Environments Mini Project 1
During studio:
10/24 Visit to Miller ICA:
Getting inspiration from the current exhibit:
One part that I found really interesting that I may consider using in my exhibit was these look boxes.
10/25: Self Reflection:
I have one non-design class and then a mini on laser cutting I am taking. The mini will end after the second week of the mini and it is on Thursdays when I have time after studio to do the work for that class so it won’t affect it. For my non-design academic elective, my anthropology class does not have many major assignments left in class so I am able to accomplish the one last reflection journal during a week without large deadlines for studio.
After Studio:
10/25:
I went to visit the Carnegie Museum of Art:
I had an interest in finding a furniture designer or some sort of physical product to feature in my exhibit so I went to the “Extraordinary Ordinary Things” Exhibit in the Bruce Galleries.
As I was walking around, I noticed the really interesting placements and the compilation of multiple artists' work into the displays.
While there were groupings of some specific types of furniture in the first room such as chairs and tables, in the next room it became more mixed together but was still not displayed in the traditional situations the pieces would be occupying.
I was struggling to pick a piece or artist that really stood out to me. For one it was kind of hard to tell what piece belonged to who. Even asking the gallery attendant she struggled for a bit to figure out whos was whos.
One piece I was drawn too was these chairs:
I found this set of chairs to be interesting because they had a distinct message a political context surrounding them that I was drawn to as I feel like it adds more to the story rather than purely aesthetic attraction to it.
By the time I got around to these chairs in the back room of the exhibit, I has getting a bit annoyed when reading the descriptions of the other pieces. For one they didn't give much context and two all the designers were either American or from Western Europe and a few from Japan. Noticing that the designer, Sebastian Errazuriz, was from Chile I wanted to try and find any other Latin designers (I’m Cuban).
I end up finding this chair in the very first section of the exhibit:
What I liked about this piece is that it wasn’t there because it was meant to be the outlier like I think the occupy wallstreet chairs are it was a part of the display and just happened to be designed by a Latina.
Once I delved a bit more into the research of both Errazuriz and Aguiñiga I was began leaning more towards Aguiñiga. I found on Errazuriz’s website some writing about how he wasn’t sure that when he sold the piece of work he would abide by the mission of the occupy Wall Street movement, which didn’t sit well with me.
“The press release written by the artist purposely underlined that ErraZuriz would not disclose whether he would donate 1% or 99% of the profits of the sales of the Occupy Chairs. He expressed that he didn’t know if once he received the money he would stand by his ideals and donate the money to help the cause of the 99%, or keep the money for himself and give into the greed and fame of which the 1% are accused.”
Also I didn’t find the rest of his work very inspirational.
In my research of Tanya Aguiñiga I found out about how broad her breath of work is spaning from furniture design, which she studied at RISD, to traditional crafts and woven arts, to pottery and clay work.
I also find her project AMBOS (meaning both in spanish) which stands for Art Made Between Opposite Sides, inspired by her childhood growing up crossing the mexian-american border everyday for school as she was born in the San Diego but grew up in Tijuana Mexico. A lot of her work spans both simply beutiful peices of furntiure but also the storytelling and political nature of the lives of immigrants trapped on the borders.
One interesting idea I had for an exhibit but I don’t know if it really fits this project is taking work from a diverse group of designers and instead of putting where they were from it would be like the audience would fill in the blank of where they think it came from and then from that its kinda of like a cultural and bias exploration. Partially inspired by the recent design talk about where are all the black designers.
Also i think i’d be cool to do something kind of like this exhbiti about border walls that I saw a the National Building museum a couple years ago. https://www.nbm.org/national-building-museum-announces-the-wall-el-muro-an-exhibition-about-the-us-mexico-border-wall/
Some of the research I’ve been doing:
https://www.tanyaaguiniga.com/about
https://www.ambosproject.com/about
https://madmuseum.org/exhibition/tanya-aguiniga-craft-and-care
https://americanart.si.edu/artist/tanya-aguiniga-31506
Research Notes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EKg46wE4_LK80rti8ppHtAoKr7OXT_NnC3_heXZmloA/edit?usp=sharing
10/30:
Mood Boarding:
Final Moodboard:
My artist, Tanya Aguiñiga, explores serious topics such as the US-Mexican border through a process of trying to bring her cultural heritage and traditional art forms into the often sterile traditional design world. Through this mood board, I wanted to invoke these use of powerful colors as ways to draw people in. In my exhibition, I want Tanya’s work to be surrounded by other bright colors to allow it to be a part of the new norm she wants to create. Industrial design can also be bright and comfortable. We can be inspired by the great designers like the Eames from the past but also not forget about artisan craftsmen and those traditional practices. It’s really important to change the need for a changing norm around what we think of as design and what is the norm. I also found it interesting to explore ways textiles have been exhibited, as lots of Tanya’s work centers around textiles, particularly in applying them to walls and furniture. This is a way she adds texture and different colors to the space. I also think it is really important not to separate the story from the art, which I think is often done in furniture design exhibits, so I want to try and balance the use of color being a norm (not to make it seem like what we think of as industrial design) but not take away from the importance of her messages.
Initial Storyboards:
In these initial storyboards I was trying to contemplate different ways of walking through the space as my pieces are very three-dimensional and I wasn’t sure how to place them into the space. I was finding it difficult to plan wall by wall so I decided to take a step back. Through this process, I started to struggle with how I wanted to tell the story of Tanya and how to respectfully recognize her experiences without making it too performative.
11/1:
Hybrid spaces reflection: What other types of environments are becoming hybrid? Give at least one specific example and note whether or not you think the hybridization of the environment improves the user experience.
I think that education is becoming a hybrid enviornment, where a lot of the election and interactions students are having are with computers and even physical circuit making. I think that hybridization is a balance of pros and cons. On one hand, the infuse of technology into education allows students to both learn about technology which will be helpful as they continue into adulthood additionally it allows for experiences that students wouldn't be able to access physically such as ar experiences about other cultures. Hybrid experiences also can make the classroom more engaging. But at the same time, if not done properly, hybrid experiences can have a detrimental effect on education. Both when the people developing the technology don’t involve education experts in the development and when teachers aren’t trained instead of there being an effective balance between what experiences should be done tactically vs. electronically. With everything in the hybrid space, it needs to be considered whether the technology is necessary and whether those same experiences can be done without exposing students to the complexity and general screen time involved with technology. I think that if done well like most hybridization, it can improve the user's experience but in many cases currently it is not improving the experience and taking away meaningful physical interactions.
IoT: Internet of Things:
- Proximity sensors:
I was thinking of using proximity sensors to change the experience of the guest depending on where you are. I believe this would be a way to invoke some of the author's experiences and work about being binational without being too stark with the contrast in the space.
One way I could implement this is through the activation of sound and video in the border wall area based on the position of the visitor
- Eye Tracking:
I could use eye tracking in the exhibit to have the story follow where they are going. This would allow the visitor to be fully immersed in the experience. As Tanya's pieces are very large and are full of color it can be difficult to know where to start so it would be interesting to collect data on what is peaking the interests of the visitor and try to implement those themes or colors more in the rest of the exhibit.
11/1:
Physical Model:
Here is the built physical diagram. I felt really stuck because I was scared to commit to things. I also was really struggling with how to fit a cohesive story in with the physical restraints of how big the piece is.
11/2: Little Bits:
Here is the rave machine that my group made during the little bits demo. I have used little bits before and I am excited to use them for this project.
11/4:
To try and get unstuck I initiated a mission to try and find the dimensions of the wall piece. I was able to estimate the width of the piece by using the width of an emas chair located near it in the photo. Then to try and find the height led me into a rabbit hole of trying to figure out how tall the artist is and things like that. I was able to do this by using the height of the chair. But in the end I decided to trust the dimension for the width and keep the same proportions resulting in the height being what it is.
CHAIRS!!!!
Another way I was trying to help my brain was to physically get things into the space to play around with cause I was struggling to visualize based on drawing floor plans without having a good sense of how big things are.
To get a sense of the chairs I decided to make rectangular prisms with their dimensions of how much space they take up as a quick way to do this. At first, I struggled with how to do the scaling and ended up making some giant chairs. I tried again and figured out I need to use a 1:24 scale and was able to make some chairs which ended up feeling way smaller than I expected and I realized how much space I have to play around with.
Initial Parti Diagram: (very very rough):
Here was an insanely rough parti diagram I did just to try it. I was also struggling with how to communicate this string piece I have decided to incorporate as a framing tool.
11/7: Getting better: More parti practice
I still hadn’t decided on things but I was getting there. I tried to be loose with the marker and get it down. This helped me reflect some ideas I had and document walking paths. I also found it really helpful to move walls around the space and especially the placement of the knit wall. I played around with how now that I know the dimensions I didn’t think it felt right to be on the back wall of for it to be the first thing you see when you walk in cause I think it would be difficult to process. Through this exploration, I was able to make some decisions finally, such as I wanted the visitor to kind of experience the artist and how I actually learned about her. Starting with her chair from the Carnegie Museum of Art than going through learning about her experiences and the messages she is trying to convey about the border wall and then seeing how she implements her nationality and cultural practices into her industrial design work. The hero piece is the wall but you can’t process it and I think it would be written off as a very political statement piece without a proper introduction first (I also wanted the excitement of a reveal)
11/7: Technical Diagram:
Here is the technical diagram I did for a potential diagram. Two things I acknowledge aren’t correct one is that the input is a button, not a pressure sensor. I couldn’t get the pressure sensor to do anything to the circuit when the speaker was involved. I thought that the button was a good stand in cause it has a similar stop or start input. The other thing is the fact that the speaker (the output) is in the circuit before the second input the mp3 player this was because for some reason the speaker had much clearer audio when placed before the mp3. This interaction is supposed to be where the speakers are activated by the positioning of the user.
11/8:
Developing further interactions:
My initial idea for the interactions was very focused on the idea above about proximity and sound but I realized that I wanted to make the experience more visual and engaging. This will be accomplished through a opaque wall where there with be a screen showing depictions of migrant stories and maybe murals on the border wall. I didn’t want to put an actual border wall in so this changeable digital wall allows it to:
- Feel more cognizant of the message of the artist is trying to tell. It was intentional for her not to put the piece on an actual replica of the wall in any past exhibits.
- Feel more interactive and engaging for the user. It would allow the experience to actually look like it's changing with the user.
One thing that I really want to accomplish is having the screen be opaque and somehow parts you can see through to the second interaction happening behind. While the other parts are these images and videos that move with the visitor.
My second interaction is a physical activity. To continue with Tanyas work of participatory work I wanted to have some sort of tying of knots but since this exhibition is in the US I want it to be after you pass the wall. I was able to fit this in the triangle
Interaction storyboards:
Parti Diagram:
Through all this exploration, I was able to work on finalizing a parti diagram:
Photos of the updated Model:
Concept/ Message:
Through this exhibit, the visitor will learn about Tanya Aguniga and her work bringing traditional practices of Mexico and her life experience across the border and into her work in furniture design.
Updated Border wall interaction storyboard:
11/13: Designer role reflection: How is the role of an architect and an environment designer different?
While it is important that architects understand the use of the space in their process of designing buildings but its the environment designer's role in most situations to take the lead on curating the space to fit the decidered interactions and experiences. I think that this means to an extent working with the architect in the initial design of the building when possible but often environment designers are brought in to do work after the building is already done. Architects have to be hyperaware of the specifications and rules required to make a structurally sound space that at times that can take away from the playfulness that comes with being a designer and being able to be open with our thoughts and in how we approach a project with less strict restrictions. In an outside example I have gained a greater sense of this by being on the other side of this process through being a booth chair. In my org, we have a design team and a build team which I am a part of. Currently, we are in the process of planning our booth and involved in that, the build and design teams have to work together to consider both the construction standards and the vision of the design team. The build chairs are given a large list of construction standards that we have to follow (modeled off of city building codes) and it's a process of communicating these restrictions, such as how many rooms are feasible and making it fit both structurally and fit with the design intentions. Seeing this other side of the process where both designers and architects are working together has been a way to understand both the validity of designers wanting to be creative in there approaches along with getting context on the restrictions that exist in the real world. While in a large sense, architects have freedom in how they shape overall buildings there will always be this larger sense of restriction on architects as designers mainly deal with what is implemented and installed into a space. Even if a designer is involved in a project from the very beginning, it is more about idea creation and the general flow rather than dealing with building codes.
11/16 Updating Plan:
In the process of explaining my concept to Daphne, I realized some of the faults in my plan and had to adapt my plan to create a better-flowing experience.
The big thing to address was my first interaction with the border wall. I had centered my whole exhibit on this piece but was still unsure with how the format the interaction and still with the total flow of the story. One thing that changed my thoughts about this area of my exhibit was remembering my whole philosophy that I had spilled in the hybrid environments reflection that I didn’t want to use technology in unnecessary ways that actually take away from the original intentions. While I think it is an interesting idea for visitors to learn about these different stories in a vibrant interactive screen I think its too distracting from the already powerful story of the piece.
This then shifted my focus to developing a new interaction for the large empty left wall. In the process of creating this new interaction, I was able to strengthen the story I was telling through my story. I floated ideas around some sort of way for visitors to explore work in an interactive gallery. One I considered was murals painted on the wall but that felt like it was drifting from my message. I felt like I was missing the context of how Tanya’s work was in relation to the traditional furniture design so I decided to have the visitors explore famous chair designs of the past to give a similar experience to what I saw when visiting the exhibit at the Carnegie Art Museum.
As the visitor walks past the wall famous chairs of the past appear.
Updated Parti Diagram:
This updated floorplan allows the visitor to first be introduced to the artist and some information about her work. Then they will be learning about famous chairs of the past and gaining greater understanding of the context of the industry and the way Tanya was taught. Then they will see the felted pink chair and start to see how her work is different. They will then see the border piece and read about the AMBOS project to learn about her life experience as a Mexican-American and how that has impacted her work and her work with learning traditional textiles. Visitors will then see the result of her bringing her cultural practice to the most famous chair design with her felted eames chairs. Then finally, visitors will be able to participate in the tying the knots project where they can take ownership of some of what they have learned and put it to practice and see that contribution.
Chairs!!!:
As furniture is a huge part of my exhibit I 3D printed scale models of Eames chairs and folding chairs to better represent them in my physical model. I painted and applied felt to make them more like the actual pieces.
Doing the strings:
One thing that I struggled with a lot throughout this project was how to actually build the stings of this art piece and also represent them in my visualizations and SketchUp model.
For the sketchup model: I used the pencil tool to draw angled walls and work out the placements of string walls that I wanted. I then used a stained glass window material to represent the stings. While it wasn’t the right colors this technique helped me quickly play around with the different placements of strings because of the flexibility that comes from this piece.
For the Physical Model:
^ Trying to figure out how to go about attaching the strings. I realized I would need some sort of structure of the ceiling to hold pieces. The string was very finicky and not easy to organize or to hang up quickly. A technique I found to work and allowed me to get a better sense of the strings actually implemented into the model was focusing on creating walls of sorts with two pieces of skinny foam core at the ends with the string between. This represents the furthest outward-facing part of the strings to block out the area and get a sense of there way of framing.
Visualizations:
Elevations:
Self-Reflection Meta-Cognitive Experience: What motivates you? What distracts you? What keeps you engaged?
I am motivated by curiosity and rabbit holes. When approaching a project, I start with what interests me around that and then my thoughts tend to lead me down rabbit holes, which can end up being useful in fully exploring an idea. For this project, I just had the thought when walking around the Carnegie Museum of Art of wanting to find a Latin design, and I went around and looked at every artist's description until I found Tanya. This is also what can distract me as I can get invested in parts of a project that sometimes don’t help that much towards the overall completion that much. I also have ADHD so I tend to get distracted a lot and while sometimes this helps me come up with unique ideas due to random trains of thought this can affect my ability to complete tasks in a timely manner leading to rushing and diminishing the quality. What keeps me engaged is my curiosity and desire to become a designer. When I learned that there's actually a job to be an inventor I have wanted to do that. I tend to be able to find a least one aspect of things that I hold on to to keep me engaged cause I have trouble doing things that I find boring. For this project, I stayed engaged because of the many different parts of it. If I wasn’t enjoying working on one part for a bit I could refocus my attention to a different aspect and come back to the other part later. Also, the enjoyment I had learning and talking about Tanya Aguiñiga’s work kept me engaged and made me feel really invested in this project and a need to tell her story properly.