Tuesday 22 March 2011
Critical prototypes development
CRIT FEEDBACK
Look at: Type and Typography - Phil Baines
Breaking down concept:
- System to communicate vowels
- What is the use/purpose?
- How do you bring it into a real world context?
We looked at the phonetic alphabet notifications and decided the current notations were unclear and need to be 'learnt' to understand. My mechanical version of the phonetic vowel notation can be understood by anyone without having to have pre-existing knowledge of them. It is more of an immediate solution - anyone can copy the movement and sound out the vowel.
Mark making using the movement should be explored but instead of a linear felt tip a paintbrush/calligraphy pen could be used to maintain the difference in speed and sharpness of movement.
COULD BE USED TO AID SPELLING, ESPECIALLY WITH DYSLEXIC PEOPLE?
Monday 21 March 2011
Clarifying ideas
LANGUAGE AS AN AGREEMENT
CONVERSATION BETWEEN TWO RESPONSIVE ELEMENTS
CAN YOU CONVERSE WITH AN INANIMATE OBJECT?
WHAT SHAPES/SYMBOLS SIGNIFY LANGUAGE TO US THEREFORE FORM A TYPE OF COMMUNICATION
MIMICKING HUMAN CHARACTERISTICS IN INANIMATE OBJECTS
MESSAGE EMBEDDED IN AN OBJECT - FORM OF REMOVED CONVERSATION - CAN BE PROGRAMMED BY A HUMAN PARTICIPANT - PRIMITIVE FORM OF LETTER/TEXT BUT USING SYMBOLS INSTEAD OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
Wednesday 16 March 2011
The chair that models itself in the image of Kafka's modern anti-hero is, by means of its appellation, also a Monument to the Isms. The author of this work, British artist Theo Kaccoufa, explains that the title acknowledges the 20th century art movements that were 'once vigorous creatures roaming the earth' and which now 'occasionally kick and struggle to regain their footing'. In manifesting this art historical critique in the ultimate image of alienation, mixed metaphors of metamorphosis abound: where Kafka begins his novella with the ridiculous but resonant proclamation that a man is now a large insect, Kaccoufa conjures the equally contentious proposal that artistic movements are an endangered species victim to the dialectical dangers of historical negation. These bold statements about modernity are brought to bear, remarkably, by a piece of furniture; that which is understood to be neither animate, nor driven by momentum, in accordance with the ascensional logic of (art-) history.
Extract from Domestic Appliance exhibition catalogue, Flowers East, 2008. Text by Ellie Harrison-Read, Curator.
LANGUAGE POTENTIAL ENERGY
Kinetic art
The word kinetic means relating to motion. Kinetic art is art that depends on motion for its effects. Since the early twentieth century artists have been incorporating movement into art. This has been partly to explore the possibilities of movement, partly to introduce the element of time, partly to reflect the importance of the machine and technology in the modern world, partly to explore the nature of vision. Movement has either been produced mechanically by motors or by exploiting the natural movement of air in a space. Works of this latter kind are called mobiles. A pioneer of Kinetic art was Naum Gabo with his motorised Standing Wave of 1919¿20. Mobiles were pioneered by Alexander Calder from about 1930. Kinetic art became a major phenomenon of the late 1950s and the 1960s.
Calder’s suspended wire sculptures were given the name ‘mobiles’ by Marcel Duchamp. Several abstract shapes, normally in a palette of primary colours, black and white, are attached to wires in a way reminiscent of the growth of branches on trees. For the writer Jean-Paul Sartre, Calder’s sculptures were ‘at once lyrical inventions, technical, almost mathematical combinations, and the perceptible symbol of Nature: great elusive Nature, squandering pollen and abruptly causing a thousand butterflies to take wing’. |
Gear Experiment 2
Movement very stiff, needs to be more fluid. Will replace nails with screws so screw heads will keep gears in place (a lot of tension caused by elastic band).
Movement needs to be continual - add worm gear, axle and motor.
Tip of mouth is more pointed, 2 spaced pins instead of 1 needed.
Does it say wow yet?
not quite...
Tuesday 15 March 2011
Yuri Suzuki
Door Bell #1 from Yuri Suzuki on Vimeo.
'Yuri Suzuki always manages to make me smile with his intuitive and engaging projects. We’ve all seen his fantastic work with the medium of vinyl, and his passion for sound is something that’s echoed in a new project he’s just uploaded to his blog. Although not much detail yet, Yuri is continuing on his exploration of “Re-designing the domestic sound-scape”, this time tackling doorbells. The results are far from your classic ‘Ding-Dong’, if you will.'
www.itsnicethat.com
www.yurisuzuki.com
Mimicking mouth movements with gears and elastic bands
Varying gear ratio to get different speeds.
Perhaps cams could be introduced for different types of motion e.g. snail cams for sharp, quick actions.
Considerations made as lower lip moves more than upper lip.
Monday 14 March 2011
Tree of Codes by Jonathan Safran Foer
Conversation about whats possible with literature and whats possible with paper...
'I want to fuck you' - Derrick Santini
10th Dec 2010 in Art, by Ruth Carlisle
The Maurice Einhardt NEU Gallery
10/12/10 to 29/01/2011. Redchurch Street, Shoreditch
A crowd is gathered in Redchurch Street. This is not uncommon, nor is it rare for the crowd to be enjoying an art gallery’s hospitality at the opening of their new exhibition. What is different about this crowd is that each person is looking into the window of the gallery and swaying from side to side. No swaying isn’t the right verb, they are rather foppishly angling themselves along a horizontal plane. The reason for this hangs in the window, a twin art piece called ‘Gratification in Red’ and ‘Gratification in White’. These pieces depict a pole dancer performing an attitude heel spin (yes I know my pole moves) in two shades of light. It’s the medium which makes this not just a photography session in Amsterdam. Several images have been printed on a lenticular lens and mounted on a lightbox to produce a sequence of moving frames. Therefore the ‘Gratification’ dancer is actually dancing, all the audience has to do is move and she moves with you.
On the surface this is a display conveying concepts relating to voyeurism, seduction, sexuality and sin. As you enter the exhibit you begin to find other threads and meanings to the art works, however the principal content are women. These women are in various states of seductive play, burlesque routines or simple undress. There are also two portraits opposing each other called ‘I Want to Fuck You’ and ‘I Love You’. In these images a woman is mouthing these very statements and with feeling. The fact that they are placed opposite each other could reflect a considered opposition of the statements, that one is contrary to the other. Or that they are unanimous with each other, reflections in the same distorted mirror. The utilisation of holography means that a picture is speaking to the audience, as well as the picture facing it. The woman in ‘I Love You’ is saying this to herself in ‘I want to Fuck You’. And who hasn’t said these things in the mirror to themselves? Who wouldn’t love it if we could fuck our own reflection? Or is that just me...?
Moving on. We find that certain art works are more involved with the sexual side of seduction, whereas others are more symbolic of the delightful play involved. ‘Daisy Don’t Stop The Dance’ is sensual and sweet, viewers perceiving the pure joy on the female subject’s face. Yet here is where the defining level is realised. Viewing moving images of women gyrating, seducing and generally trying to lay the audience is interesting for a time, but the pieces that stood out do more than this. They portray a vulnerability within the women, the knowledge of the risk they take, the possible rejection and the awareness of being objectified. ‘Blue and Gold’ is one such piece, with the pose being unstructured, the light unflattering and a simplicity in the animation. This piece denotes a deeper uncertainty within the seduction. Whereas ‘Suki, Fill Me Up’ was relatively a shallow piece that reminded me of the tacky pens you could buy at Pleasure Beaches, which when inverted a 1980’s coiffed woman would lose her bathing suit.
Nevertheless by utilising lenticular photographic sequences, these subjects become personable and their actions construct different themes. The images can both aesthetically shock and engage the viewer. If her being naked in that pose doesn’t affect you, then just move your head to get a new pose which may do the trick. What’s more the audience has to directly participate with the art, moving to better the view and better understand the work. The pieces are performative within themselves and also without. The most fun I had when at the gallery was watching the audience jostle about, looking like they were attempting to do the twist whilst dodging missiles. Participants were viewing intimate and sometimes very private movements, ignoring the fact that they were performing what they may have considered quite private and ridiculous movements themselves.
Santini is a well known for his voyeur aesthetic and his ability to encourage dialogue and confrontation, especially with regards to intimacy and the taboo. Though I wouldn’t regard this exhibit to be as iconic as his previous works, the novel use of the medium and womanly sexuality was just as confrontational. The women in these pictures showed a acknowledgement of being sexually evaluated. Conveying a dramatic irony between the female subjects about the combined audience’s ignorance. Questions then arose to explain our need to examine sex and about how we view women. Can fucking be intimate? Can love be dirty and obscene?
An audience entered the gallery and moved as one in order to fully view a woman’s nakedness, to examine a nipple, to make out the dirty words she whispered, to assess her fuckability. And no one decided that this was inappropriate or gratuitous. If the art’s aim was to enable sexual discourse, what was the result of these discussions? In the end I felt that most had picked the woman they wouldn’t kick out of bed, the woman they would be afraid to meet in a dark alley and the picture they would most likely masturbate to. Scintillating discoveries I’m sure.
Regularised spelling and pronunciation chart
| 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. | a ae ah ar aw b ch d | at pae haht far law bad chin dad | bat dae hot par saw bib chip did | Voiced Voiced Voiceless Voiced Voiced Voiced Voiceless Voiced | the Short "a" the Long "a" the High "a" the "ar" Blend the Broad "a" | Vowel Sound - Single Letter Vowel Sound - Digraph Vowel Sound - Digraph Vowel Consonant Blend Vowel Sound - Digraph Consonant Plosive Sound Consonant Fricative Sound Dental Plosive Sound | |
| 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. | ee eh er eu ex f g h hw | see geht her feu sex fix gig hit hwich | meet (get) per neu hex fin gag hat hwen | Voiced Voiced Voiced Voiced Voiced Voiceless Voiced Voiceless Voiceless | the Long "e" the Short "e" the "er" Blend the "eu" Blend the "ex" Blend | Vowel Sound - Digraph Vowel Sound - Digraph Vowel-Consonant - Digraph Vowel Diphthong - Digraph Vowel-Consonant - Digraph Consonant Fricative Sound Consonant Gutteral Sound Consonant Expiration Sound Consonant blend - Digraph | |
| 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. | i ie j k l m n | it pie Jim Kim Lil Mark Nan | sit tie jam keep lip Mike nip | Voiced Voiced Voiced Voiced Voiced Voiced Voiced | the Short "i" the Long "i" | Vowel Sound - Single Letter Vowel Diphthong Sound Digraph Consonant "j" Sound Consonant "k" Sound Consonant "l" Sound Consonant "m" Sound Consonant "n" Sound | |
| 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. | ng o oi oo or ow p | sing over oil boot for how pin | ring Rover boil hoot nor now pan | Voiced Voiced Voiced Voiced Voiced Voiced Voiceless | the "ng" Blend the Long "o" the Extended "o" the "or" Blend the "ow" Blend | Consonant "ng" Sound Vowel Sound Vowel Diphthong - Digraph Vowel Sound - Digraph Vowel-Consonant Digraph Vowel-Consonant Digraph Consonant Plosive Sound | |
| 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. | q=kw r r-r s sh t th th | qeen rip r-rip sip ship tip thik this | kween ran r-ran sap shin tap thin that | Voiced Voiced Voiced Voiceless Voiceless Voiced Voiceless Voiced | the "kw" Blend | Consonant Digraph Consonant "r" Sound Continental Consonant "r" Consonant "s" Sound Consonant Sibilant "sh" Consonant "t" - Dental Consonant "th" Digraph (VL) Consonant "th" Digraph (V) | |
| 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. | u uh v w x y z zh | put buht van win fix yip zip azh'r | fut (but) Val wit six yap zap (azure) | Voiced Voiced Voiced Voiced Voiced Voiced Voiced Voiced | Narrow (Umlaut) "u". Stressed Schwa "uh" | Consonant Sound Consonant Sound - Digraph Consonant "v" Sound Consonant "w" Sound Consonant "x" Sound Consonant "y" Sound Consonant "v" Sound Consonant "zh" Blend | |
| 48. 49. 50. | / / ( ) ' | /a/-/b/ fau(x) pa(s) nik'l pik'l | Special Utility Symbol Special Utility Symbol Special Utility Symbol | Phoneme Marker Un-enunciated Sounds Unstressed Schwa Sounds | |||
[Spelling Progress Bulletin, Fall 1983 p8]
Vowel sounds
Long a (ā) sound as in ape, snail, ache, explain, and reindeer Long e (ē) sound as in eat, agony, needle, pianist, and electricity Long i (ī) sound as in eye, cry, tightrope, tile, and violin Long o (ō) sound as in oh, domino, ghost, pillow, and stethoscope Long u (ū) sound as in you, salute, toothbrush, goose, boot, and costume Short a (ă) sound as in at, taxi, anniversary, laboratory, and tackle Short e (ĕ) sound as in elm, elevator, jellyfish, pentagon, and dentist Short i (ĭ) sound as in it, gift, inflate, spinach, and cereal Short o (ŏ) sound as in hop, camouflage, garage, chop, father, paw, and binoculars Short u (ŭ) sound as in up, cut and subtract Schwa (ə) sound as in about, item, gallop, and circus
Consonant sounds
/b/ sound as in bonfire, black, bathtub, and balcony /d/ sound as in dry, draw, design, and duet /f/ sound as in fossil, fail, frame, and fingerprint /g/ sound as in greeting, grill, goose, and grapefruit /h/ sound as in hail, hieroglyphics, hostage, and hit /j/ sound as in magician, syringe, jeep, and message /k/ sound as in key, knock, kangaroo, and kayak /l/ sound as in lizard, learn, lamp, and library /m/ sound as in mug, money, maze, and mechanical /n/ sound as in night, newspaper, nightmare, and noodle /p/ sound as in panda, pie, pen, and potato /r/ sound as in rose, restaurant, run, and reporter /s/ sound as in safe, sunset, sand, and seat /t/ sound as in tile, thermometer, tongue, and toy /v/ sound as in violin, volcano, vaccination, and vote /w/ sound as in waterfall, wagon, windmill, and watch /y/ sound as in yoke, yawn, yacht, and yoga /z/ sound as in zebra, zoo, and zipper
“About the Word Design” by Vilém Flusser
Give me but one firm spot on which to stand, and I will move the earth (Archimedes)
In English, the word design is both a noun and a verb (which tells one a lot about the nature of the English language). As a noun, it means—among other things “intention,” “plan,” “intent,” “aim,” “scheme,” “plot,” “motif,” “basic structure,” all these (and other meanings) being connected with “cunning” and “deception.” As a verb (“to design”), meanings include “to concoct something,” “to simulate,” “to draft,” “to sketch,” “to fashion,” ‘to have designs on something.” The word is derived from the Latin signum, meaning “sign,” and shares the same ancient root. Thus, etymologically,design means “de-sign.” This raises the question: How has the word design come to achieve its present-day significance throughout the world? This question is not a historical one, in the sense of sending one off to examine texts for evidence of when and where the word came to be established in its present-day meaning. It is a semantic question, in the sense of causing one to consider precisely why this word has such significance attached to it in contemporary discourse about culture.
The word occurs in contexts associated with cunning and deceit. A designer is a cunning plotter laying his traps. Falling into the same category are other very significant words: in particular,mechanics and machine. The Greek mechos means a device designed to deceive—i.e. a trap—and the Trojan Horse is one example of this. Ulysses is called polymechanikos, which schoolchildren translate as “the crafty one.” The word mechos itself derives from the ancient MAGH, which we recognize in the German Macht and mögen, the English “might” and “may.” Consequently, a machine is a device designed to deceive; a lever, for example, cheats gravity, and “mechanics” is the trick of fooling heavy bodies.
Another word used in the same context is “technology.” The Greek techne means “art” and is related to tekton, a “carpenter.” The basic idea here is that wood (hyle in Greek) is a shapeless material to which the artist, the technician, gives form, thereby causing the form to appear in the first place. Plato’s basic objection to art and technology was that they betray and distort theoretically intelligible forms (“Ideas”) when they transfer these into the material world. For him, artists and technicians were traitors to Ideas and tricksters because they cunningly seduced people into perceiving distorted ideas.
The Latin equivalent of the Greek techne is ars, which in fact suggests a metaphor similar to the English rogue’s “sleight of hand.” The diminutive of ars is articulum—i.e. little art—and indicates that something is turned around the hand (as in the French tour de main). Hence ars means something like “agility” or the “ability to turn something to one’s advantage,” and artifex—i.e. “artist’—means a “trickster” above all. That the original artist was a conjurer can be seen from words such as “artifice,” “artificial” and even “artillery.” In German, an artist is of course one who is “able to do something,” the German word for art, Kunst, being the noun from können, “to be able” or “can,” but there again the word for “artificial,” gekünstelt, comes from the same root (as does the English “cunning”).
Such considerations in themselves constitute a sufficient explanation of why the word designoccupies the position it does in contemporary discourse. The words design, machine, technology,ars and art are closely related to one another, one term being unthinkable without the others, and they all derive from the same existential view of the world. However, this internal connection has been denied for centuries (at least since the Renaissance). Modern bourgeois culture made a sharp division between the world of the arts and that of technology and machines; hence culture was split into two mutually exclusive branches: one scientific, quantifiable and “hard,” the other aesthetic, evaluative and “soft.” This unfortunate split started to become irreversible towards the end of the nineteenth century. In the gap, the word design formed a bridge between the two. It could do this since itis an expression of the internal connection between art and technology. Hence in contemporary life, design more or less indicates the site where art and technology (along with their respective evaluative and scientific ways of thinking) come together as equals, making a new form of culture possible.
Although this is a good explanation, it is not satisfactory on its own. After all, what links the terms mentioned above is that they all have connotations of (among other things) deception and trickery. The new form of culture which Design was to make possible would be [i.e.,] a culture that was aware of the fact that it was deceptive [i.e., designed]. So the question is: Who and what are we deceiving when we become involved with culture (with art, with technology—in short, with Design)? To take one example: The lever is a simple machine. Its design copies the human arm; it is an artificial arm. Its technology is probably as old as the species homo sapiens, perhaps even older. And this machine, this design, this art, this technology is intended to cheat gravity, to fool the laws of nature and, by means of deception, to escape our natural circumstances through the strategic exploitation of a law of nature. By means of the lever—despite our body weight—we ought to be able to raise ourselves up to touch the stars if we have to, and—thanks to the lever—if we are given the leverage, we might be able to lever the world out of its orbit. This is the design that is the basis of all culture: to deceive nature by means of technology, to replace what is natural with what is artificial and build a machine out of which there comes a god who is ourselves. In short: The design behind all culture has to be deceptive (artful?) enough to turn mere mammals conditioned by nature into free artists.
This is a great explanation, is it not? The word design has come to occupy the position it has in contemporary discourse through our awareness that [Thus?:] being a human being is a design against nature. Unfortunately, this explanation will not satisfy us. [No:] If in factdesign increasingly becomes the centre of attention, with the question of Design replacingthat of the Idea, we will find ourselves on uncertain ground. To take one example: Plastic pens are getting cheaper and cheaper and tend to be given away for nothing. The material they are made of has practically no value, and work (according to Marx, the source of all value) is accomplished thanks to smart technology by fully automatic machines. The only thing that gives plastic pens any value is their design, which is the reason that they write. This design represents a coming together of great ideas, which—being derived from art and science—have cross-fertilized and creatively complemented one another. Yet this is a design we don’t even notice, so such pens tend to be given away free—as advertising, for example. The great ideas behind them are treated with the same contempt as the material and work behind them.
How can we explain this devaluation of all values? By the fact that the word design makes us aware that all culture is trickery, that we are tricksters tricked, and that any involvement with culture is the same thing as self-deception. True, [+] once the barrier between art and technology had been broken down, a new perspective opened up within which one could create more and more perfect designs, escape one’s circumstances more and more, live more and more artistically (beautifully). But [-] the price we pay for this is the loss of truth and authenticity. In fact, the lever is about to lever all that is true and authentic out of our orbit and replace it mechanically with perfectly designed artefacts. And so all these artefacts become as valuable as plastic pens, become disposable gadgets. This becomes clear when we die, if not before. Because despite all the technological and artistic arrangements we make (despite hospital architecture and death-bed design), we do die, just as other mammals die. The word design has managed to retain its key position in everyday discourse because [i.e.,] we are starting (perhaps rightly) to lose faith in art and technology as sources of value. Because we are starting to wise up to the design behind them.
This is a sobering explanation. But it is also an unavoidable one. A confession is called for here. This essay has had a specific design in mind: It set out to expose the cunning and deceptive aspects of the word design. This it did because they are normally concealed. If it had pursued another design, it might, for example, have insisted on the fact that “design” is related to “sign”: a sign of the times, a sign of things to come, a sign of membership. In that case, it would have given a different, but equally plausible, explanation of the word’s contemporary situation. That’s the answer then: Everything depends on Design.
“About the Word Design” ["Vom Wort Design"]. The Shape of Things: A Philosophy of Design [Vom Stand der Dinge: Eine Kleine Philosophie des Design]. Trans. Anthony Mathews. 1993. London: Reaktion Books, 1999. 17-21. Also translated as “On the Word Design: An Etymological Essay.” Trans. J. Cullars. Design Issues 11.3 (Autumn 1995): 50-53. Also published in Alex Coles (ed.), Design and Art (London: MIT P, 2007) and Ben Highmore (ed.), The Design Culture Reader(London: Routledge, 2008).
Sunday 13 March 2011
Comic Sans not your type?
Comic Sans not your type? Lighten up
What does it say about our times when the revolution brewing isn't against the Iraq war or bankers, but a jaunty font?
"The Guardian want you to write about what?" asked a friend of mine yesterday. "The controversy surrounding Comic Sans? Aren't there, erm, ever so slightly more important issues facing Great Britain at the moment than a typeface?" I regarded him blankly, uncomprehending.
Imagine a clown shoe stamping on a human face – forever. Sounds like a fun image, no? This kind of tyrannical lightheartedness is how many regard the ongoing popularity of the innocuous font, which I am using right now, created in 1994 by Microsoft employee Vincent Connare. It all started so innocently, but as the Wall Street Journal reported, use of the font has "spread from a software project at Microsoft Corp to grade-school fliers and holiday newsletters, Disney ads and Beanie Baby tags, business emails, street signs, Bibles, porn sites, gravestones and hospital posters about bowel cancer".When the history of 21st-century popular rebellions are written, nestling somewhere between the millions who took to the streets to protest the Iraq war, Ukraine's orange revolution, and Britain's blood-curdling anti-banker riots of 2011, the Comic Sans hate campaign will be the tale of one cause celebre that spread further, and cut deeper, than any other.After all, people really do get surprisingly wound up by a jaunty, informal typeface being used in mildly inappropriate situations. Time magazine included it in its 50 worst inventions list, but this slight was nothing compared to the militancy adopted by some. When you've finished ranting about the typeface's use on all four corners of the internet, it's time to get active: one can now get "Ban Comic Sans" flyers, comics, stickers, T-shirts, hoodies and coffee mugs.So if this is our generation's revolution, where is it brewing? Where are its leaders in hiding? Where are its rallies held, where are the candle-lit basements churning out its samizdat publications? Only – and entirely – on the internet. The Internet Hates Comic Sans. If I were Connare, I'd be pretty terrified right now – I mean, look at the fate that befell Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after everyone changed their Twitter avatars green for a few weeks. Oh.But what this self-righteous rebellion fails to comprehend is the beauty to be found in incongruity. Getting, say, a stern letter of excommunication from the archdiocese of Milan in Comic Sans is like having a man in a Womble outfit conduct your wedding ceremony, or the 10 o'clock news being read by Inspector Clouseau. It might not be your first choice, but our lives would be pretty drab without a bit of absurdity.Reading the ever-flowing tide of vitriol against the typeface on Twitter, it's almost as if its enemies can't take anything seriously when it's written in Comic Sans. Apart from, perhaps, themselves.Thursday 3 March 2011
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