Synopsis

For this assignment I was inspired by the air movement that allows the plastic to inflate and take shape. To me it was one thing to watch the plastic react to the airflow, but I wanted to further explore how the air was channeled into the plastic forms and how I could emote it from the inside rather than the outside. To accomplish this, I decided to create three different shapes, fill them with colorful confetti, and inflate and deflate the plastic forms to see how the confetti would emote the projects.

Emotive Project #1 – My first emotive project was a simple square.

Emotive Project #2 – My second emotive project was a simple oval tube.

Emotive Project #3 – My third emotive project was a circle with an eye shaped hinge that allowed the overall shape to flip up and contort.

Conclusion

Watching the confetti flutter inside the plastic forms made the projects emotive in a surprising and exciting way. However, I was only able to achieve this emotive state by quickly inflating and deflating the shapes; pushing and releasing the air slowly hardly impacted the confetti at all and left it stagnant. Because of these reasons I concluded that it wasn’t so much the air flow that impacted the confetti’s emotive movement, but the walls of the plastic forms bouncing and contrasting against the tabletop that pushed the confetti around.

I was hoping the different shapes and hinge technique I used would also have an impact on how the confetti would move around. I feel if the plastic forms had some sort of ventilation and a stronger air flow that the confetti would become much more animated, making the emotive state I wanted to achieve closer to my original goal. Hopefully one day I can achieve something similar on a larger scale and get the surprising and exciting emotive state that I was striving for!