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"layers" Tag


domino effect


Wednesday, May 22, 2019

By browsing through design blog I decided to only follow the tags in which I am interested and are making good promises based on their name. Also, I decided to follow the tags quickly without going deeper in the reading but having an eye on that it still feels like a clear amount as I planned to go back later and read deeper in the essays. With that technique I created my own little library around 30 tags to come back to without feeling overwhelmed by all the essays I could read while visiting design blog. As my search got really specific at some points and I wrote down every tag I followed I can easily recreate my search which shows that design blog search stays steady through the tags if you know where to go. My search started with the aesthetic tag. After looking back on my search timeline it made really much sense. Everything was connected somehow and was laying most of the times in my interest. 

In the beginning I was browsing through the architecture category followed by blank spaces and minimalism. Fast it became more specific as about light and surface. Coming from surface I found myself in the graphic design section about covers, book design and color questions. It became to be about Illusions and fake appearances and going back to architecture and more specific about glass. 

Being at the same page again from the beginning I decided to go this time into the product design tag. It became about school furniture design and exhibitions. 

Then coming to the really broad ‘art’ tag I ended up in physical exercises meaning to enter the world of theater. From theater I decided to follow the naked tag which leaded me to invisible fashion, minding material and wearable technology and going back to craft again. Here I followed my last tag form follows function which connected to product design again. 

So after analyzing my design blog browsing I can connect the essays I looked at to different main content sections of design. 

Architecture 

Graphic Design 

Product Design 

Theater

Fashion Design are making up the more really brought topics I was browsing through. 

By following really clear lines while browsing I was hoping not to loose track and moving in between the topics I like. This worked out really good but almost too good. Often I ended up with the same essay or got such specific tags that only one essay was left fitting. Still, for me to stay still in logical order it was the best experience. Maybe I was only disappointed in this search engine/system because, even if it was not my expected goal, the amount of essays would destroy my focused searching.  In the end it just showed me that there is sense behind the pages. Therefore I think it is a really good broad way of dealing with subjects one is really interested in. Make sure you know what you are searching for otherwise the design blog can suck you up. I am reasoning that even if I followed the tags I was interested in, Designblog was leading me through different sections of design. When I started to go deeper in the architecture category I didn’t expect to end my search finding essays about wearable technology. Which means it leaded me towards unexpected topics but still they were based on my decisions and therefore interest. 

 

 

The whole idea of connections and following tags in between the essays reminded me of the domino effect or a network of laying domino stones. In fact I was only really in control by deciding on the very first tag. Eventually the overall image of the searching pattern became only clear after ending the search itself. Every domino stone represents a tag in my search and is a connecting point for the others and therefore a necessary part of where I come from and where I go. After clicking on the first page it becomes an aware automatism. Every mouse click follows the other as one stones falls into the next. click click click click …

The interesting point is the fact of the awareness. The Designblog works automatically if you decide on following the existing tags instead of choosing your specific topic every time again. Still that is activated by my own choice of tags I follow and that is what creates my own network in the blog. If I would have chosen other tags to follow or would have continue for several hours the whole structure would look different now. This is what makes the search unique and individually based. 

The essays I followed were always connected through at least one tag. The tag I followed.

This is the same way I connected the domino stones. 

The numbers of my search getting higher and higher referring to the feeling of building up layers of pages. When I followed my 15th page I ended up at the same page as my second one and the layers got mixed up. Still, the numbers are connecting the different topics. 

Now when going back through my tags, to reread the essays I came across, I can go slowly back in the timeline,. One by one not destroying the connections of my whole searching structure but staying in the network I created. 

 

Gorillas inside a box


Saturday, November 25, 2017

The first indication given to us about this assignment was to select a book based solely on its design. As soon as this information was delivered the first thing that popped into my mind was to find one that would present the most extravagant, out of the box features, so that whatever the next steps to follow would be, the subject matter could not be accused of being boring.

Ironically enough, I chose a book that is inside a box. Which actually was the main reason it outshone its shelf mates, that suddenly looked very serious with their glue bind cover.

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Puzzle box by Ines Lechleitner is an artist book released in 2009. I was momentarily skeptical at the functionality of its green gapped cardboard cover —not that it mattered to my eyes, since the pick was based on unconventionality—, or to put it in a way that fits better the central reasoning that led to my choice, maybe the fact that it would present an additional layer to access its content, or remind the feeling of opening a present, would make it more interesting. Soon, the content justified the packaging: it is composed by two books one being the artist’s work where you can find pictures of a group of gorillas in a German zoo and drawings that explain the movements made by the camera. The second one being a response of different authors to the work carried out. Then, two videos were also included — found as a CD in the book— that focus on the gorillas entering and leaving the frame, and finally, a map of the relations between the gorillas’ habitat, the photographs and videos. The box now seemed like a handy support to carry the CD and the map.

You can find the true reasoning behind the design in the author’s website: «Puzzle Box is modeled after ‘Beschäftigungskästen’, which were designed specifically for apes as an interactive occupation and recreation tool. The apes are expected to learn how to manipulate grains inside the box by pushing them from one level to the next in order to gain access to the food.»

This box was inside the gorilla’s location and is recurrently found throughout the images of the book

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IMG_0757 (1)3256

As I mentioned earlier the book contains a response of different authors to the work. It was captured as a conversation between the artist and the authors. When I finished reading it, I imagined myself participating in that conversation. To get more insight on what the artist had experienced over the period of 5 years in which she developed this project I decided to go to the Amsterdam zoo to elaborate my response.

I quickly began to make associations. The humans standing there encircling the gorillas’ cage while expressing their reactions could be similar to the way the gorillas manipulate the Beschäftigungskästen, both actions are driven by the effect, even if in the first case it might be entertainment and in the latter obtaining some food. It is interesting to consider the sizes of those involved in this equation and the movement of this idea which goes inwards in distance.  Us humans look at the cage and touch the glass with our fingers while inside, the gorillas look at the box touching it to get some food. And even taking it further, while manipulating the box the gorillas fell into it, furthering the confinement, satisfying the humans need for entertainment and consumerism now possible through the Puzzle Box in which they lie. Definitely, I noticed how much my perception of the zoo as a place had shifted since I was a child.

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There are five polar notions that get emphasized in the book

we/them

open/closed

active/passive

space/movement

In the frame (onscreen)/ out of the frame (offscreen)

The pictures in black and white somehow make stronger the sensation of two different entities separated by distance. The framing delimits the space in a way that makes you wonder what is around, almost as if each picture wasn’t complete or was a piece of a puzzle. It also happens with the video where you would need a 360º panorama to understand the full set. The pace in which the gorillas are depicted is calm, almost uninterested.

In the zoo, once I spent enough time with the gorillas and my brain ended up getting used to the extreme, overwhelming aroma, I was able to truly concentrate on their movements, realizing how much more aware I was becoming of my own. I felt there was a strong relation between this feeling and the fact that the whole work of the artist (the map, the video, the pictures and the drawings) was to know very precisely, almost memorizing, each step and movement of the gorillas knowing what movement it was, which place were they occupying in space, when they did it, all of it systematically. This is also linked to the book’s design that appears to be calculated, calm and neat, using the same typewriter font throughout the book, and clean ‘one-line’ drawings.

Remembering that humans possess in a 98% the same DNA than gorillas I suddenly felt funny imagining my movements being dissected in a book.

 

Puzzle Book, designer: Ines Lechleitner, Rietveld Library Cat. no: lec 1

Layers & Colors


Monday, September 19, 2011

In the physical world absolutely all surfaces are transparent or opaque. For example a concrete wall — it is a completely opaque element. But with the help of different computer programs we can make even a concrete wall transparent and may apply transparent effect to a video.
I adore the “clean” design, where is only information and no superfluous elements. So, the chosen work does not fit my taste, but that kind of design always attracts my attention.

Another very good way to use a blend of transparent layers, when you need to show two (or more) elements at once and you haven’t much space on one page. Wim Crouwel did it as a professional, he gives us the opportunity to consider both of the cabinets and at the same time takes care of the volume of the catalog, which is also important.
For example, I chose another more cheerful work — it’s Dries Wiewauters‘s poster “Deconstructing Mickey Mouse”, again space is saved, and thus nothing is lost, but also something won.

In general, thoughtful design wins!

Man Loved, Man lived, Man Ray


Friday, May 13, 2011

To really understand Rayograms, i think one needs to experience it. It is not just about playing with objects on photographic paper in a darkroom. It definitely is more than that.

My first experience with Rayograms was in my second year of high school in Switzerland. It was so new to me. I knew nothing about darkrooms let alone photograms. As a first reaction I went out to the nature and collected whatever i found to be interesting. There were leaves, branches, beads whatever one can find. After playing around enough, i started becoming more picky about my objects. Each object had to be more special, had to have a reason to be there. That is where the process becomes very self reflective. Objects have meaning or associations and you end up questioning them and yourself through them. Until something makes a bit of sense, if not with their meanings, then with their visuals.

Looking at the Rayograms of Man Ray i really started to become curious of his life through the objects he used like scissors, films,keys flies, comb, needle, iron

Especially the negative film  as an object seemed to be reappearing all the time as well as scissors and needles.

Despite their quality as objects, they really make me question their associations and that is where i started researching more on Man Ray’s life. I wanted to know to where and to what they were connected in his life.

Man Ray’s work not only seem experimental they also are very personal. The double thing with ”knowing” though is that once you know it you can never see it in its purest form and that is also quite important in very abstract, open end works like Rayograms.

Rayograms which is named after Man Ray started to come into existence only after he experimented with various mixed medias throughout his life. Thus it is important to know the stages Man Ray went through in his career to see the layers under his rayograms.

It all started at Boys’ High School, where he educated himself by frequently visiting the local art museums where he studied the works of old Masters.

Early works of Man ray includes expressive figure studies and Cezannesque landscapes made from observations.

Between 1913-1915 when Man Ray lived in a small artists colony in Grantwood, in an effort to keep expenses at minimum Man Ray shared the rent on a small shack with the American painter Samuel Halpert. It was from Halpert that Man Ray emulated the artists’s utilization of contoured form and brightened palette.

Over time Man Ray removed himself from direct observation of his subjects,reducing figures to flat patterned disarticulated forms and his imagery became increasingly abstracted and artifial.

While living in New York, he became friends with Marcel Duchamp who was interested in showing movement in static paintings. Obviously influenced by Duchamp Man ray’s works began to depict movements of the figures. Later on again like Duchamp, Man Ray made ” ready-mades”.

His work called ”gift” shows influence from both Duchamp and his parents.
(more…)

(Dis)appearing


Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Excavation, Adidas Spezial and Mondriaan


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