Task 12: Speculative Futures

You Decide the Speculative Future: Interactive Video

Please enjoy my low budget branching video. There are eight possible paths.

Note: You’ll get feedback about correct/incorrect, but there are no correct/incorrect answers. This is just a necessary artifact from creating an interactive Camtasia video.

What Could Be the Future of University Admissions?

For this task, I decided the genre and medium (interactive branching video) before picking the topic. Having to construct both a dystopia and a utopia was challenging because I wasn’t sure for whom this would be dystopic or utopic. For this reason, I decide to leave it up to the viewer to construct the narrative and decide. There are improvements, questionable practices, and relics of the past in Cindy’s world.

I chose university admissions because it is a fascinating process and it lets me give you a user perspective of what it’s like. I originally wanted to adjust Cindy’s intelligence in different branches, but thought that might be too confusing for anyone who plays multiple times.

Through the vlog sections, you learn about what Cindy is like at a more personal level, but should be aware it is curated since this is through social media. There is a lot she doesn’t say, but it’s up to you to determine what she’s like.

I didn’t explicitly mention it, but there is a critique about universities. If the admissions process is supposed to select “the best” students, why are there so many issues with perceived “quality” once students are accepted? When Cindy says:

• what does this suggest about the students?—this is intended to hint at skepticism around others and undertones of her arrogance. Notice how she never talks about other stakeholders and places the sole responsibility on students.
• what does this suggest about the learning?—Cindy is hinting that the students of the past have inflated grades—a real problem, but it again links at her arrogance. I wanted to leave “learning” open because teachers, professors, and other institutions are also involved. The transition to university is hard. Professors aren’t trained to teach, class sizes become enormous, the organization is extremely different, younger students (e.g., 18+) are at the age where childhood mental illnesses are prevalent, and suddenly everyone expects 18-20 year old people to be adults 100% of the time. Even though Cindy participates at the University of Learning, she is either unaware of these nuances or chooses to perpetuate incomplete narratives to her viewers.

Cindy’s self-directed work-integrated-learning high school is unusual. It definitely appears utopic because it has so much potential, but it’s a gated utopia. Cindy’s description of it also focusses on getting career ready, which is what universities today are being pressured to do. Currently, this is “measured” through things like 5 year graduation rate, when graduates are hired, and how much money graduates make.

You don’t hear it well, but there is commentary about recruitment in the robot facilitated interview. Cindy went to a VR and in-person campus tour. She mentioned that she does research with a professor at the University of Learning, so the VR tour was likely for the experience. However, the VR tour also had interactivity and served to be an interactive shadowing experience (scripted? from whose data? representing what perspectives?). It also serves to highlight how an on-campus experience is better. The dislike for online for being less “real”, more like a “substitute”, and “inherently inferior” continues in this speculative future.

Cindy also ordered a commemorative cassette tape where the A side describes the University of Learning and the B side has well wishes from alumni. She mentions she doesn’t have a cassette player, but wanted a keepsake because everything else is digital. Essentially, she is possessing the ideas of the university and its brand while seeking tokens for membership.

The actual admissions process continues to be a partial mystery. I intended for you to get a general idea of how the suggestions work, but the nuances are for internal algorithm use. If you chose the pilot interview path, you’ll see a critique of face recognition artificial intelligence which is from my dislike for e-proctoring. There are two endings from the pilot interview and it’s kind of funny (mirthless) what happens in both cases. It’ll be interesting for what happens when Cindy actually registers or re-applies.

Commentary on the medium

This is the first time I’ve done video for this class. It definitely has A LOT of affordances:

• visual: like how Margaret mentioned in our video chat today, everything is purposeful. The inclusion and exclusion of information forces the viewer to construct an understanding. The vlog/video style also gave a sense of proximity. With Camtasia, I added transitions and animation to construct some ideas of how the artificial intelligence thinks and to give you a break from looking at my face. Other than this, what you’re able to see (e.g., my clothes, the background, the other images) help you construct the narrative.
• audio: unlike my mode bending task, you can hear my voice more clearly. Volume, speed, and other dynamics give you an impression of Cindy and her emotions. There is a call-back to my mode bending task in the robot facilitated interview.
• interactivity: let the viewer choose their own path.

Overall, I wanted to try something new and challenge myself for this task while connecting back to tasks I skipped (Twine, Algorithms).

Process Work

Tools:

• OBS for recording the the vlog sections
• Camtasia (UBC students have access to Camtasia for free) for interactivity, video arrangement, animations, and closed captioning
• Audacity for the interview audio during the robot facilitated interview

Storyboarding

I skipped the Twine task because, at the time, I was creating a branching scenario in Articulate Rise for work. However, this genre and medium requires A LOT of storyboarding. I had to storyboard for the branching, narration, and video composition.

Constructing Cindy

In a call back to my What’s In Your Bag task, I decided to make Cindy visually different from myself.

• I asked a friend to re-name me
• I didn’t wear my glasses for the majority of the scenes—I couldn’t see!!! This is partially why you see me squinting or putting my face close to the camera
• I finally used the make up I store in my bag!

When I showed a friend my in-process work, he said he DID NOT recognize me. Other than having much shorter hair now, I apparently look very different without my glasses.

Clothing choices

I wanted Cindy’s clothes to change to show the passage of time. The colours she wore also darken by the end of the video because her data has been taken and analyzed by that point.

• Intro to data profile section: With her pink floral shirt, light gray cardigan, and red lipstick, Cindy appears to you like a happy person. This is done to contrast with the rejection path, this is in stark contrast to the dark colours and vampy purple lipstick.
• Deciding on an interview type: We’re talking about money problems, but I purposefully made Cindy look rich/fancy. The puff sleeve square collar crop reminds me of French aristocracy. I wore flashy jewellery, like the costume pearl choker and the the chandelier earrings. They’re supposed to be IN YOUR FACE.
• Interviews: The blue/white pinstripe button up and glasses is a funny choice. Pinstripes and herringbone patterns lead to a Moiré effect on camera. I wore glasses because I needed to see, but I know they also have a scholarly perception.
• Accepted: I’ve noticed that high school students love to wear school swag so this choice reflects this love for branding and identity.
• Rejected: There’s a back story to my T-shirt. It’s a Rip N Dip Lord Nermal T-shirt. It looks like a cute shirt with a cat in the pocket, but the cat is flipping off inside the pocket. When I had to invigilate for university midterms, this shirt was one of my go-to outfits because it reflects how I feel about midterms. My other invigilation outfit is a sweater with a giant snake on it. I wore it to subliminally tell students that I can’t be trusted (but this is because we never see the midterm until the students do, so we don’t know what the professor’s expectations are either).

Stock Photography Credits

• mentatdgt from Pexels
• mentatdgt from Pexels
• Min An from Pexels
• Min An from Pexels
• meijii from Pexels
• Wesley Souza from Pexels
• Miftah Rafli Hidayat from Pexels
• @thiszun (follow me on IG, FB) from Pexels
• Jigar Maru from Pexels
• istlife from Pexels

(From the pilot interview scenes)