W4, Field Trip

Friday Forum in Duke U.

Golan Levin works passionately, communicates clearly, and inspires greatly. Levin is one of the best visual/verbal communicators among media artists.

Lesson:
what I think, how I understand is a truth. I would like to represent the truth what I believe in my own way.
computation is not only way to collect data. I would like to reconsider the data in a way I can think.
Learning new media viewpoints, I would like to communicate with people in different fields, classes, and cultures through own work with versions in graphic design.

P2, W4, Taxonomy of Interface of tools

Assumption in Electric powered tool usage:
safety, capabilities of the machines, heavy duty, procedure, efficiency, instruction,
dimensionality, mechanics
(materials lab tools, garage tools)

Sorting:

1. Behavior of interface: Movement
up to down
left to right
inside to outside
push to pull
swing in to out
lightly press (buttons under screen)to heavily press (power on/off)
rotate
click

2. Shape of interface: Function
bar, handle, clamp, dial, switch

3. Effort in operation (Mechanic's sensibility): Skills in adjustment
numerals based (effortlessly change figure, symbol, number)
duration for adjustment (quick, take a bit longer)
pressure on interface (light, heavy, loosen, tight)

NEXT:
effort is human perspective. effect is machine-side. and think about procedure of using interface. (i.e. after adjust bar handle and then lock with hold firmly with clamp before press start)
degree of abstraction to representation (i.e. turtle/rabbit represent a speed dial )
etc:
material of interface: metal, plastic

reference:
Materials Lab

Mechanics
Universal milling machine
Raguna Tools

P2, W4, First Trial

scale of manufacturing:
low tech to high tech
raw materials to finished goods (to manufacturing otehr, complex products)
domestic (household) appliance to automobiles (to airplanes)
wholesalers to retailers to consumers

mass production (flow production to serial production)
craftsmanship is workbench itself (not the training)
Each workbench is different/ each set of tools at each workbench limited
assembly lines to sub-assemblies:
mass-production factory looks more like the skeleton of a fish
than a single line.

pro(reduction of nonproductive effort of all types.)
fast.
no human error/variation.
low labor costs.
larger quantity.

CON(inflexibility to alter a design or production process)
production line must stop in adding implement.
products are identical and very similar. (no variation)
Variation works in applying finishes and decorations at the end of the productions.

vs craft production

history:
apprenticeship (skilled artisan with assistants)
industrial revolution
industrial process (raw materials to semi-finished goods to second firm)


functions of tools:
tool is an entity used to interface between two or more domains
that facilitates more effective action of one domain upon the other.

Cutting tools

Moving tools

measuring tools

Shaping tools

Fastening tools

tool substitution:

“One tool does it all” is a motto of some importance for workers who cannot practically carry every specialized tool to the location of every work task.

“All tools can be used as hammers.”
Nearly all tools can be re purposed to function as a hammer,
even though very few tools are intentionally designed for it.

Next:
narrow down a scope of the tools in manufacturing in terms of electric domestic tools which have interfaces(i.e. buttons, controllers). think about representation other than conventional x,y metric way of sorting.

W4, Idle, Three Muses

I realize my mother blog is getting busy with a lot of works and rebuking my laziness in task without saying any word. Although she does multitasking, she teaches me and feed me 24/7. I have seen neither her day-off nor light-off. Among of her exceeding number of rooms, however, I feel fairly calm and slow in a room, Studio Musing, than other rooms, better to call glass chambers. I haven't played anything in the room yet because I feel I may drop her a precious tea pot from the high shelve. I hope someday I can take a nap after lunch on the transparent couch in the room.

A part of room name, musing, bring me flashback days in fall 2007. In those days, I was interested in developing a sticker system, a form of transforming signage upon street conditions, to lead strangers to the park(ing) project, shifting a street parking space to a street side park temporarily. On top of existing the park(ing) project, I was intrigued by a sticker signage that is inspired by the nine muses. I specifically chose three muses; Calliope (epic), Thalia (comedy), Urania (astronomy) among nine muses. I do not remember my point to frame muses in sticker versions, I remember, however, my experience in the project stimulates other challenges having the shake of lesson from the muses.

Regardless the past project experience, I think I like a way of thinking through three muses; epic, comedy, astronomy.


It's time to move the subject. Be ready to dive into wonderful ocean of manufacturing with fascinating diving equipments/gears/tools. Take a deep breath.

In ready for the diving, I want to take a deep breath with the maxim "A bad workman quarrels with his tools." But, I would rather like to appropriate meaning as "A good workman always appreciates with his tools" and take it positively.

P2, W3, Tools in Manufacturing

Class brainstorming in ichat. What a rich it is!

I initially collect things/events through two questions
What if tools manufactured...?
What if tool interfaces could...?

W3, Idle, Lamination

Thinking about tools immediately flash back to last winter vacation...

(Excerpt from an electronic mail on first Saturday in 2009)
I have got back Raleigh yesterday and swept my apartment floor. I was visiting my brothers to help his family to be settled in Pecos (city of Rodeo) in west Texas. They temporarily stayed in a small apartment since they moved from Boston in summer 2008. They bought a fifty-years old house. The old house was partially wrecked but firmly built with fine materials. My brother, M.D. physician, had been working odds and ends over a month by himself. His behavior was exactly same what my dad have been doing. Because they doubted shamming handyman. I realized M.D.s in my family were more picky than designers in activities.
Although, my brother and I were overwhelmed by to-do-lists, we decided to diminish the lists and set priorities among starters; painting, flooring, and roofing. Materials and tools were ready but our experience and skills were not. Having the flooring above all, we just started laying a laminate floor piece from the left corner in bedroom with scratching our head. We were suffered literally in each step of laminate assembling, ironically, we were, however, encouraged by seeing its slow expanding (2-D) and scene of interior reflection (3-D). Self-taught flooring motivated us.

In enduring hard(wood)ships, we learned the flooring needed a perfect balance in the process of trimming, fitting, and leveling. Without thinking next steps, a micro gap affected fatal deformation in a following row. There was neither a function of Automate-Sheet nor Undo in the Photoshop window. There was only straightforward hand-work one after another on the cold floor. A hairline of blank directly caused irreparable loss of material, time, and labor. We tried to have a hunch that owned rhythm and pattern through doing. We had to focus all of our senses in custom-made sketching, sawing, hammering under our control. Interestingly, the process of flooring was not simple repetition, every step has own difference upon its condition of ground levels, length of hardwood pieces, and shape of wall edges. Therefore, human touch only worked in flooring. The flooring was a fascinating experience to me to know nothing for granted.

Luckily, we had completed major flooring and painting over 3300 sq. ft. by parent's visiting day, the Christmas. They hardly believed what we were done and how things happened in the old house during a week or so. Then, they joked us have a back-up job in future. I feel like I can rebuild my apartment floor now. Because the floor squeaks and holds dirt in floor gaps. Do you need me your house re-flooring in future?


Human-generated intervals on a machine-generated ruler.


Lesson:
lamination, a bundle of failure work, honesty in process, growth after pain, value in restrictions, concentration in desperate conditions, owning rather than just knowing, invisible (infrastructure) over visible (superficiality), flow under control, my rhythm and pace in my work

I like lamination because it has good interfaces.

P2, W3, Thoughts

Terms:
thinking; contemplation; speculation; meditation
effect; sake; result; upshot


What it looked like tools is lost in thought (sake, function, control, place, order...)?

What if tools manufactured (burn bread, charcoal, re-size clothes, measure dimensions...)?

what if manufacturing sound like (bell, runny nose, cow, snoring, lullaby)?

What it tools (acted like dominos, hide)?

W3, Opening project, Case study

What are the craft criteria in type design?

What degree can you build GOOD craft in the tool of system?

How can we distinguish characteristics between vernacular craft and bad craft?

P2, W3, Brainstorming and Exercise

Raleigh had snow yesterday...

As a first step in a second project, we have brainstorming session in Internet chatting and exercise session in exploration. After I contribute brainstorming in class, I choose a subject that is related to "what if a search tool felt like..." and inspect it through modeling. Assignments in exploration are not just building but speculating in terms of materiality, narrative, spatiality.






The day after Wednesday,
I twisted wires to explore another version of "what if a search tool felt like fuzzy?" on snow.

W3, Opening project, Case study

In the individual class, I begin to explore things about crafts through case studies. As my first project, I collect things that are bad, good, and weird artifacts from graphic design history to contemporary design environment. I choose each example of three, then analyze levels in each, have my opinion, and generate further questions in terms of craft.

Process:
1. where can I find bad one that is text-based and image-based?
2. I have got good ones
3. where can I find weird one? It might be better to search different sub-culture, vernacular, or other countries.

What is a barometer in judgment? Can I use an Utopian rules from Modernist perspective? What if peculiar conditions in craft were requiring new rules? What are good or bad things in low-tech or high-tech conditions and how those are changed?

Terms:
utility (perfect rationality) / usability, effectiveness / efficiency / efficacy, process / product, reliable, redundancy, quality control, function, purpose (cause and effect), locus of control, broaden and build, randomized controlled trial

P1, W2, Crit

Say Cheeese

P1, W2, Wrapping thing

I will intervene in an existing wrapping interface to reconfigure the condition of contact.
In order to intervene, I will identify wrapping of interest to me. And alter wrapping interface as design the circumstance of contact by addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. The outcome of wrapping will be in turn alter the relationship of the participant to the interface, as well as one's experience at the point of delivery.

I am interested in wrapping in terms of process (motion in time and space), care (think and respect contents), and reuse (adapt to change). I shift the condition of contact in wrapping by stacking, spreading, removing, tearing. The work of wrapping changes the relationship of the participant to the interface and one's experience at the moment of delivery.

e.g.
1. Show inside. A package is going to be safe.
2. Toss package. A package is going to rebound in delivery line.
3. Stack packages. Packages are going be fine.

NEXT STEP:
Packaging connotes mass-production, cooperation, and high-technology. I want to intervene the conditions of speed, accuracy, belt-line system through wrapping in Eastern perspective. The wrapping creates altered conditions such as caring person to person, dimensional changes in process and size of contents, and also reuse material. The wrapping conducts ownership, anticipation, and slow design.

W2, Idle II

What if wrapped wishes could be sliced into a bite size fruit or, trimmed to assemble another good wish?
- What sliced wrapped wish looks like a bite size apple? Activity is enjoying a fruity taste (self-pleasure,1D).
- What trimmed wrapped wish looks like wood flooring? Activity is doing lamination, assembling, and expanding x-y (2D).
- What trimmed wrapped wish looks like to build Lego block? Activity is finding a correct piece and building x-y-z (3D).javascript:void(0)

P1, W2, Questions, Wrapping

What wrapping looks like its form shift radically over time and upon a participant?

What if the form was controlled by another rule (e.g. counting-out game such as drawing straws, rock-paper-scissors, or punishment game such as russian roulette, toss juggling)?

What wrapping looks like infinite wrapping? What if wrapped content(e.g. scribbling thought) changed upon participants?

ASSUMPTIONS:
There are two or more participants.
Participants are diverse but trust each other.
Wrapped contents are not objects but activities or wishes.
Wrapped contents are growing or changing upon a participant.
Wrapping material and dimension are defined upon a purpose and function.

CASE:
"A" wraps his hope "1 (i.e. I wish to run 5 miles in 25 minutes)" with handkerchief.
Including handkerchief, "B" wraps her wish "2 (i.e. I wish to cook cheesecake tonight)" with glass box.
In addition glass box, "C" wraps his wish "3 (i.e. I wish to sleep 7 hours a day)" with cardboard.
Therefore, wrapping form and wrapped contents are shifted and accumulated upon participants.

NEXT STEP:
Instead of adding things, think a way to intervene (origin. between+come, come in as an extraneous factor or thing) wrapping.
Find a specific case of wrapping.
What it means a mojo of exploration to convince?
What if wrapping material was a fragile and transparent thing such as a glass wine cup or long standing lamp? Or

W2, Idle

KEYWORDS:
Wrapping paper (connotes waste or decorate or reuse in Western culture)
Wrapping fabric (connotes luck, especially red, in Chinese culture / lunch box, protect and carry in Japanese culture / Bojagi: silk, secure, and respect in Korea culture)
Handkerchief (connotes personal hygiene or unhygiene, old-fashioned accessory, folding, social-economic class, white flag: surrender or negotiation)

asso. Fichu, kerchief, Do-rag napkin, Veil, bandana, diaper, scarf, modesty, Rock-Paper-Scissors (asso. game selection method: coin toss, drawing straws or dice, Russian roulette)

HISTORY:
Bojagi is traditional Korean wrapping cloths, which were made for both everyday and ceremonial use.
Pattern of Bojagi
Form

W1, Idle II

What if packaging (ref. carrying, moving, containing) manipulates interface for time or space machine? What it looks like learning dimensions through packaging? (dot is mind, line or surface are cardboard, space is wrapped mind or object, time is traveling mind or object beyond physical space)

What are assumptions in packaging? Why do we consider packaging as decoration of contents? What it looks like radical packaging carries hidden contents? How can we carry sender's care in hidden contents? What if there is no label and show inside instead? What if packaging is endless play of closing and opening and adding things to snowball? What it looks like warmness of contents in process of packaging?

Why cardboard (brown paperboard or corrugated fiberboard) works as interface? How can cardboard be reformed? What is collect ratio (include quantity, number, size) for content? Will Peggy choose an appropriate box for her books when she is going to move out? Why U-haul box (defined various sizes, easy to hold) works well than Home depot box (bulky size, difficult to carry) in garage storage in my brothers?

What it looks like life cycle of cardboard? What it looks like to track temperature of places, surfaces (inside, outside) of fiberboard, and contents in moving? How can we facilitate interface in packaging?

KEYWORDS:
packaging (an activity of wrapping an object or group of objects, ritual activity of closing and opening)
cardboard (a material made from brown corrugated fiberboard, interface between in and out space)
stacking (only works with correct content, amount of contents, size, and care otherwise it breaks contents and lost way to move)

W1, Co-authoring

We will co-author a threaded opinion on ideas, notion and potential new trends suggested by Jonathan Harris in his TED Talk.
Process is recap his presentation, search relevant works, write provisional agree/disagree on his opinion, have pair opinion, and write-up with 850 words.

W1, Idle

Why do we design interface? What do we make? How can we speculate it? Who design it for whom? Where interface works?javascript:void(0)

Project 1, Week 1, Questions

What if an interface manipulates physics?
Function:
gravity and non-gravity, x-y-z and another, elastic and stiff material, push and pull, slippery and rough ground steering, fold and tear paper
Experience:
Real(true)-time activity and its tracking system, scale of movement condition, playground or play-desk or play-space...

What it looks like an interface that is an interface generator?
F:
adapting device, making virus, rebirth of gene, mutation of DNA
E:
deformation, changing characteristic

What if an interface that is not an interface (do not have a function of interacting)?
F:
seek and hide, control by wheel of fortune, random dice
E:
non-control, activation and deactivation, moment of panic or chaos, explore thing that creates opposite experience

Next step is narrow down experience (quality creating)

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