Hi Mona,
I'm currently putting together some ideas for my research projects up in beautiful Dundee (Scotland). As a new lecturer there in Interactive Media Design this will be my first little foray into research before I commit (so many years of my life) to studying a PhD. The idea is to find out what research is so that I don't muck up when I come to do the real thing!
.....a word of advice. Start with a research question. If you start with a project you'll find that you spend time seeking a theoretical framework to 'explain' the work. Theoretical work should address the same problem as practise not attempt to explain or justify decisions made about the work. Unless you do this you'll find that your 'theory' will be doomed to lack any internal coherence as having been doomed to 'explain' your practice it clusters around the work rather than working through the matter at hand with any rigour.
The project idea is to construct an interactive narrative surrounding the phenomenon of love at first sight.
It's a pseudo-scientific approach utilising arm-chair psychology - more a fun thing really. I'd like to know if opposites attract, or if you have to be one to know one, or if there is any rhyme or reason at all to this thing.
.... how do you know if somebody is an 'opposite' if you're dealing with the concept of love at first sight?!!
Also - the bigger question... Does anyone have any ideas of how this idea could be developed for further research.
If you peel away at the layers that surround the notion of this piece I'm sure you could come up with a core concern that will be the basis of your project. Then you have to assess whether there is anything that needs to be addressed as a piece of research. At a fundamental level you'll need to address the underlying notion that people can experience these things via technology, the whole thing will flounder immediately if you can't. You have the problem of removing the technological element of the project so that the affective elements are not mediated via an instrumental causality. There's a body of research building around the notion of affective computing (I'm not familiar with it but Piccard's Affective Computing springs to mind).
Basically if you don't want to muck up when you come to deal with the 'real thing' know what your core issue is. It's all too easy to be drawn off into areas you shouldn't unless you have this to guide you! Good luck!
all the best,
Mark
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