Studio Practice for ideas project

Project - Day 1 + 2

Introduction to the 'Ideas Factory' 2/09/19

During the first workshop, we were introduced to the project, 'Ideas Factory' where we had to, working as a group, brainstorm areas of familiar interests and things we didn't have in common. This was a great icebreaker and allowed us to produce a list of similarities and differences we all held. Through this we were introduced to using single words in order to vocalise our behaviour or find adjectives to describe things that singled us out. After this we were put into groups and given three words, one -ism, one material and one process. I was given the following three words, Futurism, Hair and knot; combining these words as a group we came up with several actions associated with hair and knot. Using my sketchbook I drew up rough sketches to visualise possible outcomes combining my three words. Creating a mind map we began to see extreme push and pull factors of what 'Futurism' represents, in terms of its feeling of progression, seen as this shiny object, however we began to pull apart current day issues like climate change and pollution which are not progressive. Combining the three words visually these juxtaposed images came recurrently into my thought process.

The relationship behind knot and hair are almost too similar however through brainstorming the role of the individual words, I wanted to create a form that was both ironic and obscure to our familiar understanding of 'futurism', as the word seems to be misleading to the current issues we face.

Idea Development

Idea development and visualisation workshop:

Moving on from my initial ideas of creating a virtual environment through my three given words, hair, knot and futurism, I was introduced to using my sketchbook as a tool to translate my initial ideas and final visualisation. We began starting with basic drawing exercises being asked to create 'blind drawings' and using a variation of materials to create sketches reflective of my idea. I used a mixture of ink, tape, pencils and fine liners to communicate a variation of mark making on my double page. Thus, we were paired up in order to communicate with another person our idea in order to clarify our ideas and get feedback on how successful our visualisations were for the viewer. My partner had the word 'hair' which she used and translated into textiles to create a piece of clothing.

My final visualisation for the 'Ideas Project' brief:

Once I engaged with the vastness of the word futurism and how this word, naturally, overshadows our thought due to its expansive nature - I initially thought about the experience of being in a 'simulator' where you would be taken into a pod-like space and the pod would rotate and create the feeling of being part of the film being screened. As a child, this experience of watching a dinosaur film in contrast to this 'virtual' environment in an inclosed pod relates to my initial response to 'futurism'. Using thumb-nail sketches I experimented with possible shapes of the simulator along with its texture.

Examples of simulators

A2 Visualisation

Visualisation 4/09/19

My final idea: After two days of workshops and brainstorming responses to my three words I came up with an idea of combining the experience of being in a simulator but applying this idea to the bathroom, where people pay the most attention to hair and hygiene. During group discussions and in our contextual studies lesson, hygiene was being constantly questioned in the future and how necessary hair will be. I visualise creating a simulator that changes direction and gives the viewer the experience of being in a real bathroom - the simulator is an object that replaces the physical actions of being in a bathroom, rather it adopts augmented reality to evoke the emotion of finishing these tasks. The simulator will reduce waste and water through VR. I intend to create the texture of hair in the exterior of the pod to relate back to the use of the bathroom.

After our group discussion and deciding on the shape of my structure, I brainstormed factors that would benefit my final visualisation board when presenting to a group. I thought about the following... expanding my VR model further through creating a full house plan of simulators.