#02 Weekly Updates, Progress & more
Monday, Aug 31st - Friday Sep 4th
Personal Work – Project Description & Goals
Monday, Aug 31st -
F2026 - ART 5220-01 Advanced Ceramics Studio
Current Thesis Direction & Topic exploration:
“The interdisciplinary nature of community-oriented design, installations, and experiential design”
The main goal of the thesis is to create interactive experiences that prompt engagement, conversation, and connection, and that rely on community participation. Projects function when 1 participant is experiencing them and continue to expand and evolve as more people in the space participate and engage.
The involvement of ceramics will enhance that further – the goal is to create a system of vessels designed in the same style and aesthetic as the rugs [reframed project] – the ceramics, hollow cubes with openings big enough for hardware to be placed into and sound to escape from.
The goal of the completed design is to be able to grab a cube [off a table or off the wall] – once the cubes are close enough to a rug for the sensors to activate, then sound will begin to play. Participants can place the ceramics on a rug and leave them or move them between rugs to discover differences in the sound. Creating an instrument using unexpected materials and forms.
*Photo of the weekInspiration column
Summer Project | Lamp Shade
Kaiser Suidan | MAC NEW ART
Kaiser Suidan | Ceramic Cubes Modern Wall Art
Artist - AMANDA SHOPPEL
Amanda Shoppels' cohesive designs and color palette, and the uniformity of Kaiser Suidan’s work, interested me most. After spending time looking at both their work & Inma Bermúdez's work from Week #01, I began to lean more toward uniform cubes [mostly open on one side to allow equipment to be placed inside and sound to exit], with a color palette inspired by the rugs and a built/carved in way to hang the pieces from the gallery wall.
THESIS PROCESS PLAN/MAP - Check & to-do lists
Sunday, Aug 30th -
The Assignment:
Week 2 - Design {what you think} Your Process {will look like]
Exhibition visit, Inspiration & research
Friday, Aug 28th -
OLOID | Virginia Ellyn Melnyk
Textiles [tuffting] in the thesis is the most recent addition, and it has left me fascinated and intrigued by new solutions, designs, and ways to incorporate fabric and textiles that I hadn't paid much attention to before the end of last semester.
FAIRY FORTS | Virginia Ellyn Melnyk
SUMMER IGLOO | Virginia Ellyn Melnyk
READINGS, BOOKS, LISTS & QUOTES
Sunday, Aug 30th -
Class reading ARTGR 5880-01 - Contemporary issues in graphic design history
Thinking through Graphic Design History: Challenging the Canon - By Aggie Toppins
“Social impact design is now well established. Practitioners use interdisciplinary and co-creative methods to bring design solutions to societal problems”
- Introduction | Page 11
Next reading/ on the to-do list: [Mentioned in today’s reading]:
“Designer as Producer” by Ellen Lupton
https://designopendata.wordpress.com/portfolio/the-designer-as-producer-2004-ellen-lupton/
Toppins described the essay:
“Framed authorship not just as a literary enterprise, but as the production of multimedia projects that engage audiences in co-creating meaning”
- Introduction | Page 10 | Thinking Through Graphic Design History: Challenging the Canon - Aggie Toppins
Meetings, Sketches, Brainstorming & Development
Wednesday, Sept 02 -
Through sketching, ideation, presentations, brainstorming, budgeting, and meetings with committee members, the direction of the work became even clearer. Projects that create natural opportunities for people to connect, explore, and participate in the same spaces simultaneously. Connecting without needing to say the first word.
If you have ever taken the bus on campus at Iowa State University, there is something very interesting that happens, something I assume happens in more places and campuses than I have been exposed to. But here on our campus and in Ames, when people get on the bus and look for an empty seat, they won’t sit in the middle unless the bus is completely packed; then people begin to sit right next to each other.
Sometimes someone finds an open middle seat and sits down. Still, there is this sort of tension surrounding it: the person next to you shifts, even if you were never bumping into each other to begin with, in the same scenario that I have seen countless times, since I take the bus every morning to class and get back on it to get home once the day ends. If someone on either end gets off at their stop, the person in the middle seat moves over; if they don’t, the person “trapped” in the corner keeps looking over, almost confused about why the person next to them didn’t move.
All of this is to talk about how people react to being in specific spaces, how the culture of the room, the bus, the environment, and the established “norms,” no matter how odd they seem, dictate how people react for the duration of their time. When you walk onto an empty bus, you wouldn’t take a seat right next to the only other person on the bus; that behavior seems to have carried over even when the bus is full. People would rather stand and lean than sit right next to another person.
If a person’s initial experience is isolation and distance, that feeling will influence the rest of their time in a gallery space. If the exhibition space and projects prompt communication and collaboration when you first walk through the door, the hope is that feeling, attitude, and willingness to collaborate aren’t only established but carry through even after people leave a specific project or space.
Non-Project-Based tasks [required for graduation]
Tuesday, Sept 01 -
Using Monday.com
Projects shared by professors, friends, or peers
Wednesday, September 02 -
The Everybright
The Everybright
The Everybright
Nam June Paik | Random Access
Nam June Paik | Random Access
Daily Tous Les Jours | Walk Walk Dance
Daily Tous Le Jours | Walk Walk Dance
“Collective experiences have the power to create new spaces for play.”
- Daily Tous Les Jours
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer | Transparency Display
More to Read - Recommended by Committee Member
Friday, September 4 -
Rethinking Curating: Art After New Media - by Beryl Graham and Sarah Cook
Rugs & Models - Progress:
Wednesday, September 2 -
No final - Only Ideation & Brain storming
The challenge has been creating a rug that fits the current design style but still feels like a stand-alone piece; it needs to be inviting and subtly encourage people to step onto it!
Thursday, September 3 -
This option [option 01] creates plenty of room for play, lots of space for pressure sensors, and many different ways people can interact with and use the space. The design feels sturdy and solid, more inviting for people to climb up to a higher seat, and makes people feel safer exploring the space.
The concept and idea need to be reworked and refined in terms of weight and scale, as well as ways to join the block together for easier transportation. These details, along with where the pressure sensors will be placed and systems to conceal and protect the wires, will be addressed in 3D modeling software & second phase of ideation.
This will also be compared to more options in next week’s post!
Ceramics - process, Ideation, and final decisions:
The process of incorporating ceramics into my thesis work began with ceramic low-set tables, tables that would be used when someone is sitting on the ground. From there, I explored creating ceramic elements that fit and pair with wood to make a chair, building armrests, and testing hand rests with air-dry clay. From there, I began to sketch Ideas of an oversized pot that could be bent into a chair, creating a slumped form representing people and bodies in the furniture; then the idea to eliminate the chair in that idea and hang the piece up as a statement was being explored, suspending the piece from the gallery wall. Around this time, the idea and direction of community-oriented design began to take shape. The projects were no longer focused on furniture; they became tools and platforms to bring together a temporary community- projects that evolve and transform through time, interaction, location, and the number of people interacting with them at once. This meant the ceramics project idea needed to change dramatically, which is where the research into artists like Kaiser Suidan and Amanda Shoppel began, exploring how ceramics could serve as a vessel that allowed for more interaction. Some ideas explored included connecting the textiles with the ceramics and creating a large instrument where the location of the ceramics controlled the audio output. After meetings, discussions, research, budgeting, and more Ideation, it became clear that the ceramics no longer fit the new direction. After a tough decision, the thesis project moving forward will not include ceramic work to preserve the concept, idea, and intention behind the work.
Resourcses and Links I don’t want to lose!
Last Week’s [ WEEK #1 ] To-Do List:
Reassemble tufting frame [currently in garage] - Taking inventory of what supplies I have left over from the last rug project - Reframed.
Community-oriented Furniture design - Sketch, ideate, 3D model, and present a more finalized idea inspired by the content above.
Research ceramic artists - write a project proposal report! Present to the ceramics professor.
“Designer as Producer” by Ellen Lupton.
Sunday Aug 30th
Monday Aug 31st
Monday Aug 31st
Monday Aug 31th
COMPLETE
COMPLETE
COMPLETE
COMPLETE
HIGH-PRIORITY TO-DO LIST ITEMS
Design rugs and create finalized digital pattern sets - based on finalized sizes + shapes
Order all necessary tufting supplies based on the inventory list (leftover materials from past projects)
Start on the physical process of the 1st Rug - as soon as ordered items get in
Build 2 more models for woodworking + 3D model, more finalized one
Saturday, Sep 5th
Saturday, Sep 5th
TBD
Sunday, Sep 6th
IN PROGRESS
COMPLETE
IN PROGRESS
IN PROGRESS
+MORE ON EVERYTHING NEXT WEEK!
Thank you :)