Block Party - GLOBE Course
A survey of my block in Brooklyn.
Party Poster - I printed it and hung around my block. The only Google Voice message I got was a call chastising me for not correcting the Internet-translated Italian I used.
For my final investigation for GLOBE I decided to build on my group work from Occudopt and try to create an intentional community like the one on the block next door. They always have a fun-ass block party every July so I thought “why couldn’t our block have one too?” So this is a document of my foray into block party organizing. Slow work but I hope it will happen summer of 2012! EDIT - it didn’t, still hasn’t. But now
New Bento - Major Studio 1
I set out to make a speculative nutrition piece that explores the convenience of portable food. By using the concept of bento (ancient Japanese slang for "convenience", modern Japanese art form) as a medium with which to investigate how people think about acquiring their food, where is comes from and what it takes to get their meal.
TailorAid Demonstration- Fashionable Technology
A public presentation of TailorAid at EYEBEAM in NYC
Documentation of a User Interface look and feel prototype
TailorAid is a measurement system utilizing the Microsoft Kinect with the OFxKinect library for Opensrameworks
The software uses real-time 3D measurements by combining digital video and infrared cameras to triangulate depth from 2D imagery. The output of the software is accurate body measurement data for sizing of ready-to-wear clothing and custom clothing.
TailorAid Research - Fashionable Technology
TailorAid in the shop.
TailorAid at home
TaiorAid for designers
NYC Cycling Safety - Creativity and Computation
The most frequently used excuse I hear for NOT wearing visibility safety gear among cyclists is simple vanity. This project aims to aesthetcize and simplify safety gear for cyclists by making it attractive and effective.
I'm hoping to make these items detachable from the garment so that no one jacket is the safety jacket. A cyclist would be able to wear protective gear no matter what they're wearing.
5 in 5 Day 5 - Major Studio 1
View food en route in a larger map
fOOD EN ROUTE RESOURCE MAP
Survival in NYC is the best some people can hope for. The word survive can have a negative connotation but access to free and at-cost food in NYC is really a practical matter of class and access. Especially when you consider that even growing your own food is not possible or even illegal. Some community garden memberships are free. Dumpster diving is free. Crab fishing off a dock with string and chicken bones is free. I don’t believe in freeganism as a viable lifestyle since it springs from wasteful practices that, if freegans achieved their aims, would cease to be a phenomenon. But eithin the context of the costs of feeding yourself in New York City it's an admirable "damn the man" attitude that I wish I was brave enough to try. I've started mapping places where I've seen what I believe to be higher quality discarded food, food growing or food being caught. Hopefully an ongoing project. Here are some links on finding free food, how to dumpster dive and a freegan map (a bit dated)
*This project was not my first idea. My attempts to acquire the parts needed to make what I originally wanted to make (a potato battery) did not happen in time
5 in 5 Day 4 - Major Studio 1
A Game of Squash - Processing Sketch
I designed this simple processing game to teach myself about the numerous sorts of squash that constantly show up in my CSA share. I never know what to do with them and it breaks my heart to see them eventually shrivel on my kitchen table only to be thrown away whole a month later. Squash are cheap, they keep well and and are full of general goodness so there's no reason not to eat 'em all up.
This project is a bit of a failure for me. I feel that I overlaid what I know how to do in web onto processing rather than coding something effective. But it was a great exercise for some coding practice.
UPDATE: Here is the archived source code on openprocessing.org.
5 in 5 Day 3 - Major Studio 1
Recipe Darlin’ Aggregator
The goal for this day’s project was twofold: to aggregate recipes form sites that i like into one place and to learn how to install and customize a hosted WordPress site on my own. Both need work but both are working, so who's complaining? plus I'm making ginger salmon for dinner! recipedarlin.me
Aggregation Results
recipedarlin.com screengrab
5 in 5 Day 2 - Major Studio 1
Hands-Free Shopping
Who doesn't look silly when carrying too many grocery bags in the city? As someone who will go pretty far out of the way for cheap, quality produce I've had my fair share of walks and bike rides that felt like I was setting off on the Oregon Trail.
When carrying delicious things a long distance, it's just impossible to fit it all in one bag and still have the weight distributed properly. I wanted to make a comfortable, portable, carrying aid that would also allow me to have at least one of my hands free. this would make my shopping trips less painful and potentially aid in doing so more frequently.
such modern burdens
Grocery Bra™ in action
prototype of the hands-free bag harness
sketch
5 in 5 Day 1 - Major Studio 1
Personal Food Guide Pyramid
I've decided to use this time to focus on food. Specifically on feeding myself. The act of consuming food has much cultural significance and yet in the last 100 years we've lost our natural priority to commune and sup together. Local bounty, seasonal specialties and annual feasts have lost their connection and meaning. Yet we are inundated with choice.So I've made my own food guide based on my own observations and preferences. Damn the man and his pyramid.
USDA Food Pyramid - 1996
In order to deal with this assault of choice we invented the Four Food Groups. Then the Food Guide Pyramid. Now there's Choose My Plate. All of them a weird visualization of a probable compromise between the USDA and the dairy, beef, corn, and soybean lobbies. But it's hard toss out, even with the knowledge of it's, um, less than nutritional inception. The food guide pyramid was the first data visualization to impact my life. But how did we get to this point? Do we need something like this to remind us of what it means to eat a good meal? And if one were to follow the classic food guide pyramid would you really be eating all that well?
US Food Administration - 1883
US food guide -1916
choosemyplate.gov - 2007
Five Projects in Five Days - Major Studio 1
Giuseppe Arcimboldo
Complete five projects in five days.
The Goal of this project is to create and complete one project each day, for five consecutive days. There are no rules or proscriptions for the projects that you undertake, but they must be built, and documented each day in entirety. The project will begin with each student defining a set of constraints for the week, then working with those constraints, following through and creating something, each day of the week.
Since beginning school, feeding myself has become a negative experience. I would like to change that so I am using food, both as a constraint for the project and as a constraint on my continued existence.
1) Determine your creative constraint. Constraints are always present in the design process. In this case, you define the constraint you will work with. Use this as an opportunity to explore a topic or theme you are interested in. Do not spend too much time belaboring over this part of the project, but give your constraints the consideration they deserve. (Your constraints are the outlying parameters you will establish for this experiment and will drive the results of this assignment.) Use your experience from the previous week mapping your interests and environment as inspiration to select your constraints. It can be as simple as a spectrum of colors, a set of words, or favorite quotes. Most important is that the constraints reflect your personality and outlook, and reflect an internal logic that you can explain when asked. Will your constraints be random, or will they reflect a question upon which you build upon to finally answer? The choice is up to you.
If you have difficulty with developing your own constraint, use a set of “chance operations”. John Cage, The Situationists, the Surrealists and many more have used chance operations to create synergistic constraints for their creative work or to break out of a creative blockage. Here are a couple ideas:
- Use the first verb in today’s newspaper to develop your work around; - Look at the words buzzing on twitter at this moment to inspire your work; - use this random set of 1-minute stories by John Cage to make a piece to: http://www.lcdf.org/indeterminacy/
or use Tristan Tzara’s advice: from Tzara’s “Dada Manifesto on Feeble & Bitter Love”: Take a newspaper. Take some scissors. Choose from this paper an article the length you want to make your poem. Cut out the article. Next carefully cut out each of the words that make up this article and put them all in a bag. Shake gently. Next take out each cutting one after the other. Copy conscientiously in the order in which they left the bag. The poem will resemble you. And there you are–an infinitely original author of charming sensibility, even though unappreciated by the vulgar herd.”
2) Execute and document your projects You are allowed to complete each project in any form or medium you like, but it must be finished and documented in one day. (Do not allow your discipline to waver on this point.) Starting and finishing is a necessary part of completing this assignment, and if you are diligent you should conclude the week with seven complete projects which exhibit conceptual and material integrity. Though the development cycle is short, the creative potential is very, high. In your documentation be sure to present your work consistently across the week and to visually develop a unifying presence for the work.
3) You cannot do this assignment incorrectly. There is no “wrong” way to do this assignment, but you can still do it badly if you do not commit fully. Put everything you can into each day’s project. Consider all aspects of what you create. Be cognizant of what you can start and finish. Go the extra step.
4) Read the accompanying assigned texts and write a one page paper which analyzes and reflects on your experience. Be sure to relate concepts and terminology introduced in the readings into your work.
Guiding Questions:
When is a project fully complete? How do you know you are “finished” with a project?
How does the framing of a project, its context, scope, and parameters, determine the content created? What is the relationship between concept and execution?
After completing your projects what do you think could have been improved? If you were to do another iteration of the project what would you change or refine?
Reading:
Excerpts from “Silence“, John Cage
“What Do Prototypes Prototype?” Stephen Houde and Charles Hill
“Experience Prototyping” Marion Buchenau and Jane Fulton Suri
Performance "Piece" - Fashionable Technology
The idea of fantastical human mutation has led me to think about a garment that could make itself. The only thing missing is intent. The human body can contribute that. There are many craft-based examples of the body literally making the textile piece.
Back strap weaving in Guatemala
Finger knitting
Hand crochet
Humans are defined by our incredible, contextually adaptable armature (finger, arms, legs). Even if we have incomplete armature we can adapt and perhaps improve upon what we had before. Taking the human body as Swiss army knife metaphor a step further, I believe we could make a method for the natural kinesthetic motions of the body to create a textile as natural motions occur. Below is a speculative visualization of what such an armature could be.
I have no clue how to literally go about making this happen though…nano-tech? 3D printing?
As a speculative exercise I created this extension armature to simulate extendable skins.
Super Hero - Fashionable Technology
Rogue of the X-Men. Absorbs all power, strength and memories of anyone she touches.
I was a huge X-Men fan when I was a kid, probably because they had the coolest X-women and the. 90s cartoon on repeat. Two of my favorites were Rogue and, even though she was hugely annoying, Jubilee. Both channeled power in different forms.
I didn't realize it as a child fanlady but most of the female characters in X-Men channeled natural and super natural phenomena. None that I know of were given pure brute strength except for Rogue and her only because she absorbed power uncontrollably. This led me to think of the most physically powerful and superhero-esque person I know of, who is real: Aimee Mullins.
Two of my favorite artists, Matthew Barney and Alexander McQueen, have been inspired by and worked with Aimee.
Aimee wearing Greek god-like prosthetics in a still from Matthew Barney’s epic multimedia piece The Cremaster Cycle.
Mutant Designing
Some initial sketches I made in class, mostly with very silly more than serious results. The bottom right idea is my favorite. Madame Flea has powerful lower body mutation that allows her to jump up to 80x her own height.
Chicken Girl has a crazy head waddle that also intercepts any radio frequency and serves as a broadcaster.
Sweater Woman channels electricity and radiation and can control the surface to transform like an animated knitted play-doh.
sketches for Chicken Girl, Sweater Woman, and Madame Flea.
