Lizzie Wa Design

To do this week

• Three boards:
• 1 Aesthetic
• 2 Mechanical
• 3 Inspiration 
• Research installations  
• Update essay again – am i creating enough insight and argument?  

Actions

• Winding something up
• Turning a wheel 
• Pulling a rope
• Pushing a handle 

Moodboards

I looked at creating some moodboard to sum up the direction i wanted my project to go. I looked at the mechanisms i could use:

I looked at some inspiration:

And i looked at the kind of aesthetic i wanted to create:

Postmodernism 

After speaking with Ben, he mentioned looking at Postmoderism. As soon as I started to look at it i realised how perfectly the style fitted with what I was trying to create an even the ethos behind it.

Postmodernism is an eclectic, colourful style of art and architecture that ermeiged in the 1970s as a reaction to modernism. Postmodernism is playful, fun and coloruful it often sued a strange combination of shapes and materials, while bringing together many different styles. (RIBA 2011)

Postmodernism is one of the most controversial movements in art and design history. Over two decades, from about 1970 to 1990, Postmodernism shattered established ideas about art and design, bringing a new self-awareness about style itself. An unstable mix of the theatrical and theoretical, Postmoderism ranges from the ludicrous to the luxurious – a visually thrilling, multifaceted style. Postmodernism’s key principles were complexity and contradiction. Postmodern object seemed to come from a dystopian and far-from-perfect future. Postmodern designers salvaged and distressed materials to produce an aesthetic of urban apocalypse. (Victoria and Albert Museum 2022)

This playful way of creating and playful, colourful outcomes are exactly what I want to achieve with my design. Looking at postmodern art and architecture it really reflects the fun and absurdity i am looking to achieve in my work and that i feel is needed to cut through the everyday.  

Post-modernist architecture 

An example of this is Terry Farrels TVam building design. Speaking to Dezeen, Farrell himself described the projects as a “tremendous release” from the restrictive Modernism that had come before.The design is dominated by bold colours and shapes with fun touches such as egg cups on the roof. These were a symbol for breakfast time while simultaneously referencing London’s tradition for using urns, acorns and pineapples as architectural decoration. (Frearson 2015)

This kind of architecture is controversial and creates very strong opinions in the viewer. However, i personally think it is this controversy that makes it so interesting. Whether you like it or hate it, it jolts you out of the mundane of the everyday. A pop of colour, a giant egg cup on a roof – i believe it gives life a bit more fun and joy and stops people taking everything so seriously. Would a child like it? Probably yes, so if we all need a bit more of a childish attitude then maybe we should try and like it to! 

I also looked into the Memphis Design collective and their postmodernism style. Their work alos had very bold colour, clasing design and big shapes. Their work is playful, bold and very focused on colour and shape instead of what things are expected to look like. https://designmuseum.org/discover-design/all-stories/memphis-group-awful-or-awesome 

With this in mind as a style that fits so well in meaning and look to what I am hoping to achieve, I created another moodboard solely focused on the postmodern style. It is pretty similar to the look i have been focused on for a while, but a bit more focused down now. 

I also sketched some shapes that i found within the postmodern designs that could work well within my face installation. 

Materials and installation 

An installation i came across that was very focused on colour and material was Prism by Studio Zag. This striking installation is colourful sections made entirely from art supplies in the atrium of London Graphic Centre.

Another interesting installation using colour at its centre is Pendulum created by Artists and Engineers. A colourful tube houses a swinging pendulum that created beautiful moving shadows at night against the Royal Festival Hall. I like the combination of colour and shadows here and how my installation performs in different lights and times of day is something I need to consider. 

Case study

https://www.itsnicethat.com/news/cossette-playing-in-public-the-bentway-graphic-design-020921

Agency Cossette’s public exhibition under a Toronto expressway to encourage play in the city is a good example of placing play in a public space. I think the bold lines and colours work well against the concrete greys of the city to grab your attention and spark a bit of joy and play. I also think their tag line “we all speak play” is great and a really similar ethos to what i am trying to create with my scultptre. Mine maybe even going further as being able to speak, understand language etc is not necessary to play with my installation. 

Covid considerations

With covid still a part of our daily lives and some still feeling fearful about it I think it is something that needs to be considered within my design. The installation will be placed outside and the mechainsims used to move the face should be placed at a distance to each other so people dont need to get too close to each other to use them. Even with things more ‘normal’ many people still dont want to get as close to others as pre-pandemic. This behviour may take a long time to return to pre-pandemic ways or is possibly something that will remain with us. I want to ensure my design can cater for this and therefore doesnt put anyone off from using it. 

I could also provide hand sanitizer for people touching the same sections of the installation. Maybe this could be turned into a more fun experience, possible creating a sanitizer dispenser that releases sanitizer in the shape of a smiley face 🙂 ? In not sure if this is possible so would need to look into this. Also it might be unescessarly complicating what is a simple thing. 

Time of day considerations  

As i want my installation to be analog and not need electricity to work, setting it up well for the evening/ nightime could be difficult. However, if placed in a lit area i can make use of nearby streetlights without having to power anything myself. 

I could use paint that reflects light to bring attention to the important areas of the installation.

I could use coloured glass to create patterns and shadows across and around the installation making it more playful and changing the look and mood of the sculpture depending on the time of day, weather etc. I like the idea of the weather and daylight inetracting and playing with the sculpture as well. This also adds to my idea of making sure that people can find enjoyment in the installation even if they choose not to interact with it themselves. 

I could use mini solar panels to power lights in the evening to create moody lighting in the evening. 

Location

I want the installation to be something that could sit in pretty much any town and city so it wont be super location specific or inspired by the locality in any way. With it post-moderist style, the likelihood is that it will look eye-cathing and out of place in any city environment, which is exactly the affect i want to achieve. 

I want to ensure it gets a good amount of footfall and sits in a location where people wouldnt usually interact. Somewhere where the majority of people will be looking down, not making eye contact with others and separating themselves from the world around them. 

Somewhere like outside a main train station is good for this as it attracts alot of people throughout the day but is not normally a sociable place. Its also a location that has been affected by the pandemic. People were restricted in how they could travel during the pandemic and many people hid away from public transport as a location where multiple unknown people would be in close proximity. People are now more likely to work from home and shop from home, reducing public transport use.  “Almost two years on from the initial lockdown, the economy has recovered to pre-Covid-19 levels, yet across society we are still travelling less than before the pandemic.”(Anable et al. 2022)

Public transport has been impacted more than travel by car, in particular the railways since (office) commuters and business travel have been most likely to switch to virtual or hybrid working (Anable et al. 2022).

Less travel is good for the planet and the climate, but public transport is incredibly important in the fight against climate change and needs to be protected. Because of this i feel as if outside a train station could be a very apt place to position my installation.

As a starting point for the installation I will probably look at london, as the hub of the country its train stations see so much use and as a community people who live in london are more used to seeing installations regularly so may be more likely to engage with it.

The open areas around Kings Cross and St Pancras station could be a good option for positioning. There are often installations in place here so it alos suggests that this could be a realistic place for obtaining permission to set it up here. 

Colour

The more I develop my design idea the more I realise the importance that colour will play within this project. Because of that I have decided to explore what colours i want to include off the screen and looked through some colour sample books. 

I also tools some colour inspiration from the work of the Memphis group, still sticking to the main colours i had selected earlier on. 

Reflection

I think this week took me a big step further in working out the style and look of my installation. Now I think that the next step for me to really focus on over the next week or two is drawing up some designs of how the installation will look and also investigating how the installation will work. I am trying to line up speaking with an engineer about potential mechanisms that i can use to make my installation move and ones that require two people to make them work. I also want to try and gain some peer feedback soon on the design possibilities i come up with before i decide which direction to go with.

Reference list

ANABLE, Jillian, Llinos BROWN, Iain DOCHERTY and Greg MARSDEN. 2022. ‘Less Is More: Changing Travel in a Post-Pandemic Society’. Creds [online]. Available at: https://www.creds.ac.uk/publications/less-is-more-changing-travel-in-a-post-pandemic-society/.

FREARSON, Amy. 2015. ‘Postmodern Architecture: TV-Am Studios by Terry Farrell’. Dezeen [online]. Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2015/08/26/postmodern-architecture-tv-am-television-studios-camden-london-terry-farrell/.

RIBA. 2011. ‘Postmodernism’. Architecture.com [online]. Available at: https://www.architecture.com/explore-architecture/postmodernism.

VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM. 2022. ‘V&a · What Is Postmodernism?’ Victoria and Albert Museum [online]. Available at: https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/what-is-postmodernism?.