Inspiration

Once in a while I come across some design related stuff that lifts my soul and I think 'it's all O.K, brilliant, beautiful, intelligent stuff does exist'. You never know one day I might get to do some myself one day. Anyway for now this is a very nicely designed and intriguingly thought about blog called- But does it Float- I guess peeps have seen it before, they get quoted alot on ffffound! but I think it should be on everyones blog rounds. Lots of love. Luke This is the link But Does It Float

Tutorials

I'm going to blog my two tutorials this week from the dynamic duo of Matt and Luara. Matts tutorial on Monday put me in a good mood as he said he liked my drawing about the projectors and sequential which mixed my trianspotting interview with my conveyor belts. It sprung me into looking for more collectors to talk to to help ground my project. But he also saw the potential in doing perhaps a series of outcomes (something i'm well into) which could be an illustration (loosely, I'm not going to get too prescriptive about it) of the collection process, i.e. acquisition, display and storage, or something like that. My tutorial with Laura went really well. She talked about my process, and the transitions between drawing/idea and model/physical and from that to outcome/presentation. She said that I might not need to create the things I'm drawing if the outcome wasnt actually a set of conveyor shelves (for example). I could present the outcome and design the process, which is kind of a lot of what my work is about anyway. Laura said I've really got to figure out what the point of whatever it was i was going to design was, even if it just so that I can display/ present it in the right way.

I'm now going to print out all the interviews, good drawings and good models and start to merge them slightly into groups to design around. I've also got some more focused making and stuff towards a finished 'thing'. I guess it's also encouraging that Luara was asking me what kind of outcome it was that I wanted to produce (a video, an object, graphics), and it made me happy to think that i didn't care; whatever is relevant to the project. I like that I might actually be this Goldsmiths designer and that I use only graphics as a convinient tool.

Ways of Seeing, John Berger

I didn't  realise that the book was the book of the BBC 2 TV show. The programmes are really good stuff, some proper Goldsmiths stuff, context, identity, loads of stuff. Not only are they really worthwhile watching but it's age shows beautifully. John Berger smokes, and some of the shots and stuff are classic. Anyway:

Lawrence Lessig

So this guy is pretty interesting, copyrighting sounds pretty dry to start with but when you scratch the surface it develops through copying, hacking, piracy, to really interesting stuff like originality, creativity and i guess democracy. What with that lecture i went to (check the old blogs), this, and some other stuff, i think i could really get into a project about it (after this year obv, no harm in playing around though). Lessig also has a few books about, including a new one called 'Free Culture', which sounds really fascinating, of course it is downloadable for free as a pdf so i'll let you know when i'm done with that, this is the link: Free Culture

Tutorial and Stuff

Having a good time at the moment but I'm getting worried that my project isn't getting where i want to be fast enough- part of this problem is not knowing where i want to be, i just know I'm not there! I had a good tutorial with Rosario she harked back to an old project of mine: the one with the puddles in bags and water collections. She pointed out that it's success came from a specific thing- a context, a problem and that now i had good research but that i was in danger of letting my research outdo whatever outcome it might be that i come to- i need to start getting specific- and pretty soon- I'm going to say that by the end of January for sure (hopefully sooner) i will have concluded my research to do list and that i will have a more specific area of interest to run with and make real good. We talked about which bits of my project were interesting...... i like this drawing and the idea of getting movement involved, time passing, motion, something happening during the accumulation/ collecting process- the way i see it the collecting process goes:

start static---------during, movement, interest, play, motion, active-----------after i.e. completion static once more, lack of interest, shelved,

slopes, conveyors and time passing interest me with that. We also talked about completion:

this shows an item given which contains one item, with spaces to fill, promoting collecting and accumulation- this links to one of my interests previously about a frame with a label will attract not just more of the same item mentioned within close proximity but will actively attract like a magnet, other artifacts of a similar label. A split box is better at suggesting collection by implying a set and an aim- a completion- something of a particular size for instance, when compared to a large empty cardboard box. Levels, compartments, trays, sections all describe and imply a set. I fancy making a group of objects some with 2 parts ranging up to many parts. Making tools/ objects to instigate a collection in someone- i guess to an extent i have it with my book a week framework, why not make other tools for others.

Rosario was also interested in the industrial process of standardisation. That when everything is manufactured to be 'perfect' the imperfections become the rare collectibles. If there are limited editions, or only a certain number of an item in existence (as is the main norm with collectibles- here defined as anything collected) then they are ripe to be collected. I'm wondering, what if every thing was different, but still was a product of an industrial mass process, then every one would be collectible- so none would be as each was as valuable as the last and the next. This leads on to the idea of the specimen- the best artifact within a comparable group of artifacts. Would this evolve despite having nothing to be directly compared against. Could a specimen still be manufactured..............

Food and Gaps

This is a sketch for the food i made but stupidly forgot to take photos of. It is a roast beef dinner minus the roast beef. The meal acts as a collection, where it's gap is the summing up artifact. This absent item defines the collection. If however it were present then the meal/ collection would not be thought about, it would be complete and unremarkable. A collection no longer in process has no movement and no momentum.

Territories Map

This is the map i created for my map of my project so far. It is pretty much a glorieifed spider diagram- 25 words which can be linked most ways and any random 5 would create an interesting relationship and project. The map is firstly an illustration of my territory- this is the words. On the other side are various shapes of various sizes. The tool part of it starts when the viewer is asked to pick a set of 5 cards- do they pick all the cards of a certain shape, all the cards of a certain size ones, or the diagonals, the most aesthetic pattern or randomly. These choices then corespond to the words on the reverse creating new groupings. (The words on the reverse are also ordered (by shape) into 5 categories Curation:    labeling, criteria, rhyming objects, display.

Frames and Boundaries:    gaps, proximity, storage, horizontal space

Accumulation:        repetition, gathering, acquisition, copying

The Collector:        sequential, completion, validation, context abstraction

The Artifact:        taxidermy, scale and proportion, typologies, sets and groups, specimen

At the moment these are also functioning as chapter headings for my context report but im pretty sure ill  need to hack these down to a more managable size.