Interior/Architectural design

On the 4th of February, I started working in Interior/Architectural design, for this I was shown various artistic interior designs such as Ernesto Neto’s “Walking Venus blue cave (2001), Revenge of the goldfish (1981), The coral reef, etc. For the assignment I and my team had to create two interior collages each capturing the meaning of certain words we were given, the words we were given were “Welcoming and Threatening”, half of us worked on each word, I chose “threatening” so for the image I wanted to create what looked like a very uncomfortable atmosphere, so the main composition was to have a chair sitting in a dark room with one light shining down on it and having the chair surrounded by what I and each of my teammates are afraid of.

To create our rooms we used photoshop and browsed the web for scary images to include

Welcoming Threatening

Augmented reality

On the 29th of January, I was introduced to Augmented reality which is a form of technology that superimposes computer-generated images on someone’s phone, tablet, etc.

For this, I was given instructions on how to use an AR phone app called “HP Reveal” which lets us set up our own trigger image which allows it to play an animation or video when a certain object is shown in front of the camera

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Next, I set up the trigger image and make sure the meters on green so I can get the best quality.

Next,I select the aura (photo and video) I want, place it in the right position and once I scan it using the HP camera the Aura will show.

Reflection on Folklores

For this assignment, I’ve been tasked with writing a reflection about Folklores I’ve discovered from last weeks lecture.

First the subject was about whiskey and it contributed back in the old days of high society, for this I read an extract from Marshall McLuhan’s “Men of Distinction”, In this he explained how whiskey was an important part of society, business, advertising and culture and how many people used it to work or “blend in”. In my opinion Mcluhans trying to say that whiskey is a corruptive substance and how people use it to “escape” form their problems in a really unhealthy way, he also points out how there were certain types of societies based on wealth and popularity, they referred to as “brows”, there was high brow,(the highest) medium brow (the middle) and lowbrow (the lowest) and he expressed how the high brow was the most dominant society and how drinking whiskey made one feel cultured.

Next, I drew a mind map based on text from the extract and mentioned relevant quotes about his views on whiskey.

Next, I watched a commercial for Bell’s whiskey, then I expressed my opinions on the ad as a whole and pointed out what it had to do with whiskey such as:

The whiskey doesn’t appear until the last five seconds
It mainly focuses on an elderly man learning how to read so he can read his son’s book.

Lastly, each of us was tasked in picking a commercial and drawing out a spider diagram analysis

I picked an ad for “Nescafe Gold” and made sure to include as much as possible.

Link Here:

YouTube Channel Link

Heres my youtube channel to see videos of various projects I’m working on

Enjoy!!!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxqzw6wY6Xud-67fQ6ehwRA?view_as=subscriber

(24/1/19) Myth-Making Reflection

On the 23rd of January, I had my first lecture on “Myth-Making”, for the first week I learned about “mythologies” such as Plato’s Allegory of the cave, George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, and the philosophies of Roland Barthes.

During this, I read a page of Barthes plastic in Mythologies, whilst reading he described plastic as more a material of infinite possibilities, that its a miracle of materials and even said “A miracle is always a sudden transformation”, he even talked about it being compared to other materials effusiveness such as rubber and flat hardness of metal, and genuine produce such as foam, fibers, and strata.

Next, I had to identify an object and find examples of it using different materials

Here are the ones I included:

Money notes
Fingernails
Watches
Chopping boards
Bowls
Chairs
Tents
Tables
Body prosthetics
Buttons

The best example I gave was Body prosthetics because we really have come a long way from wooden legs, hook hands etc, because nowadays we can 3D print plastic hands with moveable fingers, and in case of a scenario if the hand is broken, it can always be 3D printed again under the same program file. There are even some that are completely functioned by the user’s mind.

Has it made me think differently about my discipline or my own practice as an individual?

Not really, I still see plastic how it is “a dominant material”, in many ways plastic has helped due to it being easy, cheap and safe (if used probably), In other words we wouldn’t be where we are today, plastic has helped us Create new inventions, toys, equipment and has even helped the environment with there imitation products such as tables, chairs, and various tools. With plastic, we have more opportunities and possibilities to go beyond limitations, we can make things easy, safe and eco-friendly. As for my own practice I see it being useful since it provides me with the right tools I need such as my equipment and leftover materials I can use for making or as a pallet for paint, glue and other substances.

(21/1/19-22/1/19) Ceramics Part II

on the 21st of January, I continued my ceramic work, for this I was given tutorials on how to work with clay, once we were given the tutorials and knew how to work with clay, I and my group gathered the equipment and clay for our sculpture.

Our sculpture was a combination of favorite objects, we did for the shadow drawings the spikes and body parts (particularly the feet), so we drew out design layouts and picked the best one, once we picked our design, each of us focused on a separate piece(s) of the sculpture, I made the feet.

Once we finished all the pieces we all put it together, we used string to dangle the feet and created a support structure to keep it still.

“The Spikes”

The spikes were shadows of book pages sticking up.

The feet

While sculpting I used my own foot for reference to create the shape.

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Final Model

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Ceramics Part I

On the 15th of January, I started working in ceramics, for this I was up into a group with five people.

For our first assignment, we had to gather various objects of our own so we could draw around there shadows (I used a few models from my desk, that I made), During this, I and my group got interested in drawing body parts (particularly Arms or legs) both our own and the sculpted ones.

For our second task, we each had to create our own model out of cardboard based on one of the shadow drawings of our choice, I chose one of the hands of one of my teammates we drew, first I traced the original drawing using tracing paper, then I cut it out and drew around the stencil onto cardboard, I did this five more times then drilled a hole at the bottom part of the hand and fit a small piece of a wooden dowel through each hand and secured it with a pin on each side. Once it was all put together I turned it into a fan called “The OK fan”

The Spiral (13/1/19)

On the 4th of December, I started experimenting with spirals for this drew various spirals out on tracing paper and cut them out and test the LED and shadow effect.

To create a final spiral design I took some strong wire to build a support structure, next I took a long piece of wire and made a long spiral and glued tracing paper around it and glued small spirals on it, next I hooked it to the support structure, then I managed to place the LED inside and wrap the positive and negative wire around the neck of the support, once the wires were connected to the transformer I managed to create a spiral shadow from the bottom.

LED (13/1/19)

On the 3rd of December, I started work on “Light”, for this I was given a tutorial on how to work with LED lights and a soldering iron.

An LED light has two wires, the long one is the positive and short one is negative, for the soldering I had to use two wires to connect to LED, the red one is the positive and the black ones the negative.

2) To connect the wires together I used the soldering iron to melt the solder so the black and red wires would connect to the LED.

3) After the wires were connected I took some small rubber tubing and slid it through each wire, then I took a heat gun to seal the tubing in place.

4) Next, I took the other ends of the wires and connected them to an electrical transformer, ( the wires would have to be placed underneath the screws of the transformer)

5) Lastly, I plugged in the plug from the other side of the transformer and turned it on and the light lit up

The Tesseract (13/1/19)

On the 5th of December, I started creating another light

For this one, I decided to go with a more simple shape, so I took some coffee sticks and glued them together to make a cube next I covered each side with tracing paper, next I took it to the spray room and sprayed it blue. I then spot welded a support frame to hold the LED in place, next I put the frame in place then fed the LED and wires through.

Once the cube itself was finished then built a small podium for it to sit. First I took a few pieces of wood and decided how tall I wanted each side, next I cut the wood, for the top part I cut a smaller square so I could fit the wire through and cover it with the cube itself, next I took a drill and screwed the sides together, then I sprayed painted it grey, once everything was completed I placed the cube on the podium and connected the wires from to the transformer and it lit up.

The design and name is based on a movie artifact from various Marvel movies

Movie Appearances

Thor (2011)
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
The Avengers (2012)
Guardians of The Galaxy (2014)
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
Thor Ragnarok (2017)
Avengers: Infinity War (2018)