Category: LookingOutwards-08

Looking Outwards -08- Jaclyn Saik

I watched the speech by Kate Hollenbach, is a programmer and new media artist from LA who works with a lot of technologies that and compute human gestures and the relationships between the human body and the objects in space around them. I chose her because a lot of her work is inspired by the idea of looking at humans through the perspective of the machines that they use, mainly phone and computers, and this reminded me of assignment 08-A and the eye tracking software we looked at. Coincidentally, I am learning about eye-tracking right now in an entirely separate design-studies course, so it seems like this topic is spanning almost every different discipline/topic I am studying right now!

Kate was a very good presenter. She was very comfortable on stage and utilized video examples of people interacting with the products that Oblong, her design agency, built. I especially liked the example she showed with a near-360 surrounding display of screens that allowed a person to stand in the center and interact with programs from a full-circle perspective.

I also was interested in the software Kate designs to enable this rapid-time spatial analysis. One program her agency built, “greenhouse”, allows coders to prototype using space and incorporating users into their design immediately, which sounds like something I want to do!

Below is another project she made, about human life through the perspective of our laptops and phones.

http://www.katehollenbach.com/

Sophie Chen – Looking Outwards – 08

Drawing in the Air – Mimi Son & Elliot Woods

In this lecture, Mimi Son (South Korea) and Elliot Woods (UK) talk about their ongoing work between the realms of material and immaterial, creating visual objects that explore the unpredictable attributes of things when they interact with technology. Son and Woods founded Kimchi and Chips, an experimental art studio based in Seoul that combines the disciplines of code form, material, concept, and mechanism. Kimchi and Chips Studio creates installations and dialogues across the globe. They play with material, space and light, while developing new patterns and theories. Son and Woods are very interested in manipulating physical materials and spaces that already exist through technology. Through combining the physical materials with the immaterial (things that are not traditionally “material” – physical, visible, tangible, etc) like drawing, space, and motion, they explore and investigate new technologies, and evaluate the relationship between knowledge of reality and experience. For instance for one of their projects, they projected and mapped light to bamboo trees and created visual forms within the tree. The light triggered the growth of the trees over time as well – starting a dialogue between the trees and people. I find their work to be very thoughtful and fruitful, ultimately creating meaningful and purposeful work.

Lecture Video

Light Barrier (2014)

Lingfan Jiang – Looking Outwards 08

This week, I am especially interested in a project in INSTINT 2014 presented by Kate Hollenbach.  The company that the speaker is in is called Oblong. The intention of the software they are designing is to break out from a single screen and use human gestures to create more opportunities.

For decades, our normal interface with computers has been restricted to the possibilities offered by a single screen attached to a keyboard, a mouse, and limited touchscreen function. Although the machines have gotten much smarter, the human-machine interface still remains confined to interactions between one person and one machine. Therefore, in order to make the human-machine interfaces more advanced, Oblong created a 6-degree-of-freedom device that enables pointing at any screen in a Mezzanine room.

To me, I think this is definitely a direction we should aim for. Some people might think this needs a long time to develop and may only exist in fictional movies. However, to give a more common example, I think Apple is also trying very hard in this direction.  The earlier product iPhone X has already started to use gestures to achieve a more intuitive user interface. Therefore, I really admire the spirit of digging into this direction. Overall, I like the idea of encouraging a group of people working together and how their product could help them work more effectively. A lot of the times, conveying new ideas to other people is always the hardest.

For the strategies they present, they used their products step by step which shows one person working at first and then it shows how multiple people can also work together which helps her audience to understand the range of conditions their products are able to accomplish. I think I can definitely learn from it.

Victoria Reiter – Looking Outwards – 08

Moritz Stefaner “Truth and Beauty”

Moritz Stefaner is a German data visualization specialist. He used to work in the weapons industry, before changing careers to work in cognitive science. He now focuses on data visualization. Among his notable projects is creating a data visualization for nations of the OECD. He focuses on how to best represent how people interact with and can better understand data.

Up close of a “flower” of the OECD Better Life Index data representation

I am very interested in Moritz’s contributions to the Better Life Index, which helps to visually demonstrate which countries are the most livable in the world based upon 11 criteria. I think this is interesting particularly in contrast to his background in weaponry. For one thing, “Better Life” just sounds like a peaceful thing. For another thing, design conceptually draws heavily upon art and aesthetics as well as functionality, which to me, in such design as data visualization which is intangible and thus not physically destructive, I think these aspects juxtapose his background work.

List of countries from Better Life Index

I like Stefaner’s demeanor in his presentation, as he seems very comfortable and friendly with the crowd. He seems very humble, and took time to think about what aspects of his work the audience would be most interested in hearing about, rather than just praising his own accomplishments on stage. I think it is important to remember to let your work speak for itself when you are presenting it.

You can find more information on Stefaner at his website here.

Full video of his lecture below:

Stefaner presenting at Eyeo “Truth and Beauty”

Shirley Chen – Looking Outwards 08 – The Creative Practice of an Individual

Reuben Heyday Margolin is an American artist and sculptor. His main focus is his mechanically driven kinetic sculptures of wave-forms. He started with math and physics in Harvard University, but later he changed his path and got a degree in English. Later, he went to study traditional painting in Italy and Russia. He became obsessed with the movement of green caterpillar, which inspired him to create wave-like sculptures. He then began to make a series of large-scale undulating installations that combine the logic of mathematics with the sensuousness of nature. The scale of his project varies. His exploration of natural elements, forms and shapes using mathematical method provides him new perspectives to generate interesting artwork. I admire his work because his interest in waving, organic, natural forms allow him to combine his mathematical skills and background with his artistic sensitivity. By using his mathematical skills, he create a series parametric installation with tectonic logic. As an architecture student, these patterns and shapes are really fascinating and interesting to me.


Triple Helix

Triple Helix

2013 – 12 feet tall. 1027 strings, 9280 pulleys, wood, steel, aluminum polycarbonate, three electric motors. Video by Chris Potter.

Lan Wei-LookingOutwards-08

The lecture is given by James Paterson, a Montreal-based artist and coder who dedicates to explore the intersection of animation, art and code. James is interested in the boundary between reality and virtuality, which is also the main topic of the lecture. His projects cover a wide domain, which includes art direction, VR & AR and animation.

This lecture interests me because it unveils new possibilities for artists in creating things. Animation is not about something that just happens in computers any more, but things that can merge with everyday life and blur the boundary between real life and virtuality. The work I admire the most of James is created by a tool he created called Norman, which enables him to create 3D animation easily with only lines. In the later part of the lecture, there is even examples that Norman being integrated with real-world scenes. I totally think the tool gives drawings a new life.

James presents his work clearly by dividing his works into different categories and talking about one category at one time. This is an useful presenting method that I can learn from the lecture.

James Paterson’s website:

http://presstube.com/hello/

Jessica Timczyk – Looking Outwards 08

Zach Lieberman is an American new media artist and computer programmer, he received an MFA of Design and Technology from Parson’s School of Design. He is based in New York City and describes himself as an artist that creates with code, focusing on interactive and experimental drawing and animation tools. Most of his work involves these abstract drawing tools and interactive animations and environments in performances. I really like the artists’ work because the interactive aspect of it allows people who interact with it to become the “performer” themselves.  One of his projects that I admire the most is the Eyewriter project. It is a very low cost and open source hardware tool that allows people to draw with their eyes. I found this one the most inspiring because it was originally created for a paralyzed graffiti artist so that he could draw graffiti with his eyes even after being paralyzed. What I admire most about how Zach Lieberman works is how all or most of the projects he create are not only artistic and beautiful but also contain real applications that are still useful and many times help people that sometimes wouldn’t otherwise be able to create their own art.

While he is presenting his work, he not only gives a demo of how it works, but then also goes on to explain why he created this thing and his process in getting there. He as well additionally gives examples to other applications of the technology he created, which is useful in seeing other applications. I think this would be helpful if I were presenting my own work to convey that what I’m presenting is not constrained to the form that it is presented in currently, but can also be used in other ways and applications.

Eyeo2012 – Zach Lieberman from Eyeo Festival on Vimeo.

 

 

A video showing the Eyewriter and how it is used and works.

Elena Deng-Looking Outwards 08

Eyeo 2014 – Mouna Andraos and Melissa Mongiat from Eyeo Festival on Vimeo.

This week, I chose to listen to Mouna Andraos speak about their work. Their projects, focusing on participation, design, and technology tend to combine interactive design and environment. She calls her projects daily tous les jours, meaning “everyday” in French. The projects themselves create a magical environment, thus inciting the public to become active contributors to the results of the exhibition. The studio was started by Mouna, a professor at Concordia University, she has won various awards including the 2014 UNESCO Creative Cities Design Award for Young Talents.
One of the projects I really admired was the Sound Capsule created in 2010. It is a place in a loud city that one can just have some time to themselves. Another project that interested me was the conversation wall by Umpqua Bank. It was a temporary installation meant to engage the local community and celebrate the recent opening. By texting the bank they can add topics to a conversation and essentially each of the submissions will be displayed on the wall in real time, inviting everyone looking at the wall to joining in on the conversation.

Work

Conversation Wall

Jenny Hu — Looking Outwards 08

AnnMarie Thomas is a mechanical engineer and advocate for early engineering education. She is most well known as the founder and director of the Playful Learning Lab at University of St. Thomas, where she is centrally located, which encourages children to playfully learn.

The best way I can describe her work is fundamental, imaginative, and playful. AnnMarie strips away the complexity of learning engineering and simplifies it to tangible pieces, akin to toys. In the way I think legos are the smallest, most basic building blocks of analog toys, I feel that her work is similar to the most basic building blocks of interaction design across the physical and digital tools.

Her project, Squishy Circuits is a beautiful example of basic software and hardware interaction that feels like playdough. Its form is in a book, likely to make the course and tools accessible for parents and teachers to use. (something I also admire).

AnnMarie’s Website

A lecture of hers where she focuses on the importance of play and what that means.

Eliza Pratt – Looking Outwards 08

Eyeo2012 – Shantell Martin from Eyeo Festival on Vimeo.

Shantell Martin is a world-traveled artist who uses digital drawing as means of performance art. Although based as a graffiti artist in England, Shantell originally gained renown for her performances in underground concerts and clubs in Japan. While she claims that her work as a young artist channeled the frustration and disillusion she felt growing up, her time spent engrossed in Japanese culture led her to achieve a sense of zen as she drew. As she was living in Japan, Martin became heavily involved in the “noise” music scene and was hired to draw live as a complement to the bands’ performances. These drawings would be projected on the walls in a way that matched the energy of the music or choreography during these shows. After accumulating fame in Japan, Shantell moved to Brooklyn where she took on projects outside of a venue environment. By creating digital and traditional drawings on cars, rooms, tables, and anything she could access, Shantell proved that drawing could be made into a spatial performance that was accessible to the public.

While watching Shantell’s lecture in the 2012 Eyeo conference, I admired her drive to push the boundaries of how and what drawing should be. I particularly liked her “doodle volkswagen” project, in which she would draw on her friend’s car on the street and bring smiles to faces all throughout Brooklyn. During her presentation, Shantell combined live, digital drawing with pictures and videos of past work and experiences. By adopting a narrative approach, she details the events in her life that influenced her artistic vision and the choices she made. I admire her style of presenting, as it felt very personal without feeling too structured or rehearsed. If I were to give a lecture on my own creative endeavors, I believe I would like to adapt her style of using personal experiences to amplify the emotional connection to my work.