Soulmate (wood boxes, light bulbs, motor antennas & proximity sensors) 2011.

The inspiration for this project derived from the concept of two devices wanting to communicate their love to each other no matter the obstruction. The materials used for this project are wood boxes, metal tripods, light bulbs, antennas and proximity sensors. This project explores radio frequency as a medium of sensing between the objects. The feedback that takes place is constant in that they maintain radio contact until that frequency is broken at which point they search for each other. So as an object interferes with their sensing their natural tendency is to search for a stronger radio signal to continue communicating. The signal strength introduced by the antennas is directly reflected through the light bulb, and the boxes and tripods provide a heavier presence and anthropomorphic quality.

Process

In this experiment, I wanted to explore the concept of two devices in constant longing for one another and how that relationship would play out through physical movement as an obstruction. The goal was to investigate this gap between technology and story through the myth of these two devices. The brief was to use existing technology, apply a story to that technology, and then see what type of experience could manifest from that relationship shared between them. I introduced radio frequency as medium of sensing between the objects because much like radio it relies on there being a direct connection from the signal to that particular frequency. In this same way, the communication between the devices relies on the strength of that frequency in order for them to continue sensing each other. The interaction responsible between these objects is explored through physical obstruction placed on these objects (e.g., chatter, moving people, or objects) in which the two devices will search for each other until they find a stronger, more stable surface to continue their communication. The blinking lights represents their communication to each other, where the antenna represents their frustration and search to find one another. The following is a quick video documentation of physical obstruction (a moving body) placed on the objects.

Echo (white fluorescents, wood posts & light sensors) 2012.

The inspiration for this project derived from the concept of wanting to create communication between majestic objects. The goal was to create towers with an overwhelming presence that are inescapable. The materials used for this project are white fluorescents, wood posts and domestic light sensors. This project is an exploration of fluorescent light as a medium of sensing. The feedback that takes place is intermittent and never constant and always changing in that variation of sensing is created by height to offer a range of interactions between the lights. Weaker light is omitted on top which will initiate a response different than a response sensed from the bottom or middle sections of the posts. By opening the range of light the feedback relationship between the lights is never same.

Process

This experiment is a direct progression of "Whisper." Here I wanted to add more variation to the way in which these lights reacted to each other. By arranging the lights horizontally I discovered that distance creates variation. Depending on how far a part the lights were to each other changes the way they to which they react and respond. The next stage was to apply this same relationship but to introduce height as the variable to which these lights can react and respond.

Whisper (white fluorescents, wood spikes & light sensors) 2011.

The inspiration for this project derived from the concept of wanting to create a field of objects that communicate to each other at night but are dormant during the day. This idea that by day these objects rest, conserve and absorb as much energy as possible from the sun and then at night they awake and come out to play, attract and communicate to one another. The materials used for this project are white fluorescents, wood spikes and domestic light sensors. This project is an exploration of fluorescent light as a medium for sensing between the objects. The feedback that takes place is intermittent, never constant nor predictable in that the variation of sensing is created by the distance of lights to play out different responses and reactions from the sensing of the lights.

Process

The overall challenge of this project was figuring out the most basic form of communication that could be used between the objects to communicated to each other. And if we dissect what it means to communicate, it simply can be defined as a reaction, an awareness between one object and another. Light itself is the simplest form of communication and achieves this quite successfully. It can be used to send a detailed message or to initiate a quick reaction and awareness. In order for light to receive light the ambient field needs to be amplified. Fluorescent lights are used for this reason because the range of light is wider and longer, as where smaller lights have a shorter and narrower ambient throw. The ambient field in which these lights respond needed to be magnified in order for them to sense each other, therefore creating a field of fluorescents adds more light to be sensed and offers variation in response to light. However, within this project there needed to be rules set for the interaction between the lights. For instance, if you have two lights and they are meant to react to each other their natural state would be on and never would they turn off unless of course the light were to blow out. In order to create a natural system to which these lights react was to record the amount of time it would take for each to react to light. The easiest way to do is to multiply the amount of lights and distance them. The next step was to calculate the amount of time it took for each light to react. If it took 3 seconds in total for each light to turn on for say 10 lights then the next step would be to reduce the amount of seconds for the first light to turn off after it turns on by 1 to 2 seconds. And once a delay is applied to each light the feedback that takes place between the lights is different every time. And this is the rule to which these lights react and respond to each other.

Ripple (white fluorescents, wood posts & light sensors) 2012.

The inspiration for this project derived from the concept of the lights acting as operators in that the starting message that is being translated from one end to the other is never the same as it travels through. In the same way that a ripple in the water reacts, the lights are reactant to each other. As a light begins to trigger off the effect is that it spreads out throughout the lights. The feedback that takes place is intermittent and never constant. The variation of sensing between the lights is created by close proximity by limiting and shortening the range of the lights instead of expanding its ambient field. Each light is limited to interacting to the object directly beside it. Each beginning message and interaction between the facing lights is never the same and always results in something different.

Rockets (single fueled hobby rockets & standard materials) 2012.

In this experiment rockets are used to explore a more primitive form of sensing between objects. Here I rely on very simple measures of communication to achieve complex results. In a way I am working within this idea of a boy with a tin can and string communicating a message that is translated into vibrations. In this same way, rather than using electronic sensors the rope is used to create a level of sensing between the objects. The same way that light produces light, rockets are needed to produce movement in order to become a platform of sensing between the objects. The feedback that takes place is singular and instant, it is short lived and then it is over.

Through slow motion technique focus is then placed on the responses and reactions of the sensing relationship between the objects. The inspiration for this project stems from the idea of objects that live for a brief moment and the act of communication results in their death.

1. Rope

The materials used in this experiment are 10 single fueled rockets and yellow twine tied to the ends of the rockets. By using rope to connect the rockets, the rockets are allowed to move a distance in order to create force which becomes a platform of sensing between the objects.

2. Fabric

The materials used for this experiment are 2 single fueled rockets, yellow twine and white fabric tied to the ends of the rockets. Fabric is used to introduce an element of air resistance to produce different levels of sensing between the objects.

3. Buckets & Water

The materials used in this experiment are 10 single fueled rockets, yellow twine, buckets and water. Water introduces an element of controlled weight distribution based on the amount of water applied to each bucket to provide different responses and reactions from the objects.

4. Chair

The materials used in this experiment are 10 singled fueled rockets, yellow twine and a pine chair. The chair provides different variations of weight distribution based on where the rockets are attached to the chair. Because the back is heavier than the front and the legs are lighter than the mid section, the reaction of the individual rockets are different every time.

Agenda

As a whole my work engages in different modes of feedback between objects to redefine public and private space by infusing poetics into the everyday life. There is a lost sensibility to the physical due to the digital and I am interested in the tension between them. The work aims to change the atmosphere to which we see, think and imagine the physical spaces around us through these events. We forget that the biggest part of living is living through our imagination, to use the power of thought to create excitement, surprise and meaningful experience.

I use objects designed with a single purpose as a medium in my work because there is potential for these materials to become something special. I am interested in the arranging and blending of standard materials in different ways to give them new meaning, this new space that allows them to become something greater than what they are.

Standard objects and materials have this "untouched/touched" quality. There is this strange unconscious sensibility towards these objects because they are so familiar to us we forget that they even exist. And we forget this because they are "ordinary," "unexciting," and "un-special." Design today is the equivalent of the relationship we share with familiar objects. Design is all about achieving the "special" and rejecting what is normal. Designers are pushed into the competitive markets of trying to design things that are "special" and "stimulating" to avoid being "mediocre," "standard" or "normal." So designers lose a sensibility towards the potential of what familiar can provide. Aesthetics than become a priority and the rest is sort swept under the carpet.

And what this means is that we are very much an exterior culture. We are heavily influenced by what we see. A friend of mind once used the metaphor of an ice berg. Society is generally more interested in the surface, the small tip. The infrastructure, the guts, the methods, the decisions, all of these things are what make up the bottom of the ice berg but no one is interested to dive in and see what is keeping the tip breaking. But we should be interested in the tip and bottom of what we see.

Designing with with intention to be familiar is in one way less concerned with designing beauty and instead interested in playing out the raw relationship between materials and objects and the experiences they create. And it is here where beauty is not made but afforded through the careful fusing of these objects. And there is potential in framing ones design thinking and process around designing things that are normal and familiar and blending these things together in order to discover something newly engaging, poetic and beautiful.

Reflection

Each of these projects were approached with its own poetic motivation, its own story that called on its own set of materials and technologies and environments to make these stories become realized. These interactions are mainly object to object relationships and rarely are they human to object.

Each experiment relies on its counterpart to initiate its communication to create feedback between the objects that then becomes the experience for the viewer. The interaction that takes place between the objects is the event intended to be observed, not to be participated. Before starting each of these projects that was always the position that was taken. The idea was that these objects were to be observed from a distance because of the environments that were created for these objects that were either desolate, remote or difficult to come by. The lights for instance are more responsive and controllable in a dark space with very little ambience. Therefore allowing the lights to live only at night is the more appropriate environment both for responsiveness and providing a level of surprise and poetics placed back into the everyday.

For this reason human interaction was not entirely considered as part of the physical experience because the mythos to which these objects belong is to share their own private ecology. But this is also due to how I have defined the role of interaction in these projects. Interaction design is typically associated with creating influenced or action based experiences that are either physical or digital. I define interaction as being in the middle between what is physical and what is digital, that being the imaginative. Each of these works engage in leveraging the imagination. I am designing stories and experiences that allow the viewer to use their imagination and thoughts to ignite a process to which these staged events come to life, and to me that is interaction. To create movement or to ignite a process in ones mind is the influence, is the transaction that is taking place.

Again, the viewer is merely a spectator and observer to the communication between objects. However, in reexamining the relationship between the spectator and the objects, it would be interesting if there were an added level of intelligence that could be applied to each project that could make the objects more aware and responsive to external influences that come in and out of their space. I would like to adopt the concept of what is beautiful is also threatening to further explore the interaction and tension between object and human. What interests me about this concept is that if these objects are only meant to be viewed from a distance and we are not allowed to intrude and wander through their space then what can I do to push the participant back into the role of being an observer.

And this theme is already present in some of the projects. For instance, "Soulmate" to an extent pushes the participant back into the role of observer by simply warning them off when they obstruct their communication. However, this tactic is not very threatening, it is irritating but not threatening. The rockets are probably the closest to reaching this high level of threat. From a distance they are beautiful to watch but if one were to get too close they can physically harm you (e.g., burn you, scrap you, hit you, tangle you up, etc.). My goal would be to in some way apply this very same level of threat and danger into each of these projects to fulfill this new motivation of what is beautiful is also threatening.

Much like nature itself. It is beautiful and powerfully magnificent and sublime, but it is also very viscous and volatile. Nature can hurt you if you become too comfortable and you get too close. For instance, seeing a tornado from a distance is an extraordinary event, we see its beauty and its destructive nature all at the same time, and for this reason do not wish to get any closer. We may imagine what it might feel like to run into a tornado but we understand the physical appendages if those actions were to be taken. In this same way, how can these objects elicit that same level of peace and destruction. To truly become these powerful forces of nature.

References

1. Louis Althusser. "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses." 2004.

2. Aristotle. "The Metaphysics." 1907.

3. Walter Benjamin. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." 1936.

4. Joseph Campbell. "The Power of Myth." 1988.

5. C.S. Lewis. "The Shape of His Faith and Thought." 1976.

6. Gustave Flaubert. "Madame Bovary." 1902.

7. Henrik Ibsen. "The Wild Duck." 1918.

8. Jacques Lacan. "The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis." 2004.

9. Friedrich Nietzsche. "On Truth and Lying in an Extra-moral Sense." 1873

10. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. "Formalisms." 2004.

11. Slavoj Žižek. "The Sublime Object of Ideology." 1997.

Acknowledgements

2012 MFA Thesis, MDP Track.

Graduate Media Design Program, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena CA

Lead Advisor: Tim Durfee

Committee: Garnet Hertz, Anne Burdick

Writing Advisor: Shannon Herbert

MDP Faculty: Tim Durfee, Sean Donahue, Norman Klein, Phil Van Allen, Anne Burdick, Ben Hooker

Support

My grandmother Alicia Bojorquez, Jeremiah Lujan, Ruben Silva, Dee Kim, Justin Gier, Link Huang, Chiao Ho, Adam Fischbach, Brooklyn Brown, Aurelia Friedland, Salvador Orara, Mike Manalo, Kevin Wingate, Ajax, Jerry, Stan, Art