What Do You Notice? What Do You Care to Notice?

Yesterday, I presented my Communication Design 2 experiential space. The assignment was to translate one medium into another – I was asked to translate an interactive website (tenbyten.org) into an exhibit/experiential space. The twist was that I also had to convey my point of view as how this pertains to me as a Media Designer.

Getting to the presentation seemed like quite a journey. Sketches, exhibit space investigations, more sketches, mini mock-ups, writing and rewriting my process and ambitions, scanning, reading, searching, editing, designing, printing, cutting, wrapping…And through this all I rehearsed in my mind what this whole process meant to me, and I had to take note of the changes emerging in my understanding of the entire experience.

About the Exhibit
The exhibit was titled “What Do You Notice? What Do You Care to Notice?” I wanted people to see how the affordances of a 3-D space could allow people to feel more engaged about the news. I attempted to translate the flat space of the news (particularly in newsprint and web-based news) into an actual space. I also attempted to convey how the physical engagement with the news articles could assist in developing a closer, more personal experience with context that often seems so distant from many of our own lives. The exhibit was meant to also redefine the intentions of traditional headlines. If a headine’s purpose is to catch a reader’s attention, how can scale, context and tactility do the same, or better? The experiential space opened up opportunities to think about other ways to push this idea further. What if these cubes were digital? What if every side changed out every hour? What if you could sit on these cubes? E-paper? OLED screens perhaps? And where would a space such as this exist successfully? And can we, as designers, compel people to interact with them? How would such a space change conversations around current events, or change social interactions with one another and with objects in space? The questions are endless, but that only means there are more possibilities to push this further so it might one day (cross my fingers) exist in the real world.

How might one enable the viewer to continue to explore the message beyond the experiential space?…by giving away takeaway cards!

These were printed on newsprint and mounted on cardstock. The flipside said: “We are captured by the provocative. Our ambitions and interests allow us to delve deeper, beyond our curious first impressions. We seek to know how the world is evolving around us. But how do we seek for answers?”

This side of the box focused on significant words pulled from the headlines.

People were free to move the cubes around in order to configure and display their own point of view

Great Moments in Super Studio

The gang kickin’ back and checking out a ceiling projection idea where family members could text messages to the ceiling that would be visualized in a way that could convey mood as well as provide a new space for conversation and storytelling.

Here is our lovely visiting professor, Ms. Shona Kitchen getting cozy on one of our steaming media ideas! The Pink Sausage will never die!

Ping is testing out an idea that included a webcam attached to a person, along with an earpiece and microphone. Where did we get that mannequin and old antique wheelchair? We have a prop room with things galore.

Adam, Julie and Yu-Seung conversing about the dining table project.

A model made by Julie to help get a better feel of how the different scenarios could work out in a home.

The Super Studio Blog is Up!

We formed a blog to help document our Super Studio experience this term. Super Studio is a year long design research course here in the MDP. This blog is focused on our work for this term (our 2nd term as Super Studians). Check it out.

To learn more about this year’s Super Studio go here.

The End is Just the Beginning

It’s week 14 here at Art Center. It’s our final week for the Fall term. The graduating thesis students presented their work today and are preparing for the Grad Show this Thursday and Friday. We M1’s have had some remaining things to finish up as well – a transmedia term paper and a portfolio website. Having to do these two things isn’t even half as hard as all the assignments and presentations we had to conquer last week, but still, I never said it was easy either. I barely made it out of here alive last week.

Wrap up discussions this week weren’t so much about wrapping up, but more about what’s next now that we know what we know. We ended our last Super Studio I class with a discussion about our next steps and our anticipated goals for next semester. This term, we spent researching and analyzing four families using streaming media devices, and next term we are using our findings and analysis to create new media technologies that will play a role in the family dynamic. As much as I want a vacation, I have a feeling my month off over the holidays will still be spent thinking about next term. That’s the nerd in me I suppose. But I guess it’s also an indication of how much I love what I’m doing.

As media design researchers, it is not only our job to creatively and visually represent our analysis of our findings, but it is also our responsibility to take those findings much further, and develop solutions and spaces where culture and society can expand and evolve in a way that is positive and thoughtful.

Something I learned this term is that nothing is ever done. Everything is always just beginning. Even the website I just completed is just the beginning. I posted it and all I want to do now is add and edit it. I suppose that’s one the affordances technology allows us to do. Sometimes that’s good. Sometimes, finishing and closing the book on something isn’t a bad idea either. But I’ll also add that there’s a difference between being stuck on something and improving it. Many of us M1’s struggle to understand the difference, but that’s why we’re here – for praxis.