KOYAANISQATSI (AF/U14/15)

KOYAANISQATSI poses a dichotomy between natural order and our imposition upon it. It presents an irony in which humanity, naturally occurring, actively seeks to reject it's mother earth like a rebellious teenager. This is an idealised form of progress that is self serving, dependent on ego, and subject to chaos and turmoil, producing environments which do not serve our best interests. Frustrated we cling to escape, peace and quiet. The distinction to be made between the wild and the city is noise. Silence provides self awareness, and helps concentration. We can celebrate infrastructure, its collective ideal, but in doing so we must also realise the effects of this constant stimulus and acknowledge our dissociation with the present. 

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Acoustic foam billboard

Cutting text into strips for lenticular image

Foam core

1:20 scale billboard

 "If you are depressed you are living in the past.

If you are anxious you are living in the future.

If you are at peace you are living in the present."

-Lao Tzu

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Chindogu Part 2 (AF/U9/14)

Despite great care taken while urinating to prevent splash-back there is often a cruel irony in the overzealous attempt to wash your hands, during which water from the sink sprays from the bowl onto your trousers. This gives the impression that you were carefree in spite of all measures taken to the contrary. Solving this grievance requires you bend underneath a hand dryer and thrust into its gust. A compromising situation for anyone.

Mark Rakowski - Parasite 

Extendable/Collapsible tubing

Attachment method

Two half pints of tap and
the dates going well

Cleanliness is next to godliness

Splashback...

Is no longer an issue!

The future is now

Hands free

I envisage a future in which business men establish dominance in the bathroom, foregoing profit margins for tube fencing and creating a toilet hierarchy that continues to determine world affairs.

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Chingdogu Part 1 (AF/U9/14)

The definition of a Chindogu is "an unusual gadget, originally created as the solution to a particular problem although effectively it hardly has any utility whatsoever, it's really almost useless." Examples taken from the International Chindogu Society (ICS) include:

Chopstick noodle Fan

Baby duster 

Solar powered cigarette lighter

My own attempts:

Stacking cups for pouring

Card study

The magicians tissue

Based on magicians disappearing silk trick 

Shoelace shoelaces

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Body,Material,Form (AF/U7/14)

An exercise in the spontaneous application of material to the body.

Heads, Hair, Pinched extrusion

Heads, Masking tape, Extrusion

Heads, Masking tape, Pinched extrusion

View 2

Bodies, Clingfilm, Multiple forms

What have we established from these combined elements? These extruded forms create a reliance on the individuals within. Despite what connotations we have come to understand from the term 'bespoke', the nature of these objects is such that there is no element of comfort derived from them. This is due to the tape which rips and tears at the individuals on which it's placed.

This is reminiscent of hostile architecture, examples of which actively discourage loitering, the homeless, skateboards and other 'anti-social behaviours'. How do these objects function, and why are they tolerated? It seems bizarre to desire an object that does not desire us. An attempt to design such a thing may explain its insidious nature. 

Initial Sketch

Form studies in card 

Aluminium mock-up with foam insert 

For scale

An extruded hollow aluminium square provides the basic form in which a memory foam cube is placed. Sitting is comfortable until the memory foam begins to deform and the armrests extend the arm above the shoulder. Simultaneously the metal housing digs into the lower thigh. This actively discourages the user from further use allowing the foam to 'loft' until the chair is ready to be used again. 

Although there is a temptation to justify this design as a defensive measure against inactivity I hesitate to champion the socially divisive measures it was an attempt to understand. Instead i'd like to emphasise the importance of understanding ergonomics, materiality and its relation to the body. Without which there is a genuine risk of creating objects that unintentionally discourage their use or actively harm their user and the environment in which they're placed.

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A Proposal (AF/U4/14)

is a mistake often made by the individuals of a generation to believe that they are different from any other generation beforehand or otherwise. If I were to say that this current generation appears to be the most blatantly narcissistic I would be making a similar mistake to generations before me. After all, “The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise” is a quote attributed to Socrates. Perhaps vanity has always existed in those young enough to warrant it. However, the change is clear. There now exists a tool to express our most shallow nature in the most intrusive way to date. This is obviously the camera in your pocket. Not confined to the consideration of finality as film is, but rather an infinite opportunity to produce wanton on a global scale. An immediate observation at any famous monument, in any country, is a pervading fear among tourists to lay eyes upon that renowned thing. But instead to shield your gaze through a phone screen, reproducing said object 4.5x2” so as to cope with the cultural star before you. Increasingly our worldview is found in this minute representation. Contrary to the notion of tourism and an extension of context, we limit ourselves to a cropped facsimile which is wrongly taken for the whole picture rather than the snapshot it is, and in doing so become the first generation to live up to our faults.

I aim to show this through a reproduction of a monument on the cropped scale. Phones on stands representing the equivalent height and place of members of the crowd in relation to the monument. The screen showing exactly what they would see, and in doing so building up a picture of a monument without it being there. 

Phone stand location in monument

And in alternative space

Pantheon in Rome, site of inspiration

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