Mutations Assignment

Here are the cards of the assignment for Mutations of Communications, in case anyone is interesting in trying it for themselves. Or ifyour just interested:

Bach's Suite no. 1

I've recently been listening to slightly more classical music than before, which means about one song a week, instead of none. But I have to say that my ear is coming quickly, I am already recognizing songs, and the different styles of the different composers. I don't know what this has to do with design, but I have noticed that being preoccupied with a theme usually finds it's way into my personal designs. My personal favorite at the moment is Bach's Suite no. 1. The transition between fast, and slow motion of the reminds me so much of life, perhaps how time is flowing, how some moments seem to fly by, while some seem to stand still so that we can appreciate them, or dispise them (seems there is no preference time will slow for either of these extremes). Anyway, very beautiful music, I am excited to hear more from Bach!

Product Love

I am currently in the preparation and research process of writing my Vordiplom (intermediate exam). It will consist of three theses on themes of my choosing, and a final product corresponding to the main theme. Two of my themes are settled. The first of which being "Product Love" about the kinds of relationships that we build with objects, and how they are formed. I am busying myself the most with this theme at the moment, since I now have to prove that I can tackle such a large theme, in showing literature lists, and a partial outline of how I intend to tackle the theme.

The other topic is Eco-Porn. How we may pervert nature, and our perception of nature through idealized images of it. I am going to be writing this thesis in German! Which is really exciting and scary for me, I am not sure what is going to come, but I hope that I am happy with the outcome of it. I also have some information colleced on this theme, it should be very interesting and fun to investigate!

My Library

I expressed earlier my desire to have a library with books and papers, every page of which I had read of written, it would be my brain, and all the literature that influenced it, in one room. Yesterday I was discussing this dream with my boyfriend, and realized that this library will probably never be able to be my own. If I share my library with my future spouse or companion, some of those books and ideas will be his. This thought seems very unattractive to me, and I now get images of separated libraries, or separated shelves of his and my books. Will I ever be able to share my books. When or if I do it will be a meaningful event. It will mean that I am finally capable of sharing my life with someone, and also my thoughts, molding us into a single, and collective mind.

Product photography

How can we create creative evocative pictures of our product designs? You know, not an object on a solid background. Here's a bit of brainstorming, haven't used any of it, but I think I'm going to play around photographing some of my favorite things.

Check out the ID magazine archives, sometimes they have interesting product photography.

Look at exhibition designs for inspirations on how to photograph the products, it's just a still display of the picture.

Remember Ms. Baileys photo class: the assignment where we got an object and had to then make a series of photos with the object in it. Remember Paige's barbie inside kitchen appliances photo series? What did that say about the barbie, and what did it say about the appliances she was jammed into. Take your product and give yourself that assignment. Think of a thorough concept for the shoot, give your object some kind of odd juxtaposition. Give it a life. Give it a different environment than you'd traditionally think of that says something about the object itself, and about the environment around it.

Amelie's travelling gnome. What does this do for the gnome? It animates it in a way you wouldn't expect, with a few hand scribbled notes it seemed like the gnome had taken a vacation of his own.

Check out Philip Toledano's work again, nice photos, you might get some ideas. What about product photographs without the product in it? Like the video game pictures, the faces on the people says enough about the game, you hardly have to show it. Okay, might be too far for a portfolio, but interesting.

Look at other experimental photography for inspiration, take out the subject of the photo, and put your product in it. Check out the lomography website for more ideas.

Possesions

"Let us grant that our everyday objects are in faact objects of a passion - the passion for private property, emotional investment in which is every bit as intense as investment in the 'human' passion.... Apart from the uses to which we put them at any particular moment, objects in this sense have another apect which is imtimately bound up with the subject: no longer simply material bodies offering a certain resistance, they become things of which I am the meaning, they become my property and passion"

-The system of objects

Wabi-sabi

"Artfully obscured exotic concepts like wabi-sabi also made good marketing bait. Obscuring the meaning of wabi-sabi, but tantalizing the consumer with glimpses of its value."

Like starbuks coffee, or other so called "lifestyle" products, which give you the feeling that you are getting something more than an object, a collection of molecules - something higher, and better, almost impossible to forge. The secret and success of such products is that the extra something remains undefined, allowing the consumer to redefine it for themselves everytime they consume the product. The consumer then can associate any beauty in the laws of the world, light, or sound, experiences or feelings, things that are inevitably incapturable as a whole, and then bind this with the product itself. You don't have to then bind these beautiful things with with objects, you have to allude that they are bound to the object, and the consumer will do it for themselves.

Ode to Books

A book for me represents a future. I buy the books that I read when I can afford it. I dreamt as a child of having an extensive personal library, in which I had read every book that sits on the shelves. I dreamt of having a library of my own mind. It would be extensive with shelves and shelves of books, but also with card files of all the quotes I had written down from the books. It would have filing drawers full of essays I had read, and written. CDs of all the information radio I had heard.

This is a dream I still intend to uphold.

I love the feeling of buying a new book, it is the hope for myself. That I will become something better. That my mind will stretch further beyond any point I could have imagined. A book holds a future of thought for me, and my book reading rituals exemplify that. I buy a book, and have a special stack of books bought, and not yet read. Some of the books in the stack have been read halfway through, but remain in the stack until the last page has been finished. I mark the margins of my books, not worrying about making intelligent of even complete comments. Sometimes its just a keyword, often, Spencer. When the train of thought from the books runs parallel with, or merges with a path that my own mind has taken. After or sometimes during the reading of the book I go through all the marked passages, and copy them onto notecards. I learned this technique in my senior humanities class. A technique for writing research papers. A way of conglomerating the important parts of the book into tangible, and movable parts, like movable type, the ideas can be arranged and mixed from different sources into a new pattern and order with a different meaning. When the book is finished I put it into my bookshelves. It is a kind of celebratory ritual for me. Celebrating and embracing my new knowledge, and putting aside to rest.

Books have also become an important part of my mind. I often find myself thinking of passages that relate to the events or ideas that I encounter during the day. Depending on the situation I either quote or summarize the passage from the book, or I revisit the passage later that night, pondering on the meaning and connection. Why I made the connection at that point, and how I might be getting closer to understanding the world. I remember specifically having a conversation in my living room during my first date with my former boyfriend. And for some reason, I pulled out the book Walden and read passages to him. What a nerdy, and completely sweet and vulnerable thing for me to do.

I like to have the books after that fact for just that reason, if I have them, I go back to them, they slowly integrate into my life and my thoughts, and become a bigger part of me. Most of my books are stored at my parents home at the moment, for reasons having to do with my semi-nomadic international lifestyle at the moment. And the fact that they aren't here with me makes me sad sometimes. Not a physical sadness that would show in a facial expression, but a really deep and gentle pain and nostalgia for them. Because they are a part of me. They are a part of my mind, made permanent with ink and paper. They are a connection between me and the author that could only happen through this media, as personal sometimes as a letter between lovers. And they are a connection between me and everyone else in the world who has ever read and connected to the book. I belong then in a net of people, we don't even know who eachother are, but when we find eachother by mistake or happenstance it's like a reunion, we know that we are common to eachother, and that if only in some small way, we are connected to eachother without even having known it.

Days like this

It is on days like this that I realize the puny size and capacity of a single human brain compaired to the expanses of information that exist in the universe. I just want to learn everything, and at the same time I know that it is impossible. Isn't this what the human life is about? Wanting what we know that we can't have?

Being and Time

I want to be one of those peoples who dies with an unfinished project on their desk, that at some point after their death people wish that the work had been finished.