturalism, it leads to the appearance of the marginal group of people.

I feel interested in the lifestyles of people who are out of mainstream culture, especially a large floating population of non-English speakers, it is not easy to transgress language barriers and vast culture differences in communication, even for some of them, it is unbridgeable. They live in a lonely and confused life, having neither friends nor families.

What I am interested in:

• Why do they keep moving around the world or staying abroad? Is it the lifestyle that they enjoy? Try to find the reason for them to loose their stability.
• How do they identify themselves culturally or nationally? Is there anything changed?
• Their relationships with their hosting countries
• Their own background, their homeland and their social status in their own countries
• Their future plan. Do they think about where to live next? Go back to home country or stay abroad?
• The difference between the target group and people with more stability.

Why I am interested in this topic?

For people who have left their hometown and have been wandering, they will be affected by the local culture after living overseas for a long time, they could feel difficult to integrate into the local communities because of culture difference, however, their thinking are unknowingly changed which could make them feel they are different from people who have never had experiences abroad.

Methodologies

1. Interview - To collect information by recording deeply understand my target group and myself.

2. Date Visualization - To create a database showing the information that I collected and sorted out.

3. Exhibition & Relevant projects research - To deeply understand my subject.

4. Experiment - To apply for cards by using a fictitious identity.

I traced the map of Chalkwell Park, then Emilie, Anna, Dan and I went there again to do further research.

After discussing, we gave each area a new narrative name

Then we got a draft map as below.

We met up again to write Introduction and Clues.

Introduction:

Welcome, traveler, to the Kingdom of Chalkwell. You are invited to a feast at the castle in honour of the princess’s birthday, but to gain entrance to the banquet you must first learn the name of the young lady. Venture through the land, following the clues to discover the letters which make up her name. When you put it all together, knock three times on the door of the castle(or just ring the bell!) and, if your answer is correct, you will be invited in.

Clues:

SECRET GARDEN - X

This hidden place marks the spot where paths meet. Splash yourself in the refreshing waters and look around you for what you seek. The birds can see it – can you?

FAIRY GARDEN - A

The little people play amongst the teasel and the knapweed with their friends the hedgehog and the robin. But when they’re tired, they flitter back to their home in the trees. Can you find it without waking them?

PRISON - T

Journey beyond the creaky gates at your own risk. The information you seek lies in the heart of the enclosure. Keep your head down and get out as fast as you can before you’re trapped for eternity!

BARRACKS - E

A woman weeps for her two fallen loves amongst the beds of the other knights. Sit with her a moment on her bench, and take note of the letter which begins the first brave hero’s surname.

WILD WOOD - B

Enter the dark canopy of trees by the red markings of the woodsmen and turn towards the Zoo. Don’t trip on the forked root across the path as you keep your head up for the hidden message!

FARM/BOG - R

Follow your nose to the manure pile, but don’t get overpowered by the stench of the bog! Don’t worry – you won’t need to look through the livestock’s special brew to find the answer. They’ve left your treat outside the bin.

SWAMP - I

Venture to the muddy waters, but beware the Thing as you cross the footbridge! On a clear day, peer across the slimy expanse to see if you can make out a marking on the other side.

Because of the route of our “Secret Garden” looks like an “X”. We thought choose a work with “X” in it, like “Foxtail”?

The Password to get into our Castle is “BEATRIX”! It is one of the England Queen’s name.

Anna did a nice cover for our flyer with hand drawing, but we found that the style was quite different with our previous map. We were thinking a color map might be not a good idea. We need it more like a fairy tale. So we changed the map.

We decided to print them on brown paper, they look nice! We printed 50 pages out.

The Presentation Day

Emile did laminate letter, in case of rainy weather!

We prepared Mince Pie for our winner! And Anna is making Mulled Wine.

All preparation works have done, we were ready to go!

After today’s meeting, we finally decided to combine “Role-playing” game and “Treasure hunt” game to be a “A do-it-yourself map-based treasure hunt”.

-Imagine chalkwell park as a big palace,  people will get a map with game introduction when they get to the entrance, and also a funny glass or hat. (see pics below)

-All participants can get help from the map to find out all clues. The clues could be little nice object with a note inside or maybe a letter under a bench or by giving senta highfive to get a clue(I like this idea).

We decided to go back to the park to get some more interesting clues.

-When people get all clues, they will know the key - could be a password to get into the castle - chalkwell hall, we will be waiting for people there to have a celebration party.

• I collected some park maps which could help us do a game map

• I think we can make some craft christmas crown for people to make a distinction between participants and other people.

Treasures:

• Murder In The Dark

-Make enough slips of paper for 1 each.

-On one write “murderer”, on another write “detective”, and on all of the rest write “suspect”.

-Give out the slips. You can not reveal to anyone what you are.

-Someone counts to three and turns off the lights. (Be sure to play this in a room where no one will bump into any sharp things) and the game begins.

-The murderer finds people and taps them on the shoulder. If you are tapped on the shoulder and are a suspect, simply fall to the ground, making a few dying noises. If you are tapped and you are the detective, you say “detective is dead”. When the detective is killed, the lights go on. All dead suspects must pretend to be dead, and even the murderer himself can play dead.

-The detective then surveys the “bodies” and accuses who they think is the murderer. If they guess wrong, the murderer has won, but if they guess right, the detective has won.

-To make it easier for young detectives, people can call out “Murderer, murderer” when they are killed.

Map of the park

Love memory in the park

What people are doing in the park?

MA Interactive Media - Self Learning Contract

Learning Activity: Research the media-ecology of Chalkwell Park.

Xi Zhu 16th Noverber 2009

My objectives:
• To try to do a project which I was unfamilar with.
• By studying on user behavior and user experience, to create an interesting a phsical object or event which could involve participants.
• To keep my mind open when I am doing research, to improve my reserch skills and to be more creative.
• To become more confident in myself.
• To try to get myself communicate with other people, including group mates and users.
• To get myself involved into a group more, especially in group discussions, and also play as an more important role in a group.

The resources and strategies I will use are:
• Research into specific design area to find out as more as possible interesting and related projects or events.
• Anylasis user experiense by using the way of interviewing people and taking photos of what people do in the park.
• To do a flyer or poster to advise our project.

The proof of accomplishing this activity will be:
• A Flyer or poster.
• Documentation of progress.
Evaluation criteria and means of validation will be:
• Presentation in the park.
• Feedback from participants.
• My own satisfaction with this project.

My target date for completion will be:
• 17th Nov. - 23th Nov. Research and initial ideas.
• 24th Nov. - 29th Nov. Concept generation.
• 30th Nov. - 5th Dec. Preparation for presentation day.
• 6th Dec. To carry out our project in Chalkwell park.
• 7th Dec. To organize all data and evaluate our project.
• 8th Dec. Final presentation.

Dan and I formed a small group to do the free media project. We did individual concept generation at first. My idea was to use the ususable CDs or DVDs as a free tool. I did the research on how people could reuse the CDs or DVDs.

And Dan’s idea was to use the light or colour in public areas as a personal tool, such the light of advertisement boards, or shop’s LOGO. After dicussing, we both felt like that it would be better to combine our ideas.

The initial idea was to use surrounding light or colour by taking photos through the shapes which was cut out on CDs or DVDs. Considering taking photos was a way to keep memories, we developed it as use CDs or DVDs which with personal shapes on as a tool of representing momeries. We decided to do the shapes as letters, which could be used their personal font. The free font idea was born after that.

Despite that CDs and DVDs were a good recycle issue, it was difficult to cut, we eventually gave it up, and used normal paper instead.

Tool:
A4 print papers, pencil, scissors, digital camera.

Process:
• Drawing one letter on each paper.
• Cutting the letters off.
• Taking photos.
• Editing photos in Photoshop. (While doing editing, we found that there was a missing letter “M” which might be lost on the way.)
• Using the free font.

We did the colorful free font as this before the presentation day,

however, each letter was just an image which could not be used in the way as what we expected. After further research, we found that all font-creating softwares such as Fontlab Studio only support to create black and white fonts. In this way, our font would be just an ouline if it worked as a real font. We both still thought it was a good idea to create a personal font which could be used on blogs or websites. After discussing, we decided to develop our previous idea into creating a free emoticon on MSN or any other chatting tool which was only based on the GIF format of images. It was obviously the most simpliest way to be carried out.

Tool:
7 A4 print papers, 7 cardboards, scissors, digital camera.

Process:
• Choosing whichever nice font in Fontbook.
• Editing and printing them out.
• Pasting papers on cardboards.
• Cutting the letters off.
• Taking photos.
• Editing photos in Photoshop and saving as GIF format.
• Imputting images into MSN.
• Using the free font.

Our project for this week was to target a specific media ecology, to return to the communicational model of information and apply it to the phone. We had to think about how we could engage with the media ecology by using basic functions of a phone and engage with the ways in which the messages are produced, passed and worked on, but the contents of the messages were not important.

Dan, Angela, Nick, and I decided to work in a group. We decided to use the campus of our university as the specific media ecology, and focused on how people use the public notice boards in the ground floor of the main buiding. We were trying to play with these notice boards.

Our project named “IMIANT CONSEQUENCES” which aimed to encourage people to communicate with each other in a different way, such as drawing, writing, without talking. We printed out 70 pages with the text: “Draw or write something here. Pass it on if you like” and “When page is full please put it into the envelope on the ground floor notice boards”. We decided to put some of them on the notice boards, and leave some of them in toilets, and seating areas, and hand out the rest.

We did the project on Friday, 23rd October 2009, from 9:30am to 6:00pm, at Richard Hoggart Building, Goldsmiths, university of London.

Although we did not get most of the pages which we put in the toilets before they were put away by cleaners, we got a satisfying result.

The defination of Aimlessness:
• Aimlessness is: the joy of being lost on holiday and not caring.
• Aimlessness is: to not be pointing a weapon at someone.
• Aimlessness is: to not be going anywhere.
• Aimlessness is: to not have to follow predefined routes.
• Aimlessness is: to not be doing something.
• Aimlessness is: to not be doing anything in particular.
• Aimlessness is: to not be have a direction.
• Aimlessness is: to not be at work.
• Aimlessness is: to not propose anything or intend anything.
• Aimlessness is: to have no point.
• Aimlessness is: to have no hope.
• Aimlessness is: to have fun.

The brief that we got was to use a student’s oyster log, following particular routes, interviewing/talking to people on the journey in the hope of discovering something new and interesting from being aimless.

It took me a long time to understand the purpose of this aimlessness project indeed, as I always behaved in a way with clear aim. Whereas aimlessness was to have us changed our way of thinking and behaving.

After forming a group, we made the decisions on how we would document our aimless journey, such as photos, audio, drawings and lables, as well as where we would all meet - London Bridge Station.

No matter if I understood the meaning of this project, our aimless walk started on 1st November, a cold early Sunday morning.

London Bridge
As what we decided previously, the five of us (Cliff, Anita, Jichen, Metin, and myself) met up at London Bridge station, the starting point of the 48 bus route. While waiting for the bus, I found a passport photo taking machine, it seemed like a great idea to take a group passport photo before our journey.

From London Bridge to Liverpool Street Station, we found our first “souvenir” - Metin discovered the first interesting stuff - Mc Donald’s packaging (which seemed to excite only himself). We labeled: X1-Skanksa. While Cliff was busy on drawing the inside of the bus, and Anita was trying to get familiar with the voice recorder which I took to, I was certainly taking photos all around.

Coffee break
We wondered down a narrow street Artillery Lane which seemed to be very interesting, documanting our journey with photos, audio and sketches, till each of us was a bit bored and felt that it was the time for a coffee break.

When we were in the cafe, Cliff walked around to look for the loo. Without finding the loo, an unexpected paint area upstairs went into his artist eyes and caught him. He started to do his drawing. Anita and I went upstairs after him, we did documentation in both audio and photography way.

Once we had enough of Liverpool Street, we followed Emilie’s route to King’s Cross. Cliff spotted a ‘Play to Win’ arcade and suggested that we could use a fruit machine to decide where we went next. We gambled £2.00 in the search of an aim and we received Watermelons. (Which we had previously decided would equate to Bond Street.) We promptly decided that a bus journey from King’s Cross to Bond street was more than we could handle. Although instead we went to Chancery Lane which was another Emilie’s route eventually, it became one of the highlights of our aimless journey.

I was trying to send an html email from perl. As what I have known sending HTML email is an easy task with MIME::Lite CPAN module. It is a low-calorie MIME generator. It can be use to send html emails, graphics file email attachments as a single-part or multi-part message. Here is simple perl script that sends html email.

1.Install CPAN

A) Decompress

Decompress the file with

gzip -d CPAN-1.94.tar.gz

(No such file or directory!!!!

I have got the CPAN gzip and downloaded on my desktop, still dont know why)

B) Unpack

tar -xof CPAN-1.94.tar

C) Build

Go into the newly-created directory and type:

perl Makefile.PL

make test

D) Install

While still in that directory, type:

make install

2.Login as a root user

by su command

(need to provide password)

Output:

Password: ******

su: Authentication failure

(I even failed from here!!!Does it mean I got wrong password??)

3.Install MIME::Lite

A) Start CPAN Shell:

# perl -MCPAN -e shell

B) Upgrade your CPAN:

cpan> install Bundle::CPAN

Once it is completed, type:

cpan> reload 

C) Enter the following command to retrieve the required module:

cpan> install MIME::Lite

There is a way to find out what perl modules already installed on my system
To display the list enter the following command:
$ instmodsh
Output:
Available commands are:
l            - List all installed modules
m    - Select a module
q            - Quit the program

cmd? l
Installed modules are:
Perl
cmd?

It seems like that I failed to install both of CPAN and MIME::Lite...

Perl script code to send an email

vim email.pl

Script to send html email from perl:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use MIME::Lite;

# SendTo email id
my $email = 'cabbagezx@hotmail.com';

# create a new MIME Lite based email
my $msg = MIME::Lite->new
(
Subject => "HTML email test",
From    => 'cu901xz@gold.ac.uk',
To      => $email,
Type    => 'text/html',
Data    => '<H1>Hello</H1><br>This is a test email.<hr>'
);

$msg->send();