Break Something and Write About the Pieces: Episode One 'I loathe PowerPoint'

Two Beginnings

I loathe PowerPoint and find myself constantly looking for different ways [not] to use it.

PowerPoint's greatest strength is using it to teach people how not to use it.

Here's the start of a list of things I associate with PowerPoint - feel free to add your own.

• Low resolution images, normally of strange alien creatures holding question marks or with light bulbs above their heads, all designed to make some kind of [normally team-related] point.
• Smart Art diagrams promoting networks, relationships, and systems.
• 'Inspirational' quotations used to 'inspire' audiences.
• Default typefaces, text and image boxes.
• Huge chunks of text to be read out in real time without interruption.
• Bullet points.

But what else can we use PowerPoint for?

Databending is 'editing the underlying data composing digital images, videos, and sounds to create something new.'

vertical bar - test (voicesonfilm, 2017)

Here's an extremely crude experiment using PowerPoint to make an experimental film:

1. Download free wallpaper image.
2. Import image file into TextEdit.
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4. Export/convert text to speech and save as mp3.
5. Set downloaded wallpaper image as background for PowerPoint slide.
6. Insert mp3.
7. File > Save as Movie.
8. Upload [or not]

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