Gian Pablo @ ITP

I've always been fascinated by the Yucca Mountain Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, because of the fascinating challenge posed by its long-term toxicity: how to ensure that the danger of the place is communicated over the next 10,000 years.

For this project, Tom Jenkins and I remixed documentation having to do with the design of a permanent marker system designed to outlast our civilization, in the form of a two-channel video installation.

The installation consists of 4 translucent screens, irregularly torn and ripped, with two simultaneous video projections, one from each side. From the front, the projection is a selection of material from the WIPP design specification, including proposed solutions from the design team. From the back, the projection is of amorphous, Cerenkov blue clouds and atomic cloud chamber experiments. Over the 5 minute course of the the video loops, the background loop becomes brighter and brighter, penetrating the holes in the screens and eventually overwhelming the data projection.

Continue reading "This Place: a radioactive remix" »

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Our brief was to propose a monument to replace Tony Rosenthal's "Alamo" in Astor Place.

I developed an idea for "Astor Cine Tower", a tower covered with screens that show mini-movies based on footage captured by surveillance cameras in Astor Place. A picture is shown below. You can also watch a video rendering.

I was initially inspired by the very large amounts of film-making activity I see in this area: it seems like every week a movie is being is shot in this area, and I know that eventually I'll be pointing out familiar scenes to friends, when it is shown. I thought of capturing this excitement, but with a much shorter delay time, a way to make everyone the star of their own movie.

I think this would work well with the site: the island in the middle of Astor Place is not a very appealing place (no benches, no trees), so a monument that can be appreciated from afar would be a good idea.

In addition, there are already surveillance cameras in and around Astor Place, that could be a good source for footage to be edited into "mini-movies" in realtime.

Continue reading "Astor Cine Tower: a media machine building" »

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The assignment was to create a portrait of a character, using 2-3 different points of view within a single medium.

Eric and I chose to portray a character under surveillance, a mysterious figure with weird effects on cameras, whose apartment is searched while away. Two monitors, reminiscent of those used by security guards, show video: one channel tracks the character as he leaves the apartment and visits a graveyard; the other channel takes us on a furtive search inside the apartment.

The video is intentionally degraded, for a number of reasons: it is more consistent with the setting, a surveillance scenario; it reflects the character's distorting effect on cameras; and finally, by making it more difficult to make out key details, it attempts to sharpen the attention of the viewers of the piece.

You can watch a high quality Quicktime video of the piece here

More detail after the link...

Continue reading "Portrait of a character - the Jankowski project" »

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Our brief was to make an "exploded comic", a short narrative in three dimensions, using comic conventions and forms as the discourse.

We quickly settled on the idea of using a commonly known joke as our narrative, without thinking of a specific example. We ended up using the well-worn "why did the chicken cross the road" joke as the basis of our piece.

At first glance, it is pretty obvious what the setup is: a chicken crossing a road is all we need to understand this. However, there is a bit of subtlety - instead of a punchline, the chicken is wondering why anyone is interested in its road-crossing activity.

The third dimension is used to represent time, with the road bringing everything together spatially. Consistent color schemes for the chicken and the man are used to ensure that they are "read" as being the same things, at different times. Comic book tropes are used throughout - thick outlines, flat colors, thought bubbles, elongated body shape to represent motion, expressions, etc. The road is built with false perspective, to prevent the piece from being read as a diorama or a model.

While the piece is simple, it triggered off a pretty intense process of reflection on what makes jokes funny, and what works and doesn't work visually.

Continue reading "Project Documentation for Exploded Comic" »

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The brief for this assignment was to prepare a personal map, that showed a series of events over time, and could be understood quickly. In addition, I chose an additional constraint, not to include any text.

For my personal map, I prepared an overview map of my genetic history. A genetic history maps the route that my ancestors took ever since humanity left Africa. My primary source is a genetic survey that I participated in a couple of years ago - however this only goes up until about 10,000 years ago, so in order to really personalize it I had to fill in the final stages.

Key design elements are:

1) Top left - a DNA spiral to show that that is a genetic history
2) Bottom left - a legend showing the timescale, with a diagram of the earth going around the sun to show that the scale is years
3) Most of the information is on a map of the world, on which arrows show the migration route
4) The arrows showing the migration route are color-coded, in accordance to the timescale legend

I wanted to make this a personal map, so I did a few things: first, I went for a rough, hand-drawn style and muted tones: this is a handmade object; second, I updated the migration route to include my great-grandparent's trip across the Atlantic; and third, I added little vignettes with stick figures to mark specific milestones on the journey.

Continue reading "Project documentation for personal map assignment" »

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