Tag: designer knowledge

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Future World:  Where Art Meets Science Reflection

I visited the Art Science Museum exhibit – Future World:  Where Art Meets Science. It featured many amazing interactive exhibits exploring four sections: nature, town, park and space. ‘Crows are Chased and the Chasing Crows are destined to be Chased as well, Transcending Space’ was the first immersive interactive art piece I had been in and the visuals made it feel like I was moving along with the crows and the sound heightened the senses even more. My favourite piece of the Nature section was ‘Black Waves’, the flowing movement representing water and the tranquil sound evoked a relaxed and as well as a touching response.

The next exhibits were the town and the park. These two areas of interactive artworks made me feel like a child again playing without worries and made me curious on what every single interaction would do. I was looking around even adults were colouring in and playing hopscotch.

The Space exhibit was also beautiful with the many synchronised lights creating a canvas for users to select planets and constellations to display on the light tunnel.

After experiencing and interacting with interactive art, I have taken note to how groups of people interact with these pieces and the environment and how they could be applied to our iLight assignment. What I enjoyed most about interacting with the installation was how all of them evoked emotions and a sense of curiosity with the use of sound and touch. I would like to incorporate sound into our project to enhance the emotional response. The first thing I noticed about people interacting with the pieces was how the majority would stop and take multiple photos in interacting with the sculpture (e.g. projecting the art onto their body and sitting/holding a part of the piece), so the artwork must look visually appealing and interesting.

 

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You are What You Carry – Jan Chipchase

It was interesting to read Chipchases perspective of technology and networking today. He explains the topics about the three items, phone, money and keys he found everyone across many cultures, genders, age and economic strata carried in his Mobile __ talk.  It was interesting to read about his research on how different the ‘range of distribution’ is in different countries, for example how the lady from Shanghai never let her handbag stray from her touch compared to my observation of Singaporeans and their personal items in public. It was also difficult for me to understand the complex ‘strings of the networking yo-yo’ analogy. Chipchase also talks about how you can use more while owning less, this network is called ‘The Mesh’. Companys such as Zipcar shares cars to those who don’t need their own cars but occasionally need them and spaces such as the library allow you to borrow books without collecting them. In the future, we may be looking to carry fewer items and as designers, our goal is to “lighten consumers load and to help them be more efficient” (Chipchase, 123).

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Calibrating your Cultural Compass

Jan Chipchase draws attention to how important it is for designers to understand not only the local mindset but how it is from a global perspective, she calls it the ‘rapid cultural calibration’. As an exchange student in Singapore, I agree that it is important to be part of the action to understand the city and its people. I have observed many of the ideas discussed in the chapter Calibrating your Cultural Compass. By watching the city start the day from the side or joining them you can find the many differences each neighbourhood, city or country has. I have seen other exchange students who are unaware of the social norms and etiquettes of Singapore breaching behaviours that are deemed acceptable from their home town. Everyday life there are new cultures and experiences that help define the country, such as the unique laws that can only be found in a certain culture e.g. No durian on public transport. I have also found that visiting Maccas gives a different aspect of the countries traditional/daily meals. It is important as a designer to have a clear understanding of the local culture to prevent offence through your work and to understand what the community’s needs are.