Design for Space_research

HKU IAD YEAR 2 RESEARCH

DESIGN FOR

SPACE

Research and Logging / José Enrique Arce Gutierrez

Assumptions As a brief introduction I should say that I’m interested in music, a bit more than the average person, to the point I merge it with other disciplines, when one gets into the realm of “synesthesia” the attempts of putting music into feasible packages and presenting it to public is terribly and graciously subjective. To address this point I lay a easy example: what a C# chord makes you feel, probably doesn’t make me or the next person feel the same way, with this same principle is hard to differ any visual representation of said thing if its so distant or so hard to predict, It is in fact predictable by context, if the people experiencing it share several cultural and diverse factors , you can approach a result that will please this audience.

My medium to do so is with digital tools, which have impact but clearly every day become more and more used in mainstream media, and this takes out an important element , surprise which I like to consider a key element to create a good impact on any viewer of any piece, it is also the way this tool is used that makes us reflect and change the paradigms of the same. If its easy to edit a video and make it match the transient sounds of a song on top or on the background of it, its even easier to program said procedure with video and geometry, text and whatever the computer can generate. Sadly this has been used extensively and I don’t wish to pursue it in the project, with that been said it only leaves me to pass from software to hardware. How does one do this? Building a device that creates visuals? Equalizers? Lasers? Whatever makes an impact on the real world and its environment? Yes, but more importantly something tangible, something that the mind can say for sure that is something is reacting to music and that is tangible and more real than a photorealistic projection.

Research_

Left: Still from “Peep Show” by Yayoi Kusama, Right: Amsterdam sex worker.

Installation art is a type of artistic expression into which the viewer physically, theatrically

enters or immerses into the piece; its aim is to heighten the viewer’s awareness of how objects are positioned in space.

“All things are subject to a change, Change is oxymoronically, the great constant of universe”

Among the kinds of change, is the position of objects and relation to both another object and themselves, changes are (Location, Proximity, Movement) depending on the natural surroundings. Creatures may detect such changes:

• Chemically

• Electrically

• Or in any Sensorial way

Humans are biologically equipped with a large array of sensors, therefore we are inherited a natural and instinctual way to sense Location, Proximity, Movement and therefore measure change. The only way we couldn’t do so is when the change is related to new circumstances or environments, this has to be learned. These elements conjoin another concept named Space; the notion of space is not biologically given. “space” is an abstract idea that changes in every

SPACE

Intervened

Activated Created

Inhabited

Transform

society and culture around the world, to some is the field that objects create by being situated anywhere, to other cultures is the lack of objects that creates space, to African cultures becomes something so subjective as additive noise as the definition of space.

Above there is the objects that shape space in my point of view, my message is that to understand installation art, one must discuss the elements that compose it, its context materiability. It usually defines how art is done, experienced received and owned.

Installation works can define or identify milieu by artistically means.

Space is a multidimensional concept

Sociological Psychological Pragmatic Perceptual Aesthethic

Installation art also avoids the notion of a “best view” because it limits the viewer’s position and participation within the piece, it’s a free choice to whoever is visiting to create, transform, activate, inhabit or intervene. Doing this is how we define environments and how we transgress pre conceived

thoughts and judgments. Environments can be shaped and created out of objects and elements. Lucio Fontana aimed to break the dimensional limitations of a piece of art, in my case I’ll focus on this aim but it’s applied to the sound and its invisible boundaries that conventional thought and technology has laid upon it.

As a practical case, in minimalist art: “The believe that experiences of art could alter the ways in which people drew conclusions about the world, and that an encounter with an art object can “provoke a significant rupture in a person’s unreflective consciousness of life”.

Installation art also avoids the notion of a “best view” because it limits the viewer’s position and participation within the piece, it’s a free choice to whoever is visiting to create, transform, activate, inhabit or intervene. Doing this is how we define environments and how we transgress pre conceived thoughts and judgments.

“A form of art which does not pretend to be anything other than what it is”

An installation

Installation art also avoids the notion of a “best view” because it limits the viewer’s position and participation within the piece, it’s a free choice to whoever is visiting to create, transform, activate, inhabit or intervene. Doing this is how we define environments and how we transgress pre conceived thoughts and judgments, by utilizing the environment and situation, the use of controlled elements and happenings as a mean of progress, finalization or mutation of the piece, the piece “Double Negative” by Micheal Heizer exposes this.

Making use of the degradation, erosion and unpredictability of nature’s elements he managed to shape his gigantic installation and added elements that surprised the viewers and caused interest around it, the location was inaccessible, and miles away from any museum only possible to be seen from a helicopter.

Visual Styles // Materials There’s several installations that inspired mine in several ways, this section is dedicated to the pure aesthetic value of them, and later on the conclusion on how I applied it to my installation

Materials After several encounters with my desired aesthetic, I decided paper was a very feasible choice and reasonable as well, because of its dynamics and looks and the cost, seeing that we were forced to do a paper prototype the linking between them and making a choice was pretty obvious at the time.

Paper proved to be a good material, as I revisited my options I decided to go for something more strong but yet still flexible and cheap, next choice was cardboard and the best way to achieve results was with a laser cutter, this enabled me to learn how to design for objects that will be laser cut, or engraved.

Revisiting my influences for the visual part, I decided to use geometric shapes, after some thinking I came up with hexagons, because of their simplicity but strong value as members of a structure, yet again when thinking of the flexibility of a hexagon, one bumps into the problem that its shape doesn’t allow much mangling and manipulation, if I decided to cut it in half and then in half, what I would get would be a triangle. So to say Triangles are the most basic shape I could come up with by logical choice; I imagined it would look good if it was precisely cut by a machine and not by my unsteady pulse and sloppy knife, so I let a laser handle the heavy part.

Shortly after that I had more ideas about the constitution of the structure.

That Also called for material experimentation and Shapes.

Observations Every material, paper, cardboard, wood, rubber, acrylic, silk… was tested for flexibility, weight, price, and scalability, since the project would only focus on a small design to prove the concept and then further on be exploited and enlarged based on the results of a small scaled model.

At the end paper and cardboard proved out to be the best combination, but wood will replace cardboard because of the look and the touch.

Opinions For me it was important to experiment constantly with materials due to the fact that it was a good excuse to show up at the protolab and learn how to prototype and bring my designs outside of the computer with the precise help of machines.

Above is the example of how it looks in the computer, and is my task to deliver this content to the real world with the help of mechanics and physical computing.

Mechanical parts were also a challenge to develop since they produce awful lot of thinking and brain teasers in order to translate power from different sources into the appropriate one, not to mention the actual electronics that go behind it.

Description_

Sound as a structure.

The aesthetical value of it.

A representation as an object.

Sound is present at all times and we have a special biological sensor dedicated only to it, the ears, the challenge would be to blur the line of our senses and convert what is Sounding into something that can be touched and be seen. Create a new situation for sound and its reaction in our environment on the visitor’s head.

Addressees_ In the realm of Sound and Music, there is quite a lot to be addressed, from people who are involved in the creation of music to the companies that distribute music or sound based products everywhere in the world. Naturally it needs to be focused to someone that minds the aesthetic value of the installation, that rules out a Delivery company and certain audio engineer related businesses who have already worked on their corporate identity or have none at all but wish to not address this subject.

Next in the chain are the creators, which might have a bit more dedication and heart into their creations, Musicians, Recording Artists, Microphone makers, Composers, Sound Designers, Film Scoring Artists, Record labels.

The ideal people to work with would be record labels, because they have to promote their artist and maintain their style, we can see this reflected on the new performances that have been showcased around the world by a lot of underground artists and even mainstream artists.

Preferred record labels that involve in audio visual events.

It could be a static object or a decorative piece of mobiliary.

As a branding element for the label

That’s interactive

Prototype_

1. Virtual prototype that works in real-time with

audio, successfully visualizing audio with the desired aesthetic.

2. Virtual template of the hardware installation

Used as a sketch and planner.

3. Envisioning and technical sketching.

4. Real Prototype (Electronics are yet to be accomplished)

Testing_ 1. With oneself

To test all my thoughts and presumptions’ about the project I must compare what I thought I was going to get as a result, and what I actually got. This kind of experimentation was recurrent during material design, every time a new material or a new shape was created, several ideas were broken and rebuilt because by having the design printed out and tangible one can handle it twist it and mangle it the way you think motors will.

2. With others To my fortune my roommate at the time was a Music Technology student, and when he saw the structure he started playing with it, shortly after that I analyzed how he moved it and how it reacted. He then asked why was it for, and when I debriefed him, he realized he had “in concept” part of audio spectrum in his hands, I asked him how do you expect this thing to react to sound, without minding the technical problems or biased judgments an educated artist can have regarding installations and audio visualization. His thoughts were written down, and the conclusion was that for him it was too dull because it was too symmetrical, not pleased with the result I tried another Fine Arts student and his judgments, he had a better opinion about the design and liked how it reacted in his hands. Mixed results, I posted the picture online and unwillingly most of the people in the social network that are aware of what I do and why I do it, liked it, when questioned they reacted that the Balance between shapes and amount of them was pretty good. Irene for example when she had the structure on her hands spent some time playing with it and analyzing it for flaws, obviously whoever is searching something will find something, despite this she had a very positive reaction to the way it moved, this for my project meant green light to proceed with this structure. (GRID SEEN IN NUMBER 4 PAGES 23).

The other structure, based on a vornoi algorithm had tremendous success with the people who came in contact

with and who reacted to the pictures on the website (please visit www.sphynx.mx) NOVEMBER 17 the site received 122 visits from the FB post where the two designs were posted.

3. Reaction to audiovisual movement Since the results were proving only my design part, and my mechanic part was very far from being accomplished, I decided to proceed with the virtual prototype which does react on sound. By projecting it on a wall and watching people pass by I could get some reactions from them, sadly the way the projector reflects on the wall, it reflects the shadow of the people and they think is the shadow that is moving the Object projected on the wall (SEE NUMBER 2 PAGE 22) The aesthetic is somewhat similar to what I have in the real world but obviously the movement is way more fluid and reactive, since it’s not bound to the laws of physics or electric powered motors and cheap electronic interfaces for physical computing. Every single person started playing with their position when they encountered the projection on the wall, after being told that it was reacting on sound, several subjects shouted or stomped their feet and watched it react, the same values are tied to my program that controls the motors in the real installation, I had 4 test subjects 1 known acquaintance and 3 of his friends who did not know what I do or what was that about.

4. Conclusion My most liked and successful designed proved to be the one based on the voronoi (non symmetrical one) but then again, mechanical tests (with one motor running) provided enough data to suggest that the more symmetry the better it could react to the stimulus of a mechanic actuator like a motor. As for materials Cardboard seemed very popular, black acrylic being the most desired but also the most expensive one and the heaviest one to be used, my choice was wood, since it stands in the middle of the two in the terms of aesthetics but yet remains lightweight as cardboard. The ultimate step is to test how the motors react to people, sadly this step must be put on halt because the technical part is yet to come to completion, can’t really test it more than in step 2, its reaction of the materials flexibility but not its mechanics, few things can be expected from these, that they will be noisy and that they will fail after a couple of days of heavy usage, that they are somewhat strong but that they draw way too much power for something its size, and that they provide a solid, fast response to what the concept is about. The statement above is proven by testing it with only one motor on one part of the structure

Principles_

• It has to be interactive.

• It has to represent sound in any possible way

• It has to be addressed to sound designers

• It should obey a general rule of aesthetic defined by the early paper prototypes

• Must add to the environment

• Must blend sensory reactions

MOSCOW_

M - MUST: be interactive with sound, be of value to the surrounding environment, provide visitors a new experience, and make a visual tie with sound, a piece tagged as installation art by definition.

S - SHOULD: represent a sound designers work in an abstract way, provide amusement or value to the venue, use sound as a source of time, work smoothly, keep aesthetic values defined earlier before, and be subtle and modular, transportable.

C - COULD: be scaled and outputted to the main focus, scaled up or down depending on budget.

W - WON'T: be done outside of school, faulty interaction, a scientific visualization of sound, not be of professional use (i.e. Equalizers) or be taken as one, not working in real time, won’t be a full scale installation if budget doesn’t allow it.

Planning/

Week log_ Week one: Team selection, brainstorming Team selection was null, brainstorming session was to place to review the possible options and projects that apply to the current assignment cross checked with a sound designer and a interaction designer of different years, rental of installation art books, new media, designers handbook, digital interfaces and their appearance in media and De Uithof library visit, to gather up information about the subject and about Spatial Design.

Week two: Hardebollestraat and Zandpad research

Camera and microphone rental, research on Utrecht’s red light districts legal and illegal, online documentaries and lots of interviewing among known and unknown people, documentation of places impossible due to the nature of the place and the inability to take a picture due to the workers closing the window, and guards outside getting aggressive, end result? Images erased.

Week three: Focus Shift and OF research

Assessment of focus and re plantation of a new one merging two things that appeal better to my skill set, Computer broke and had to research openFrameworks at school, tutorials and articles downloaded in order to keep up with the class level.

Assessment sought to programming acquaintances interested in the project.

Week four: Paper prototyping and Aesthetic definition

Aesthetics defined and pursued paper prototype research and first tries, small mechanical prototype created and material research for the installation, also assessment on the interactivity of it crosschecked with a fellow Sound Designer.

Week five: *break*

Travel break and slight gear and motor research, ways to translate the power of a motor into vertical power, materials and ways of minimizing cost, ordering of parts from abroad, and research done on new media in art book.

Week six: Art research and justification

In progress, 9 hours spent at De uithof and justification reached. 4 books researched and 1 informal interview to an art teacher, gear research and materials again, Programming assessments.

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Week seven: Engine research and user testing

Small tests with a projector to establish test subject data and to compare it with my expectations and make a design choice for my project, Servo ordering.

Week seven: prototype building according to user testing

Testing with motors and users to see how well fitted the interaction is between the sound and the movement of the structure, decide if it’s possible based on the tests to scale the project or if it needs less size.

Week nine: prototype building

Experimentation with materials and their flexibility, Visual performance and prototype testing. Protolab day spending.

Week ten: assess prototype

Motor delay and technical difficulties with the interface and its reaction with the motors, electronic power supply needed? More protolab action.

Week eleven: Electro mechanics and Presentation

Fine-tuning, and adjusting details and problem solving with the electronics and interfacing.

Week twelve: Presentation

Self-describing

Further reference_

Visit

www.sphynx.mx