Group members: Adina Bauman and Yixuan Cheng
METATOOL Columbia GSAPP Fall 2019

YOU ARE NOT YOUR THOUGHTS

Our tool seeks to help break the creative block that is inherent when working in Rhino continuously. It allows you to pick fortunes that relate to modeling functions that help you shake off the creative block. Rather than continuing to work in a rut we hope this tool will help you meditate on your project, and let the negative thoughts go.

Sometimes the frustration of working in the computer can be too much, and in order to relax and step back from your work you need to let go.

We used a series fortune tags to create a physical tool that would occupy your desk, in the same way a pen would be always nearby. It would be there when your project seems utterly frustrating to you and all you want to do is stop working.

View showing how the desk space would feel while in use

Each tool is colored depending on the severity of the command it will produce. The tags also have inspirational messages on them to help break you of your frustration and to allow you to think a bit before you get back to work.

Here we show the process of becoming frustrated and reaching for the tool

maybe you hold the tool in your hands… maybe you hold the tool in your hair!

one tag can be used to form the geometry, after a few seconds if you like the geometry the geometry will bake

Here multiple tags combine together to truly alter the massing

Here the blue tool is changing the geometry slowly with every click, allowing for a bit of control but still an element of randomness.

This yellow command allows the site to be fully occupied by geometry. It also highlights a function of many of the tools which is the random changing geometry but also the random changes in color.

In conclusion, we found this tool to be quite exciting. Every time it is used something different occurs. There is an element of the unknown and an element of introspection as you ponder what the tag says. Its goal is to make you think critically about how “stuck” you really are and to have a helpful yet “random” hand in facilitating a push beyond the creative block. We feel that there are endless new commands for the tool that can be programmed but also many ways to integrate the tool into further incorporate the tool into your desk space.