September 16, 2007
September 22, 2007
Provoking Magic: Lighting of Ingo Maurer
INGO MAURER AT THE COOPER-HEWITT
The Ingo Maurer show was a total blast. I was running late to get there, so i only had about 45 minutes to spend in the museum, but it was a great experience anyways. The best part of the visit was that Ingo Maurer was actually present in the museum giving a walk through with what i am assuming were graduate students. It was very interesting to see all of his models, some small, some really small, some a little bigger, and be able to peak into his process of both coming up with the ideas and starting to realize them.
He was talking about one of his pieces composed of broken plates and silverware, the one that in Italian says "Porca Miseria" (Damn). Someone had asked him if he made a model of that one as well, and he was explaining how for that specific chandelier it was more a matter of actually physically playing with the pieces making sure they were in harmony with each other. I believe he had sketches for that, but no prototype. I thought it was interesting to know that even such a designer, can fluctuate and change method depending on the nature of the object he is working with at that specific moment.
My favorite pieces:
September 23, 2007
SKETCHES FOR DESIGN ICON
PROCESS
Reading about Fukasawa, i remembered about this ceiling lamp he created for Swarovski that i plan on re-making for my home, as a way to tap into his process and understand his great aesthetics a little better. Some EL wire, some metal wire and some beading and i think that's it!
Here are some sketches form my sketchbook about ideas on lamps i want to try to work on in the next few months. Ideas come every day and they work off of existing objects and concentrate on the type of gesture.
I thought that light should also tell time so I am working with my husband on creating a system of lamps that tell different portions of time.
Some technology i am really interested in using.
Speaking of design icons, Apple and light design i am thinking about concentrating a part of my time on re-inventing wall switches.
September 30, 2007
RITUAL, FETISH, OR VICE
SCENARIOS
* walking into a dark house/room
* in the kitchen, when cooking, when one has full hands and needs to turn on or off lights
* when one needs ladders to change bulbs or regulate direction of spotlights
* medical environment
* when around the dinner table and need to dim lights
NEEDS
* a need for a certain aesthetic (contemporary, retro, modern, baroque etc...)
* medical and hygiene related needs
* better accessibility
* more playfulness
* less power consumption
* smaller
* a need to reinvent the gesture
* my personal need to do so
OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
* back lit/glow in the dark/night light inserted in wall switch
* activated with something other than hands (i find the clapper very ironic)
* more ubiquitous, such as on tables, embedded in lighting, in chandeliers
* networked
* aesthetically more pleasing
* could me more playful, less played out, more innovative, with a touch of sarcasm to help people gain perspective when home
* should use less electricity by usign DC powered LEDs or LED bulbs
* could always be smaller in size
THINGS THAT BUG ME WITH HOME LIGHTING
* the lack of attention we put into the act of turning on the lights
* how ugly some light fixtures and especially low energy ones are
* the amount of space wall switches take to fulfill only one or two functions
PROJECT
I am known for making useless objects, like a gigantic bracelet, an interactive sewer grate and a musical bazooka. My process does start with need finding, but it only generally revolves around me and solely me. I have the need to make this object and i am going to make. That's it.
My process changes everytime and sometimes the purpose comes half way through the prototyping. In this case i am not sure yet what scenario i am going to focus on, but what i plan on doing is, by the end of the semester, creating a new light control system, a new lamp and maybe a chandelier. I want to see if i can build a lamp or a wall socket and then see if i can add or re design any aspect of it.
MATERIALS NEEDED
* Tinker.it MP3 player module
* Qprox sensors like the Qwheel and Qslide
* Ultrabright LEDs
* LED light bulbs and lamp bases
October 14, 2007
F... YOU, FUKUSAWA!
WHAT I DID
So I started the light-project thinking i wanted to focus on wall switches and wanted to reinvent the gesture, but i sadly found out that the 2 QProx boards (QWheel and QSlide, E511 and E411) were being discontinued and were considered obsolete by the manufacturer. They were apparently replacing them with a different kit number E 1106 which Digikey was not going to have it for another 7 weeks. Crazy. So, I decided to make my first lamp. I took Fukusawa's Cosmo 1 and Cosmo 2 as model and ordered the following 'ingredients':
- 70 feet of the Aqua 2.5 brightest EL wire
- Inverter
- 12V dc transformer
- beads
- light kit to hold light bulb
- 36 LED spotlight
- canopy
- metal wire for structure
I could call this partially a failure, but the process was definitely useful and a good learning experience, so this is how it went:
LAMP PROCESS
Materials needed and Swarovski beads. My first intention was actually to copy Fukusawa's lamp to figure out how much it was actually worth since on most websites the piece was marked as not purchasable.
After a few documented difficulties, I came up with a different form.
I made a metal 'soul' for the lamp in order to help shape the EL wire, but i realized that i would not have enough wire to cover it up well, the budget constraint allowed only for 70 feet to be purchased. I decided to make it cylindrical.
The process was long, tangled and tedious, but under some circumstances it could have almost been a form of meditation. The Zen of the Basket Weaving... and here are the canopies that I managed to find.
I had a few choices of light bulbs, but i decided to go for the LED spotlight, to test out the durability and the electrical usage. I found this specific light bulb inexplicably heavy, I am not sure if all LED bulbs weight this much, but I could not find any other ones outside the ones that Lighting Plus sells. On line they were also on backorder. John helped me in hanging it up.
This is what it looks like installed as bathroom light fixture. The ideal scenario for this lamp is as night light on while taking a bath. It adds a classier and more sophisticated look to the bathroom with the preciousness of the Swarovski crystals. It serves the purpose of adorning an LED spot light as well as create a specific magical atmosphere when the EL wire is turned on.
Lamp with bathroom light on.
Lamp with both EL wire and LED bulb on.
Lamp with both EL wire and LED bulb on in the dark.
EL wire on only.
FUK LAMP VIDEO:
CONCLUSIONS & PROBLEMS
- The inverter for the EL wire takes too much room and emanates a very annoying sound. I need to look into that and make a portable inverter or try to find a way to insert it in the ceiling. Hence the problem of the two separate power sources.
- It was very laborious and still expensive, if on the market and produced, this lamp would definitely come out to be costly, but at least low in power consumption and i think certainly attractive.
- Aesthetics definitely plays a role, i wish i could have made a more defined prototype, but this was the best for my possibilities this time around. The hand weaving was definitely somewhat frustrating at times.
But i do believe that the atmosphere it creates in the dark was worth the endless hours...
- The LED bulb is too heavy, so i might substitute with a more attractive and smaller bulb, maybe interestingly shaped.
October 20, 2007
ITERATION
Many are the projects that would need more time, more critique and more feedback. From one of my very first interactive projects: a coat hanger where you would hang life size portraits of people, to my college thesis that still is missing smells, to the last project i did for Rome which would need the last iteration.
Right now I am a little split between these 2 and by Monday i will figure out which one I plan on taking on first:
1. As an artist I have always be interested in memories. Their significance, their emotional impact, their vividness, their lies, their interpretation. Researching a few years back, for a piece that centered around the experience of exile, i came to the conclusion that smells are the fastest triggers of memories and remembrance, as they act so immediately and without a conscious filter to bring us back to the exact moment and place that smell was experienced. The fascination, for me, is that the same smell can bring so many people to different times and dimensions and because of that i think the term 'interactive' takes a whole new meaning and form. It's no longer a path, a planned out journey for the 'user' but a personal and secret one, set up by the artist who has no control over the actual result. I want to deepen my research on smells and finally actually manage to compile a few key smells and user test them.
2. In Rome I proposed the idea of using the famous manholes all over the city, that most tourists and residents are familiar with, as a new way to navigate the city by assigning them a toll free number that once called would give useful information such as directions to attractions, restaurants, cafe's and the location of the nearest taxi stand. This was a way to help tourists not to get lost in Rome as well as raising awareness of the malfunctions and poor-maintainence of these italian design/architectural icons. What i would need to do right now is to find the right type of sticker, print it, apply it and purchase a toll free number to see if the great response i received in Rome would actually turn into the desired result.
October 29, 2007
ITERATION TEST 1
This week I started thinking about the scents that I was going to test out. My plan is not to try to recreate a specific experience for people, but i rather want to exploit certain scents that would fit into the environment i plan to build, reminiscing of an abandoned apartment in Italy, and that would be iconic and above cultural differences. Some scents are obviously very geographically-tied and I wish i could use that element of unknown-ness as well as the familiar elements of certain smells that almost act as universal triggers.
I started by ordering some samples of natural, and chemically processed scented oils with these fragrances:
25932|Vervain Scent
25704|Bread Scent
25765|Tobacco Scent
24279|Mimosa Scent
20376|Rain Scent
24158|Oregano Scent
25602|Sunflower Scent
26278|Magnolia Scent
24852|Basil Scent
24261|Baby Powder Scent
24347|Myrrh Scent
20102|Amaretto Scent
20784|Lavender Scent
23731|Anise Scent
While I wait on those to arrive, I started with the real things:
here is a picture of Vanilla scent, Cinnamon and Clove scent, Lavender scent, Chocolate powder, Grounded coffee beans.
I tested one on m husband and this is what Lavender reminded him of:
"It brings me back to Sunday afternoons when my mom used to put me into bed, i was eight or nine years old, it has something something to do with my mom, after she took a shower, i think my mom used to wear something like that. It reminds me of my parents bathroom above all. And it's funny that it's Sunday afternoon now and it reminds me of Sunday afternoons."
November 04, 2007
DESIGN WORKSHOP PRESENTATION
Here's a link to my presentation on Iteration project:
