oracles, shrines

[Anna] Schuleit Haber’s “The Beverly Oracle” design was selected from a field of 75 applicants. According to her preliminary proposal, this is how it works:

A visitor enters a free-standing, ground-level, single-room structure with a roof and tall glass windows located on Beverly Common, in front of Montserrat College of Art.

The person sits in a chair and is welcomed by a voice from speakers. The voice then asks, “What brings you here? What is your question?”

At that point, the windows, made of electrochromic smart glass, automatically change from transparent to opaque, providing privacy for the visitor. The visitor asks a question. The Oracle responds with sounds and language, and a printer prints out the answer, in the form of lines of poetry, for the visitor to take.

The windows change back to transparent, and the visitor leaves. At the same time, at four other locations in the downtown, the same answer is transmitted and displayed for the public to see.

more here.

It's a start

Just some things I've been working on - Still using sleeping beauty for reference. I think It's time for another story.

h_b_t

I have a bunch of ideas/first drafts for different things:

title: h_b_t

statement: H_b_t is an exploration, through both research and practice, of the impact that habits have on our lives. Using William James' "Principles of Psychology vol. 1 & 2," I examined and analyzed his views while recording every instance he used the word "habit(s)." Through the poems and visual design that I created, I intend to make my audience aware of the impact that habits have on their lives while hoping they interpret the poems in their own way.

I'm working on trying to nail done my statement so that I can give it to the gallery and I'd like to make little cards (not sure on exact size, but probably a little smaller than postcard size) with my statement on it to leave on a shelf at the show for people to take.

book:

I did a new layout for one of my books. I used the suggestion of having the blank spaces where habit is supposed to be line up, and I made choices on what words before and after to keep and what words to get rid of and I also re-ordered it in a way that I liked. 

mini-book:

I also made a mini version of the book. It's not exactly the same - the order is the same but even more words were taken out. I definitely need to fix some of the pages (some words get cut off, etc.) But I was hoping to make a bunch of these to have as take aways so people can have a pocket poetry book of my work.

layout:

My group has gone to the gallery a few times and we finally decided on who gets what space, so I've been sketching out ideas for what I want mine to look like. I have one of the moveable walls and another wall, so I was thinking of putting a shelf on the movable wall (to hold business cards, my statement, mini books, and maybe the other books - although I might put the other books on the other wall). With my title above the shelf. I'm also debating whether I want to paint the moveable wall black and have a black shelf with white vinyl above it and my takeaways will be mostly white sitting on the shelf. The squiggly lines are the vinyl - I'm planning on taking the lines from the book and starting them at the top of the wall and then have them continue onto the floor til about two feet past the moveable wall (I estimated the wall is ten feet and the floor piece would also be ten feet but I need to go back and get exact measurements)...Then I was also thinking of making a more expressive book with the poem and a poster to go along with that (which is what the rectangle and question mark are supposed to be) 

4x4 in. collage studies

So last time we met I said that I was going to work on a few collages this weekend and also a language / biography for my company. So far I have made a few collages, these are 4x4 inches, they contain paper that was discarded / donated by print making students. So far I have made three:

1. "Recipe for Disaster." Collage, used newsprint, screen printed scraps, ink.

2. "We're all a little lost." collage, used newsprint, copic marker ink.

3. "Constant Conversations II," collage, used newsprint, ink, copic marker ink.

I'm still trying to figure out a way to make a connection between my collages and Young Fellow Clothing. The only connection that I have made is that they're both hand crafted works of art although they lie in different categories.

East Coast Colors // Color Guide Book (Draft)

Here is a mock-up of a possible way to document my color experiments and derived plant info. It's a work in progress. I also played around with a new title. I thought East Coast Color was interesting because it emphasizes the environment i'm working from. It also reads as "eco color" which is an equally important point to my thesis. Thoughts? First impressions? If anything the mock up is a starting point for any questions/concerns/crit.

Update

Ready to print and assemble flexagon book. Still working on a title. Maybe something like Same Shit, Different Day but less... kitch?

Gathering content for slide guide. Meditating on formats, printing methods, etc. Had a cool idea that I would use images from google earth rather than scanning directly from the original text.

burning heart gully and munchkin alley

follow drainage upstream from scott's clearing. left at first split. left at second split

munchkin alley

follow drainage upstream from scott's clearing. left at first split. right at second split

boundary line

follow drainage upstream from scott's clearing. right at first split. left at second split

good friday

follow drainage upstream from scott's clearing. right at first split. right at second split.

reviews wednesday and thursday evenings, 9 and 10 october.

Weds 9 October

6:30   Rebecca Wallace   (final semester)
7:00   Daniela Thomas   (Book Arts)
7:30   Caroline Lares
8:00   Darek Bittner   (Book Arts; final semester)
8:30   Caitlin Hatfield

reviewers — Alain Blunt, John Colan, Justin Gagne, John McVey, Brian Savignano, Dorothee Weinlich* (guest critic)

Thurs 10 October

6:30   Tiffany Valcourt
7:00   Whitney Chin
7:30   Amanda Foley
8:00   Nicole Reilly
8:30   Liv Varney

reviewers — Mary Bucci McCoy, John Colan, Justin Gagne, John McVey

a catered event.


* Interdisziplinäre Design-Grundlagen
Hochschule Hannover
Fakultät III - Medien, Information und Design

Work Examples

These are past projects that I've done that are similar to the style I want my work to be - I still have to practice and research style a bit more.

Moment in time - thoughts

Working on collaging for stories hasn't been fun for me. I enjoy reading fairy tales, and I enjoy making up my own stories around them and putting a new twist on them. However, when I read a story there is always a moment in time that sticks in my mind. After reading Sleeping beauty and taking in the story - Which wasn't as gory or shocking in the end- and Things end in a happy ending. Not my style. What I want to bring in is my weird grotesque mind into this work.

When I rewrote the plot I changed the sleeping curse that it would still age you even though you're sleeping. 100 years of sleep would make you dead or a corpse when you woke up because time didn't stop. The prince that was suppose to come save you with true loves kiss, freaks out and leaves you. Then when he gets back to his kingdom the sleeping curse doubles as karma and once he hits the kingdom border he immediately ages 100 years and drops dead - Karma's a bitch don't you know?

The kind of things I've been exploring have been looking at, are artist that have stopped a moment a time one of the epic moments in a battle or just time. A good idea of something like this can be seen in Pablo Picasso's Guernica Painting which shows Nazi's bombing Guernica durning the Spanish civil war. http://www.pablopicasso.org/guernica.jsp

I really like this way of taking a story/event that happened in time and stopping it and making it beautiful visually, you see tragedy but at first glance you're not sure what's going on - you just keep asking why. I think I want to take these fairy tales and do something similar and put my own twist on them.

How to make my vision designerly - I've been looking at David Carson's work a lot lately and I really like the raw and dirty feel his work takes on. The more I look at it the more I want my work to take a step back because that's how I use to be - free and not so in the box and corporate.

Grunge Typography- is the way I want to start designing these moments in time. it has the rockstar- bold and crazy work that I think can break me out of the corporate design that I've been stuck in.

Lastly,
I started thinking about this when I was drawing my story boards - There is probably typos in these but they are my notes on my twist of the story just to guide me-

I've been playing around laying out the 'poem' in different ways in book-form. I've decided I like large margins and something on the simpler side like these

then I started thinking that maybe I'd rather lay it out as a poster. I feel like more people would actually read it (and read more of it) if it was a poster as opposed to a book. And I'm thinking that if I do create some sort of poster then I could make a bunch of mini books for people to take with them of it. I tried laying it out as I was with the books (simple, white and black...) and then I also tried a more expressive way (i only posted a picture of the top corner because I didn't want to go create the whole thing before getting opinions.)

I got sick of being on the computer and was thinking about the show and was thinking of how to display the name (which as of now is still 'habitual chaos') and quickly tried this: 

 It's obviously extremely messy but I didn't want to spend a lot of time on it, it was more of an experiment. But I was thinking of doing this on wood (painted white to match the walls in the gallery), nails, and string instead of just using vinyl. I thought it was a creative way to use typography, and the straight clean lines of habitual contrasting with the messier 'chaotic' lines in chaos would reflect my ideas in the name in a creative way. But I'm not 100% sure.

Anyone got any ideas or suggestions about all this?

All Technology is assistive Technology response

Sara Hendren explores a lot of ideas about design, and the one that interested me was her sixth idea “Let the tools you make ask questions, not just solve problems.” I felt really connected as an artist, because my art usually makes people ask me “why.” I got that mostly for my poem book in GD2 but also some of my work in using images.

Sara Hendren points out the Gesture jewelry that was made by Jennifer Crupi. This drew me in because it gave a tactile form to a pose. It shows almost a futuristic way that humans will end up being when technology takes over the world. I like the fact that it get’s you to question why would anyone wear this – it’s abnormal to have forms doing the poses for you- but it draws back into the fact that we use technology for everything and pretty soon we all will end up being half human half computer until one day the human race will no long exist and computers will rule.

As I’m doing my senior work I keep wanting to push the “why is this happening” theme in my stories. Currently I retold sleeping beauty which unfortunately ended up being a happily ever after and sort of Disney like. My question for this story was why didn’t anyone age in 100 year and why is that young boy making out with someone who could be their great grandmother. So I flipped the story, everyone aged while they were sleeping and the prince got so freaked out that he left the kingdom where he was suppose to save the princess. For walking out on her the curse made it so he (the prince) aged 100 years when he got to his castle and died. Reading this article has given me some ideas on how to go on with my work.

Contrasting Pain and Pleasure

Over the weekend I started creating a small index-card sized book which contrasted Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (Book X in particular where he talks about pleasure) and images of punishment from the book "Curious Punishments of Bygone Days"

The book is still very much a work in progress and simply an experiment on where I might wind up going.

things, unmade

worth keeping track of —

UNMAKING THINGS: A Design History Studio

Unmaking Things is a website founded, edited and run by students from the History of Design MA at the Royal College of Art and Victoria and Albert Museum. The site was established in October 2011, and has been relaunched in November 2012 by the new cohort of second year students.

The aim of Unmaking Things is to provide a creative online space for exploring ideas relating to the history of design, objects and material culture. Unmaking Things is not restricted to any specific type of design history or class of objects. Nor is it limited by geographical location or time period. It is a place to reflect critically on, and to facilitate investigation into, new ways of writing and conceptualising such a vast and disparate discipline.

here, and
@unmakingthings

tools and questions

Let the tools you make ask questions, not just solve problems.
Sara Hendren, "All Technology is Assistive Technology."
here

Tools are intrinsic to social relationships. An individual relates himself in action to his society through the use of tools that he actively masters, or by which he is passively acted upon. To the degree that he masters his tools, he can invest the world with his meaning; to the degree that he is mastered by his tools, the shape of the tool determines his own self-image. Convivial tools are those which give each person who uses them the greatest opportunity to enrich the environment with the fruits of his or her vision. Industrial tools deny this possibility to those who use them and they allow their designers to determine the meaning and expectations of others. Most tools today cannot be used in a convivial fashion.

Ivan Illich (1926-2002 *), from his Tools for Conviviality (1973)
here

Sumac, Poke Berries & Great Horned Owls

This was an exciting weekend of color exploration, revisiting Staghorn Sumac and playing around with Poke berries, which may contain the most potent pigment i've come across yet. The Sumac did not react the way it did a few weeks back, and i'm thinking it had something to do with blooming stages. This time around, i got a much muddier orange/pink, whereas last time around (when the blooms were fresh, and ripe) i got a pale pink. I'm happier with the new color. It's much more fun.

I also entertained the idea of raw eco printing, The swatches to the far right of the photo's were my favorite. By allowing the Sumac to simmer on top of the Lokta paper, it began to burn a sort of dark red grunge texture into the swatch, which i find to be super intriguing. The poke pattern happened  by letting the boiled down stems of berries drip onto the swatch. It was starting to look like a Jackson Pollock painting, and i hope to work with the technique on a much larger scale... like maybe a few yards of fabric for example. I'm hoping to find other materials that behave in a similar fashion as the Poke.

And finally, some weird symmetry... while rummaging for Sumac up in the Magnolia woods/ soccer fields, scissors in tow... i happened upon the most beautiful bird I've ever seen in my life (in the wild at least). The Great Horned Owl got himself caught in a soccer net overnight and was clearly exhausted and stressed.  We were so happy to be there to cut him loose and get him the help that he needed. It makes me appreciate the point of this project, finding the best in what happens naturally in my environment and appreciating the land for what it's worth. I only wish we didn't need to encroach so heavily on the wildlife. http://instagram.com/whitneychin47

assistive technology

For Monday, read Sara Hendren her essay "All technology is assistive technology," at medium. This is an elaboration of shorter post at the author's own blog abler.

Also, read Alan Jacobs his discussion of this essay as a so-called "long read," at textpatterns.

Alan Jacobs continues his rumination on the same topic, at Technology as prosthesis.

Fairytale collage - draft 1

This is my first attempt to taking a story and telling it in my own way. This first story came from the new york times Magazine, entitled "How to see a tree". The basic story was about a guy that woke up early in the morning with an assistant and took photos of the old tree's in NY City. My version is a little different. It's about this guy that is trying to find the biggest tree in America and he travels from the sea cost to dessert like conditions to grass lands then finally to NY where he finds this huge tree and is disappointed that he found it in NY, because a city is the last place people would think to find a huge tree.

 This is the final collage that I chose for this story.

This was my first attempt on making a more collagey- collage. Looks more cave painting to me and not what I had in mind.

This was suppose to be a "cover" page to my collage but I didn't see where it would fit. However I did make it a tree and people could interpret how they visualize this tree college and try to see something in it that might not be there. Example I see a winged creator.

Here's my code version of Raven! Now I have to come up with a way to get him moving! I was thinking that his head could fall off and bounce away like a ball. Or maybe he could juggle some of his body parts! I'm still thinking of ideas I could do, but first I really should learn more about the animation aspect of Processing. A good project to start this weekend! :D

type so far

artifacts

Sebastian Kalwak. Artifacts.

"Imagine someone traveling back in time. Cast away on earth 3,5 million years in the past.
His presence in the past changed the way of time on earth and created a parallel universe - ours.
This book is an index of the items found in the time capsule."

via cinoh.

why post here?

it's minimalist, and maximalist — 140 detailed black and white illustrations on more than 300 pages depict[ing] organic and artificial objects from another universe — and it's for a design program.

The Change

Though my idea isn’t changing I’m merely giving it a subject matter. After talking to John Colan, I realized I don’t want to create these “superheroes” to save others; I want to create my own warriors that are some how connected to me. I have always been interested in the idea of spirit guides/animals. I want to research the myths and legends among different cultures and ideally recreate this “journey” to find my spirit animal(s). After I shall make costumes of these warriors to take on the persona of the animal and what they represent.

Fashions Inspired by Nature/ Growth of a Small Business

http://gaiaconceptions.com/ContentShow.php?topicID=18

I love Gaia Conceptions. The founder, Andrea, started out working by hand from her home and has since expanded enough to employ her own help. Her products are expensive but the customer appreciates the work behind it, as well as it's eco friendly production. There is an obvious human element behind the work that i've always been attracted to.

Young Fellow Clothing Branding Development

As of lately I decided to change the direction that I was going in. I know that I am very passionate about collaging and mixed media art, I absolutely love it. But I am also very passionate about my clothing line, Young Fellow Clothing. I started this line last winter while taking Design Factory. I did not expect YF to become as popular and hectic or even keep me as busy as it has been since I began. I've also had some very stressful times but it has been such a great experience.

I decided this because this clothing line consumes most of my free time, especially because I have just recently released a new design for the fall line so business has been very hectic and I have been printing a lot.

I have decided to focus on the branding part of this business. I still don't have an official logo for my company yet, or a business card. I also really want to have a better quality online shop. I have made several drafts of what I thought would be the logo but I wasn't entirely pleased with it. This company has come a long way, especially because I have been doing it all by myself (designing, printing, the whole sha-bang).

I plan to make this project last for a long time, I am very pleased with it and beyond impressed that I have been able to manage it by myself. I know that with a small business like this, it won't come to an end any time soon especially because it is very well liked and has become quite popular at Montserrat.

Here are a few photos of logos that I have made since I started.

At first it was just the YF logo, but I added the cat next to it because both of those logos are in one of my t-shirt designs that I printed last spring (see print):

As time passed I became less interested in the YF logo so I have been trying to figure out something new to make. My second thoughts were to use this as my official logo (or something like it):

..and that totally could work but I'd have to make it read as not only YFC but "Young Fellow Clothing" so that people know what the initials stand for. I do love this design because its very clean and simple, and not to mention looks great printed on pocket tees and patches:

As of recently, I developed an interest in hand drawn type. I made this design about two weeks ago. I've thought about having this be my official logo, or something like it. The hand drawn quality is very interesting to me. I have been drawing on tracing paper and then scanning it into the computer and manipulating it in Illustrator and Photoshop.

I still look at this project as being an adventure. I just want to go with it because it is my passion and I love doing it and I know that I will gain a very strong experience in working with the branding aspects of this company by the time that I graduate. Especially because I want to pursue a career in branding and marketing.

If you're interested in looking at shirts, check out https://www.facebook.com/youngfellowclothing/