Genealogies Week 4: Mockup Designs and Sketchbook Development.

Genealogies Week 4

This blog post is a rather text heavy post in comparison to the rest, this post is about my research and understanding of the theoretical aspect of my genealogies project alongside productions of the outcomes that i will be presenting on my formative presentation. 

Genealogies Submission Brief:

During this morning's lecture we were presented with the submission details for the formative assessment. The deadline for the Genealogies project is on Friday 27th October, for the presentation I have to produce 4 pages containing key stages of development and progression for my idea. These are to presented as PDF format and I will have 5 minutes to share my idea and outcomes to a small group. The submission details were added to UniLearn and below is a screenshot of the document.

Admittedly I'm somewhat nervous about this because who likes presentations anyway? I'd say the main issue would be trying to compact my idea into a 5 minute presentation. This week I will be focusing on creating this presentation and designing some mockups/outcomes to showcase. 

Creating Mockups:

With this project I believe I have a solid concept to present for the formative assessment. During this Week I will be developing upon this concept by creating some mockup objects using Adobe Photoshop and/or Cinema 4d. Additionally These mockups will be presented in poster format that I will create using Adobe Indesign. The poster design will contain the narrative aspect to the project.

As a recap from my previous weeks of development and blog posts documenting them, my idea is to redesign everyday objects to become impractical, producing a feeling of anxiety and discomfort to the viewer. These designs will then be created in a poster format accompanied with a narrative of how these 'inconvenient' objects create a level of discomfort.  

To begin with I researched what it is that actually makes us feel this anxiety and discomfort. There is a website called 'The uncomfortable' which is a project that was started in 2011 by architect and designer Katerina Kamprani. The site has been a main inspiration for this project idea and consists of a gallery of simple everyday objects made impracticle not just for whimsical reasons but also to help the viewer "appreciate the complexity and depth of interactions with the simplest of objects around us." Below is a link to this site. 

The Uncomfortable

During a talk Katerina actually explains the reason why we get this feeling of frustration by looking at these objects. She states that before we use an object we have something called the 'Mental Model' which is a person's thought process on how something works in the real world. Through interacting with similar objects or being taught about them, we are able to have an understanding about what that object does, will do and how to use it. 

She also states that before we use an object we have a thought process called the conceptual model which is the encounter and physicality of the object giving us another idea on what the object does through affordance. What Katerina does with 'The Uncomfortable' is  try to keep the mental model and semiotics of an object EI "This is a chair" but then tweaks the conceptual model so that when the viewer conceptualises and simulates the operation and functionality of this object which is deeply implanted into our minds only to be surprised because the item doesn't work as we expected it would be.

Additional Research:

To provide a narrative explaining how we feel uncomfortable and frustrated when looking at these type of objects, I needed to research and understand what caused it.

Semiotics

To begin with I did a recap to semiotics which we originally learnt about in the first year (thank you Dr Powell!) So returning to semiotics, it is the investigation into how meaning is created and communicated through signs and symbols both linquistic and visual. It is a way of seeing the world and of understanding how the landscape and culture in which we live has a massive impact on all of us unconsciously. An example would be a traffic light, we automatically know how to react to them though cultural convention over a long period of time and which we learn as children. This requires a deal of unconscious cultural knowledge to understand.

Semiotics can be broken down into three parts. There is the Icon, the Index and the Symbol.

Icon: a sign that physically resembles what it stands for - a literal sign. 
Index: A sign which implies some other objects or event - an implied sign.
Symbol: A sign with a conventional or arbitrary relation ro the signified. 

A visual explanation of this regarding a cat which was shown last year can be seen below. 

Affordance in design:

Affordances in design are clues about how an object should be used typically provided by the object itself or its context. An example would be, even if you have never seen a coffee mug, it's use I fairly natural. The handle is shaped for easy grasping and the vessel has a large opening at the top with a empty well inside. The object 'affords' being picked up meaning that it is able to be picked up. 

Another example would be a small rock, the affordance of the rock is to be thrown, because it is small enough to fit into the palm of your hand. You get this urge to throw the rock.

I believe this concept takes a huge part in this project idea because to achieve an outcome of discomfort, I would have to tweak the concept of the item in the attempt on interrupting with the affordance of the object.

Polystyrene:

Returning to the polystyrene idea, after discussing the concept of designing the uncomfortable with tutors and members of my peers, I was suggested to pursue this idea for the outcome of this project. Seeing that I can't stand polystyrene at all and that the mere sound of a piece of polystyrene rubbing together with anything makes my spine shiver, It was recommended that one of my outcome pieces could be an image of someone brushing their teeth but the toothbrush is made out of polystyrene. The reason as to why the design features a person using a polystyrene toothbrush instead is to provide a mental thought about the viewer physically using the item. If i were to look at a design like this i would be able to envision the feeling of the polystyrene grind on my teeth and that horrid squeaking noise pierces my ears. That is the feeling I want to portray and convey with my audience with the project.    

Seeing that for the outcome I would like to have three designs to present, I brainstormed and created a list of objects that I would personally find the most uncomfortable when it came to combining them with polystyrene. When deciding on what objects to consider I thought about the type of items that I would use on a daily basis that require a moderate amount of physical interaction to function. Below is a scan of this mind map/list.

Just have to say, sitting there and visualising objects I frequently use transformed into such a horrid material made my brainstorm session less than pleasant. 

[Insert scan]

The objects I found to be the most distressing were the following:

Headphones
Toothbrush
A bed + bedding
Clothing
Dining set (plate and Cutlery)
Tools such as a hammer (to add to the dysfunctional aspect of this project)

One thing I need to consider for this is that polystyrene is widely used to created physical concept objects and products because it's cheap and easy to shape and manipulate. With these designed outcomes I need to make sure that the designs convey a level of function and try to not make the design look like it's just a concept for a product. Example being I were to design the headphones as an outcome, I would have a person wearing them and listening to music additionally with this I could have it say something like 'Now playing: The Sound of Polystyrene Rubbing Together' to add an extra visualisation and mental image to the outcome.  

The image below is a prototype for a set of headphones, although this looks to have been created using a 3d printer which is usually a more commonly used for prototypes, it can be mistaken for polystyrene so as stated above I have to take this into consideration when designing these outcomes. 

Designing Polystyrene Using Adobe Photoshop:

Due to time constraints for this project I wouldn't have had enough time to physically create some items out of polystyrene and have a photo shoot with them, that and it would be hell on earth for me to cut and form the material. Instead I decided to create some designs on Photoshop and using Adobe Stock i'm going to obtain and import some high quality images of people using the objects, these objects will then have a polystyrene texture added on Photoshop. The reason as to why I am using Adobe Stock and not taking the photographs myself is because I would much prefer to work with higher quality images to present with the outcome.

Whilst researching about what it is that makes us feel so uncomfortable when hearing the sound of polystyrene being rubbed together, I ran into a slight snag. There isn't actually a conclusive proof about why we tense up and flinch to this sound. One of the closest explanations we have regarding this is that our bodies are instinctively programmed to instantly react to this, the reason being is that this screeching sound that we experience resembles the sound of our tooth enamel being damaged and destroyed. It resembles the sound of our body being damage, but the type of damage that doesn't hurt but doesn't heal either. If we accidentally bit down on something stronger than tooth enamel, a stone for example making the screech noise we instinctively take drastic action to make the noise stop, our bodies lock up and our jaws clench for a moment to stop and asses the situation.

All honestly I feel like I have hit a dead end with this project, I personally feel like I won't be able to add enough narrative to present for the deadline. However I did create a prototype designed outcome for this using Photoshop so i didn't hit this dead end empty handed. Using an Adobe Stock photo of someone using headphones I wrapped a polystyrene texture over the headphones to give them the scaly textured appearance Styrofoam has, i then titled the poster 'Polystyrene is Wack' and added a brief overview of the information that I gathered regarding why we feel the way we do when hearing that dreadful noise.   

     

After working on the polystyrene idea I decided to revert back to my original inspired concept of making objects and 3D assets that intentionally frustrate and make the viewer anxious through intentionally tweaking them to interrupt with our mental and conceptual models. 

you can find the 3D asset construction in my post formative genealogies blog post.