Matthew Yapchaian | Post Image
Post Image is an asynchronous live collaborative authoring environment installed on a user's personal computer desktop to facilitate communication amongst other Post Image users on a private or public network through a shared editable desktop wallpaper image.
Current Information
Screen capture. download Large image
4.27.07
Post Image is currently a prototype using Applescript, Bash scripts, and Gimp/Photoshop.
Inspiration
While attending the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD, animation) I had a fixed studio space that gradually developed into a creative nest constructed of: periodicals, cds, pictures, clippings, posters, drawings, videos, etc. to accomedate my production practice. Beginning at UIUC during the fall of 2004, I purchased my first laptop; since then my practice has become increasingly laptop-based.
The adjustment from a customizable physical space that developed to accommodate my habits to a singular machine that was (for the most part) non-customizable was a transition that revealed my prior dependence on a single location regardless of weather, time of day, geographical location, and emotion. A mobile studio permitted me to adopt physical spaces according any combination of the previously listed internal and external environmental factors. Accommodating these factors usually leads to a more productive experience.
The external shell of my computer began to accumulate stickers, forming and individual identity separating my computer from others of the same kind through a montage of visual information. The marking, or personalization, of my machine continued internally through the use of wallpaper images, the frequency of their change, and the motivations for the change.
The internal amending of wallpaper images began to ease the adoption of my computer as a space not just a tool.
Providence, RI, where I was a resident for many years, has a rich and beautiful pedigree of street art; the most prominent work began in the early 90's with the initiation of Sheppard Fairy's Andre the Giant has a Posse campaign leading into the mid 90's through present day with Fort Thunder's and post-Fort Thunder multi-colored and proportioned silkscreened posters wheatpasted on numerous everyday surfaces (alley walls, electric boxes) throughout Providence.
Posted surfaces often host posters from various artists, the chosen surface is usually a shared space amongst the poster artist with the intention of forming a dialog between events and audience. Posters accumulate on unspoken designated surfaces in layers, usually retaining images for months before being reclaimed. Posted surfaces became the unofficial marquee of numerous D.I.Y. living/performance venues in the city.
Visual montages serve as a temporal map of an individual's relationship to their routine through a space and events outside of the space in a linear timeline. Surfaces are reclaimed through an often erratic process of layering of additional posters, stickers, and other markings, along with the rare total removal of the posters from an often absent agent of the space. Usually the action of an agent of the space is to remove clutter and blithe from the public eye.
Post Image identifies a user's desktop as an often inactive surface activated by a dynamic desktop wallpaper image that is shared between all user's of a private or public Post Image network.
Design
Post Image is an asynchronous live collaborative authoring environment installed on a user's personal computer desktop to facilitate communication amongst other Post Image users on a private or public network through a shared editable desktop wallpaper image.
Post Image is not a design application, it is a form of technologically mediated communication using visual information in place of text, audio, and/or video activating a normally dormant personal computer desktop into an active social space.
Images generated with Post Image promote a live peripheral awareness of a user's social network.
A Post Image network is initialized when a single user installs the Post Image application, uploads an image to a designated server, and invites additional users to join the network.
A hotkey combination will enable the desktop to become an editing environment for the user to drag an image onto the current image, use a basic pen tool to mark the current image, or replace the current image with a new image. Post Image's aesthetic is inspired by the Providence poster scene from 1995 - current date; Post Image's infrastructure supports this practice by having the editable image to exist as a single layered image.
Once an edit is saved, all connected users' wallpaper image will be updated. An offline user's desktop will update to the current image at the time of log on. An web-based repository of a network's history will be available for all members of that particular network.
The wallpaper image is specific to the community constructing the image. The image of the stuffed fish taco toy (above and below) is specific to a small group of individuals, the users of the test network.
Post Image began as an extension of the Breath Drawing prototype.
Image Samples
A networked user can edit the current image incrementally, introducing new graphical components through a process of montage (examples 1 --> 7, 8 --> 10) or replace the entire current image with a NEW image file (example 8, 0 is the initial image).
The following images, collected from an informal user-study, represent a sequence of graphical edits; evidence of time and back-channel communication are absent. Back-channel communicatin is an imortant component of Post Image, it is network-specific and helps users contextualize graphical edits and the order that they were made. The following images were produced (and posted) using Actionscript, Bash scripts, and Photoshop.
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X. User's Amendment Updated wallpaper following edit. |
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