A blog for Liz – Page 2 – A house for a hermit crab

October 4, 2020October 4, 2020

Material Cookbook || Chapter 1: Direct and Indirect Pattern Transfer

Materials Needed:

Transfer Ink for Fabric
polyester material, the silky kind
Paper
Fabric crayons
wax paper
Iron/Heat press
Flat items (Feathers, string, lace, etc)

Instructions: Dry transfer – Direct

Step 1: Draw a pattern or image on paper using the fabric crayons.

Step 2: Line the paper on top of your chosen material, image side down.

Step 3: Place a sheet of wax paper to protect your cloth from direct heat from the iron. This will prevent the cloth from burning or warping.

Step 4: Iron the stack. Note that the Colour will start to seep into the cloth when it is ironed properly. It also takes awhile for the image to transfer so be patient and check it constantly without moving your image.

Reflection:

Heating with an iron is uneven and I removed the heat too early on from some parts of the fabric which results in fainter imprints.

Polyester burns and shrinks under high heat. Also the silkier the fabric, the more vibrant the colours.

Yellow on paper is very bright whilst purple on paper is almost black, yet transferring over to the cloth lightens the colours.

Instructions: Wet transfer – Indirect

Step 1: Paint your paper with Transfer Ink and leave it to dry

Step 2: Arrange your flat objects on top of your chosen cloth.

Step 3: Line the dried paper with transfer ink on top of your chosen material, coloured side down.

Step 4: Place a sheet of wax paper to protect your cloth from direct heat from the iron. This will prevent the cloth from burning or warping.

Step 5: Iron the stack. Note that the Colour will start to seep into the cloth when it is ironed properly. It also takes awhile for the image to transfer so be patient and check it constantly without moving your image.

Reflection:

The flat objects like string move around a lot when checking, be careful when lifting the sheets.

the transfer ink also takes longer then the crayons for heat transfer, be patient.

Instructions: Wet transfer – Direct

Step 1: Paint your flat objects with transfer ink.

Step 2: Arrange your flat objects on top of your chosen cloth, painted side down.

Step 3: Place a sheet of wax paper to protect your cloth from direct heat from the iron. This will prevent the cloth from burning or warping.

Reflection:

In class example done by Galina. 
The positive imprint is an example of direct wet printing.

I did not have the opportunity to play with this as my string was too flimsy to make a second imprint. The ink picked up from the first wet transfer print is enough to transfer a detailed enough pattern to the cloth as witnessed in the class example.

October 9, 2020

Creative Industry Report: Enchanted Doll

~Warning this post contains ‘nude’ images and dismembered doll parts that may cause discomfort to some viewers.~

What is Enchanted Doll?

“Enchanted Doll” is a luxury toy label that creates handcrafted porcelain, more recently, resin ball-jointed dolls. The company was founded by Marina Bychkova.

“Enchanted Doll” was named after Paul Gallico’s fictional short story, where a young woman creates dolls with so much love that they enchant people at first sight with their compelling, delicate, life-like beauty, is kind of like what the artist herself is doing her own career. By naming her company after such a story Marina Bychkova hopes to do the same, to create the most beautiful doll.

About the Artist:

Marina Bychkova was born in Siberia, close to the borders of China. She states in an interview that it was these cultural influences that could be seen in some of her work. This influences were further bolstered when she moved to Vancouver later in life, where she states also has a very strong Chinese culture. Hence there is a sizeable number of Russian and Chinese themed folk dolls and small traces of their influence in the rest of her works.

Marina Bychkova’s reason for creating her company stems from when she was 6 where she was appalled by the mediocrity of mass produced dolls. She started to make dolls of her own, but it was not until later on in her life, when she enrolled to the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, that she truly decided to turn her passion into her career. At that point she was not studying to make dolls, because she was already making them, but she did say that she had honed her own stylistic ability to make her dolls more unique.

The Creation process.

More than mere playthings, Enchanted Dolls are a brand of elegantly sculpted and articulated works of art. Adorned with elaborate costumes and graced with precious gemstones, metals, and rare found objects, each ball-jointed porcelain doll intricately conveys an aspect of our humanity.

According to Marina Bychkova, each doll takes about an average of 500 hours of production time.

She first goes about designing ball joints and the body lines that she wants on her dolls. When the parts are design, she goes about making the 13 body pieces out of polymer clay. When the clay parts are done, she makes them into plaster moulds, and later cast them using porcelain slip. The parts are then fired in a kiln once in low fire and later after sanding and cleaning, it is fired again in high fire.

After they are baked, she sands them to a satin finish and paints them using glass ceramic china paint and fires them again multiple times.

After the body is painted she lines the edges of the ball joints with leather and string up the doll. When the doll is finished, she starts created the clothes and accessories, either out of textiles, found objects or casting them from gold or silver.

My general thoughts after reviewing her work:

What I enjoy greatly from her dolls firstly comes in the form of her technical skills. When I chanced upon her years ago it is the beauty of the doll and their enchanting presentation that drew me to this artist.

Her dolls are painted realistically, from the way she paints and blushes the porcelain, she gives the dolls life. Staring into their painted glassy eyes there is a keen sense of sadness or fragility to them that makes them feel vulnerable and mysterious. There is more depth to them then the average Barbie which is further presented in her photoshoots and posts.

After looking deeper into this artist, I find her dolls even more intriguing. She states in her interview that for her dolls to be considered an art form, they need to have something more than just pure aesthetics. Thus the dolls themselves are named in a way that either reflect the artist, her love for mythology, fairy tales, and folklore, her fears, experiences, or world issues that she feels strongly for. She then goes about writing about her short comments or opinions about the topics.

The reason for this stylistic choice of painting is also rather thought provoking. In an interview with Pixelsurgeon she says, “I find this deliberate denial of the essence of life to be ignorant and appalling. I don’t know why there is so much fear and shame associated with human sexuality. Every Barbie needs to have a vagina. Every Ken needs a penis.”

When asked why does she do so, she explains that most dolls though imitate human form are sterilized through a complete removal of sex organs. She continues to describe the process of such to seem like they are being cleansed of their sinful humanity and denying the essence of life. Hence for her dolls, it is important to include even the genitalia.

Finally I also admire her ability to be able to make every part of the doll from scratch. Doll making is multidisciplinary if you are making every part of them from scratch, hence I am amazed by her ability to master all forms of doll making. From sculpting the body and accessories and casting them out of different materials to making their tiny wigs, doll clothes and furniture if there are any, and painting the dolls with such a likeness to realism.

References:

https://www.facebook.com/ohmoretv/videos/747943238736741/
http://www.enchanteddoll.com/

May 1, 2020May 1, 2020

Wearable Tech Final Project

Butterflies

My fashion concept revolves around the visualisation of the feelings of anxiety. Anxiety is sometimes described as the butterflies in your stomach and I wanted to work with butterflies on my outfit. For the dress the interactivity was meant to show the phases of being anxious. The first being where the butterflies come alive under the use of servo motors, loud like the blood rushing in your ears. The second being the calm of overcoming that anxiety, where the butterflies calm, and there is light.

The idea of the dress was supposed to be dark, representing the things lurking in the shadows and you cannot really see them, hence I chose of black fabric. Eventually though to liven up the dress, I had chosen some red accents so as everything is not just one dark mess.

Technology:

For the circuit I separated the interactivity into two circuits.

The first is the servo motor where its like a pulley system to pull the butterfly wings up, and gravity brings it down.

The second state is the lights which pulse like a heart beat. I felt that it would be nicer as a pulsing light as it is softer and calmer.

I had thought for if this project exist on its own it will either respond to heartbeat with a heartbeat sensor. For the fashion show I wanted to do a collaboration with Pei Wen, where when her dress comes close then it would trigger the second part of the dress where it lights up, kind of representing the comfort a close friend gives, which results in the calm.

Improvements:

I need a bit more support for the butterflies. As it relies of gravity to let the wings fall, it has to perch horizontally rather then on the side of the wall. So I would like to either remake the butterfly system or make a kind of support.

I would also like to conceal my wires and the butterfly stand better, by maybe making cloth flowers to conceal it.

I would also like to expand the butterfly circuit to the hat portion, so hopefully I can cut or find another way to make more butterflies.

For the Fashion Show:

My role was originally to help out with the photo shoot, I didn’t really think about it too much because the role sounds straightforward enough. Um, I could help out with the other areas too if help is needed.

February 10, 2020February 10, 2020

Wearable Tech: Mood Board

Mood Board:

Clothes Reference:

February 8, 2020February 8, 2020

Wearable Tech Research: Biomimicry

What is Biomimicry:

To copy the functionality of nature to solve our man-made problems.

Examples:

Stefanie Nieuwenhuys

scales4

scales7

scales8

(pictures taken from: https://blogs.3ds.com/fashionlab/stefanie-nieuwenhuyse-recycle-le-bois-comme-des-ecailles-serie-biomimetisme/)

After spying diamond-shaped wood chips on a workshop floor at London’s Kingston University—the leftovers of some architecture student, no doubt—Stefanie Nieuwenhuys was reminded of a secondhand snakeskin bag she once purchased. Scooping them up, the fashion student set to work, layering the wooden scraps onto fabric like reptilian scales.

The artist makes use of scrap material to make her outfits. This project of hers emphasises the idea of reusing materials. Laser cutting the pieces to look like scales, and imitating the layering to look like that of a snake.

Diana Eng

Diana Eng based her “Miura Ori” scarf on an origami “leaf-fold” pattern invented by Koryo Miura, a Japanese space scientist who was in turn inspired by the unfurling mechanism of the hornbeam and beech leaves.

The origami patterns were made by observing nature, and the omission of right angles, like forehead wrinkles or the veins of a dragonfly’s wing. Because of that, the pattern is collapsible.

Monserrat Ciges

Created to imitate animals that are able to voluntarily self-transform.

References:

Simone Leonelli on the Blurred Boundaries Between Art & Fashion

The influence of 3D printing on fashion design

3D Printed Fashion: Novelty or reality?

How to become an Aussie eco-fashion designer

Fashion Biomimicry Through The Lenses Of Biotechnology, Nanotech And Artificial Intelligence

3D Haute Couture by Iris Van Herpen

http://www.osmosis-industries.com/digital/2015/4/21/nature-inspired-fashion-design-through-the-theory-of-biomimicry

Stefanie Nieuwenhuyse Reuses Scrap Wood as Scales – Biomimicry Series

Tessellation and Miura Folds

http://www.fairytalefashion.org/

https://class.textile-academy.org/2019/Montserrat/project.html?fbclid=IwAR2HGn6Jnj_R55DxHrH0XUJ-Kps8XhIIsjuXEe7a-0vZX_qN_RzgdFmpEQQ

January 20, 2020

Wearable Tech Research: X.Pose

Concept:

The outfit reflect the amount of data you generate when using the internet. Based on the amount of data generated, it will make parts of the outfit more transparent then the others. It creates a commentary of how transparent one is on the internet despite having things like privacy settings. On Xuedi’s website they states,

By participating in this hyper-connected society while having little to no control of my digital data production, how much of myself do I unknowingly reveal? To what degree does the aggregated metadata collected from me paint an accurate portrait of who I am as a person? What aspects of my individuality are reflected in this portrait?

The work broadcasts the artists’ concern on the wearer, exposing the wearer literally to the public view as contrast to the exposed data we have online.

Process:

Creation of app to connect to the outfit
- The app is used to collect the data generated from their phone at each time at every location. The data generated is sent via Bluetooth from their phone to a Bluetooth Arduino in the outfit.

(photo taken from: https://www.pedro.work/#/xpose/)

Creation of Flexible mesh armature
- Designed geometrically to reflect areas that the artists visit often. (like Soho, NYU, Union square.
Opacity of the dress
- Depending on the amount of data generated, the outfit would change opacity accordingly.

Materials:

According to the artists’ website, the material used for the armature of the outfit is a flexible 3D printed mesh

(photo taken from: https://www.pedro.work/#/xpose/)

Subsequently, they also mentioned that the opacity changing material is made from electrochromic film, also the materials used to make smart windows.

Photo: Electrochromic glass wired to electric contacts and appearing transparent (clear).

(Photos taken from: https://www.explainthatstuff.com/electrochromic-windows.html)

Image result for smart windows lrt

(similar to the material that is used for our LRT windows)

Electrochromic films use technology similar to an LCD display, which uses liquid crystals, under precise electronic control, to change how much light can get through. When the current is switched on, the crystals line up like opening blinds, allowing light to stream straight through; switched off, the crystals orient themselves randomly, scattering any light passing through in random directions, so making the material turn opaque.

How electrochromic smart film works: Animated GIF artwork showing how liquid crystals align to let light pass through

(Photo taken from: https://www.explainthatstuff.com/electrochromic-windows.html)

References:

http://xc-xd.com/x-pose
https://3dprint.com/5802/x-pose-3d-printed-dress/
https://www.explainthatstuff.com/electrochromic-windows.html
https://www.pedro.work/#/xpose/

November 22, 2019

Interactive Device Project2: Skitzie the Cat

Skitzie the Cat is just your average black cat that likes to hang out on your shoulder. They are curious and like to people watch while you do your stuff. But Skitzie is very shy, hence pretends to be a scarf when anyone comes too close.

(insert hooman wearable sketch)

About Skitzie the Cat

Skitzie is a guardian for those who are not to aware of their surroundings. In a sense Skitzie’s ‘hasty retreat’ to become a scarf is a warning that there are on coming people approaching.

For this project, I had imagined Skitzie to be able to move their head and their ears to see the world. Skitzie is also envisioned to be able to ‘blink’ through LEDs and hum through a speaker. I wanted there to be sound or light as an indicator to the person who is wearing Skitzie to know very clearly when Skitzie is a cat and when they are pretending to be a scarf. The Warning has to be distinct enough to catch people’s notice.

Skitzie’s hardware

Skitzis is a combination of servo motors and a sharp

Testing the Servo Motor:

Website Reference: https://www.instructables.com/id/Arduino-Servo-Motors/

2. Testing the Proximity sensor

Website Reference: https://create.arduino.cc/projecthub/jenniferchen/distance-measuring-sensor-900520

I combine the circuits and then made a head.

Testing out the Eyes circuit, it works. Turns off and on depending on the closeness.

For Some odd reason though when i add the ears, the eyes disappeared.

Then it got fixed (connections are problematic, check everythingggg).

This is the body, that I made around the head servo motor.

All Assembled.

Reflections:

Honestly the aesthetic of Skitzie didnt come out right, which I am a little bit disappointed by. Subsequently the head keeps falling off if left for too long, so I need to fix that in future. Hopefully we will see the return f a better Skitzie in future.

Refernces:

https://www.google.com/search?q=code+servo+motor+with+sensor&oq=code+servo+motor+with+sensor&aqs=chrome..69i57j0.11575j1j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#kpvalbx=_VbKEXdWDPNjc9QPCsoCIBA25

November 21, 2019

Final Project: Trio

One musician makes a Solo.

Two musicians make a Duet.

Three musicians make a Trio.

So lets make a Trio.

Three is a weird number, we only have two hands after all, so to have three sensors you would need at least another person to make sure all sensors are occupied to control the sound that is made (of course the preferable number is three, but I do so wish to see two people flailing around).

Why did I create trio? I guess it was more along the lines of finding a project that seems fun to interact with, but at the same time you struggle to make it work for you. At the end of the day the device is really just a commentary of how sometimes in life while you are trying your best to make something work, the end result does not bear fruit, or even better, bears fruit but there is not really a take away to this situation now is there?

In summary, let me waste your time.

The Circuit:

Life update:

Initially in the previous post I had made my code entirely out of Piezzo Buzzers and ultrasonic sensors, made to beep in a set tempo. Which, to be honest, is not really what I wanted. I want the tempo to be set by removing the object in front of the sensors face. But after editing the code I realise a major issue: the ultrasonic sensor is kind of being influenced by the buzzer it self.

(insert confused noises) It was steady before? But that was when the ultrasonic sensor only needed to play one tone with an interval in between, hence meaning it was not reading the environment every second hence it does not get influenced before.

So at this point it was time to consider changing my components.

Image taken from: https://create.arduino.cc/projecthub/jenniferchen/distance-measuring-sensor-900520

So I tried out the Sharp infrared/proximity? sensor. It goes by distance sensor at Continental.

Putting the entire circuit together, a single Piezzo buzzer and an Arduino together, the circuit works.

However, duplicating the code becomes a bit more troublesome. As it turns out, you cannot fit 3 piezzo buzzers to a single Arduino and expect them to ‘sound’ at the same time (Trouble shooting this the night before and realising you have to duplicate the circuit and not the code is really bad for your health by the way).

I did not account for this tripling of the space needed to store my three Arduinos, three distance sensors, three piezzo buzzers and three power packs. It is a super tight fit, mind you. By right I can squeeze everything into the box,. But by left squeezing very thing in the night before the showcase and then snapping something is not an ideal situation.

Piecing them together:

From the last post I showed that I laser cut, filed and spray painted my pieces, accordingly:

Since that time, I had to redo the black pieces, to fit the Sharp Infrared Sensor instead of the Ultrasonic sensor. Hence cut a rectangular piece instead.

I have also cut some wedges to support the structure.

And I stacked all my pieces up and glued them together with a glue gun.

Finally I stuck my components inside the surface.

Reflections:

In this case I have achieved what I wanted to in this project, the three sensors play according to the distance of them and the object. However maybe in future I would like to be a bit more ambitious/annoying and make the circuit for more (time to make a symphony for one then).

Of course there are a bit more things I should have accounted for, like the size of the circuit, or the potential increase of the circuit.

November 5, 2019

Final Project: I tried to be a Musician

Looking at my final project, I was rather sceptical about what it is i wanted to do, as I was out of ideas.

I spent quite a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to do, and realised looking for ideas just got me more and more distracted from actually finding an idea. Hence I decided to build on that feeling of wasting time and made a product that ‘wastes other people’s time’.

The entire project ‘I tried to be a musician’ is kind of looking at the idea of people doing things for fun, finding ‘useless’ talents that seem entertaining but at the end of the day, there is not much value added to the experience.

I kind of remembered some people making music videos with Calculators and the squeaky chickens (help, I never realised they are made by the same person). The kind of music videos where you look at them and realise ‘wow, you are so talented’ and immediately after ‘where the heck do you get the time to do this sort of things’.

So I decided lets make a musical instrument too, something easy to understand and grasp and make a jumble of sound, but hard to actually make something decent, to prompt others to try harder to make the product work for them, or give up instantly after understanding that it is going to be a waste of time.

I guess this project is really just to emulate that idea of having fun trying to solve a problem, but at the end of the day, you are just wasting time having fun. (Is that considered wasting time? who knows?)

The Making:

So the components of the project are relatively simple. It is a combination of two simple circuits, one for an ultrasonic sensor, and another for a buzzer:

Source: https://howtomechatronics.com/tutorials/arduino/ultrasonic-sensor-hc-sr04/

Source: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-arduino-lesson-10-making-sounds/playing-a-scale

I found that by using a buzzer I technically can code for the entire keyboard is i find the list of numbers associated with the tone. By allocating a set distance the ultrasonic sensor and my hand, I essentially have a no-touch piano keyboard. Yay.

Taking it a step further, because why not? I duplicated the code by three, splitting them according by octaves. We only have two hands so I wish you luck trying to learn how to play this annoying child >:D

Pictures:

The setup for a single set of buzzer and ultrasonic sensor pair.

The there is the external pieces.

I first laser cut my pattern out:

Then after that i Spray painted the pieces:

Videos:

So Far there is two:

The range of the sound seems to similar i need to increase the range to make it more interesting.

November 3, 2019

Reading Assignment Digital Currents: Art in the Electronic Age by Margot Lovejoy

Art is a form of expression or reaction to contemporary themes, hence that is why there are groups of artists who creates Art as a form of commentary about the changes in society.

The book ‘Digital currents: Art in the Electronic age’ is a compilation of the changes society and the art world has taken during the Digital age. The first chapter capture the revolutionary change in the art world brought about by the camera. This chapter compares the past forms art before the birth of photography. Art then had revolved around the ways of seeing, ‘how does one recreate what is 3D on a 2D or another 3D surface?’. The creation of the camera shortens that process, flattening reality into the span of a 2D image, a photograph. The birth of this new technology presents a more accurate image of reality, hence the book comments ‘after today, painting is dead’. In terms of skill, the artist replication of reality could never beat the accuracy of the camera.

However when one door closes, artists turn to find new ways to make use of this new form of image making, while other artist make use of old mediums like painting to create new forms of expressions.

The book also talks about new forms of visual art, other then simply using photography of illustrating a beautiful composition, there is the rise of photo collage to create a surreal juxtaposition of images.

Art is a commentary, and with the huge and rapid change brought to society during the digital age, there was many issues to criticise or be enthralled by. Artist like Andy Warhol had criticised the creation of the mass production, how unfeeling and typical it was becoming. He made use of stencils and silk screen to replicate exactly the image created by a machine. In this sense, we see that the art world has become more contemplative, more concept driven, a bystander to societies change, to draw attention to issues. Their role in art making has been elevated to that of an intellect rather then a simple skilled craftsman.

The digital age also brought about new technologies, hence new ways to create art. What is art? One would wonder. This book highlights the creation of new mediums beyond traditional mediums like paint, stone and clay. In fact, they talk about cameras for photography and film, they talk about projections on screens and installations to interact with. The digital age reminds us that anything can be art so long as it has the purpose to communicate ideas.

In conclusion, the digital age was a big game changer in the art world as it changed the view of what art could be in terms of aesthetic, form and purpose.

Book: Lovejoy, Margot. Digital Currents: Art in the Electronic Age. New York, NY: Routledge, 2004