Exercise: Project Pitch¶
Our final project objective is an outdoor performance of kinetic textile artifacts. Pieces created for outdoor locations by their nature inhabit a location and will be read in that context. They may be site-specific or universal, but there will be a semantic, dynamic, and visual dialogue with the environment in the viewer’s eye.
Our default scenario is group show of free-standing sculptures on the CFA lawn in daylight. This could take a lot of possible forms, including but not limited to puppetry, sculpture, installation, wearables, wind sculpture, or kites. The show could potentially run for as little as ten minutes or as long as a day. It could be human-operated, wind-powered, or motorized, but in every case must involve some element of movement.
A potential unifying theme might be community, making interactive works which bring together friends and strangers from the community. But this is just a starting point for discussion.
Learning Objectives¶
Developing an artistic concept for a kinetic textile sculpture or performance.
Visualizing a kinetic visual representation of an artistic concept.
Refining the essential artistic question via abstraction and resolution.
Scaling an idea to match technical constraints and resolving it within limitations.
Identifying essential technical unknowns.
Inquiry¶
Please choose one idea to propose as a final project. Each person will have five minutes of class time to pitch the idea and answer questions. Please document your idea fully as in a few slides on the Shared Drive to use as visual media during your pitch.
Please choose an idea which you believe is within the scope of the course resources and your ambitions. This isn’t a committment, and not all ideas will be further developed. This is the first round of brainstorming ideas and negotiating project pairings.
Please include several detailed drawings which explore the concept. These may be hand-drawn, but should be detailed enough both to explain the idea to a third party and to identify unresolved questions within the premise.
Please include enough text so that the idea stands alone as an explanation of the concept even though you will be presenting. For now, please focus on the overall conceptual approach, although please identify any critical technical development.
Prompts¶
What are all the principles of movement? Does the piece flex, change shape, animate, make sound?
What is the textile form? What is the size and scale? What kind of materials are included? What are tactile properties? Color? Sound?
How does the piece engage with the outdoor location? What is the nature of the audience?
Is there direct bodily engagement? If so, does a visitor enter a space, touch, listen closely, hide inside, lean against, support their weight, cover their eyes? What kind of affordances are provided? Is the movement principle legible? Does the natural unprompted response of a visitor create a reaction?
What kind of structures, armatures, hinges, or joints are included? How are the degrees of freedom actuated? What are the technical challenges?
Deliverables¶
Please prepare a few slides to present your idea, including at minimum:
A one-paragraph statement of the idea.
Several drawings or hand sketches sufficient to communicate shape, size, movement, and interaction.
A brief list of expected technical challenges.