<aside> 💡 Assignment: A prototype of your thesis project  - it could be drawings on a napkin, 2D renders or a 3D object  - it just needs to be a physical object.

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Prototypes

1. Continued to collect more Vietnam clips
   • I’m really fond of these clips, the more I find the more I learn. People really came up with many creative ways to use the word “Vietnam” lol. For someone who grew up with a singular definition of “Vietnam” (as a country that exists in 2021), these clips were entertaining and eye-opening.
     • I thought about the way these dialogues were delivered, the context, the metaphors, the imageries are unexpectedly diverse. Some are stereotypical and harmful, but some are strangely delightful?
   • I do wonder if I’m pigeonholing myself into a specific format/medium/area of American entertainment but! at the same time! sitcoms are pervasive and influential! and to many non-Americans, they are the most accessible entry to America’s culture
2. Made a Figma prototype for the web archive
   • This was originally done as a final project for Visual Journalism, but the part I enjoy is trying to break down and represent the information in different ways
3. Made a spreadsheet that shuffles dialogues from sitcoms and generates new conversations from them.

   • I love Tillman Ohm’s Reflection of HAL and Samantha, which paired two well-known operating systems in films (HAL from ”2001: A Space Odyssey“ (1968) and Samantha from “Her“ (2013)) and placed them into a conversation about emotions. I enjoy how these fragmented and out-of-context dialogues, when re-arranged, can generate new meanings.

     I find it fascinating how the word “Vietnam” continued to exist and persists in the American’s language, with each occasion carrying different nuances or implications. I thought it would be fun to put some of these sitcom-type conversations together in a spreadsheet to randomly generate a conversation, to see if they make sense out of context. Answer: it does.

     The pervasive impact that “Vietnam” as a concept, a memory, continued to have on today’s media landscape is fascinating. It’s also interesting to see how the usage of the word “Vietnam” changed/evolved through time (it doesn’t, really).

     

     A randomized conversation made from dialogues in Wentworth (2013), Frasier (1993–2004), Modern Family (2009–2020), How I Met Your Mother (2005–2014)

     Next Steps

     • [x] Stefani suggested The Five Obstructions, so adding that to my watchlist for this week!
     • [x] Made a mindmap of what I wanted to try or achieve, i.e. what am I trying to get out of these clips, what are the products I would like to exist out there