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Future Stream - Final

Although Peter advised us against using our bedrooms to present our artefact in, I thought it was appropriate for my artefact and the story I wanted to deliver (and sometimes you just have to take risks). The softly lit candles creates a space of reflection, where you can quietly reminisce positive memories of your past. The open journal with the polaroids tucked into the pages suggests that the owner has travelled to places and has decided to look back on some sketches or notes they’ve made during that time. The blues hint that there may be sadness or nostalgia, as the person may yearn to go back to certain passages in time.

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Reflection:

I found this brief to be a really enjoyable challenge. There was a great emphasis on empathy, getting to understand someone else’s narrative and story, and translating it into an artefact. This involved a lot of conversation and questions in order to fully grasp narrative. This task taught me the extent you have to go to really understand the client or the product. The interview process was really extensive and there was the process of listening to the song continuously until I was confident enough to create an artefact in response. Although my artefact is nothing spectacular, I think the context and the artefact work really well together to create something really symbolically rich, and evokes themes of nostalgia and coming-of-age.

If I had more resources (better camera, lightening) I would’ve loved to create something more developed, with a subject for example, to further develop the story. 

I definitely enjoyed this stream the most and I’m really looking forward to what else the Futures stream has to offer next year!

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Strategy Stream

Due to curiosity and my general interest in fashion, I decided to base my research on Acne Studios, which is a Swedish clothing brand. I chose Acne Studios because although I was familiar with the brand, I had limited knowledge about it and wanted to learn about the business.

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Reflection:

This brief quite different from other brief’s we’ve received, as it was based more on researching rather than creating, but I still enjoyed it. It was interesting to see the functional/business side of design, as this kind of information proves valuable when designing for a particular audience, as you become more informed about your audience and how you can adapt to their needs (as audience will change frequently). I like how there was still a design element to it, and I really enjoyed creating the document and presenting it in the style of Acne Studios. 

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Future Stream

Beside hearing a few details on what the future stream was about, I was really excited about the idea of being able to talk about our favourite song to other people, and then having them produce an artefact in response, which I thought may be difficult (and it definitely wasn’t easy)

Because both my partner (Indra) and I missed out on the first class, we had our conversation online via Facebook. While I would’ve liked to have a face-to-face discussion (as I would’ve been able to record some of the body language/ facial expression that Indra used to express her emotions towards the song and use that for my return brief), we were short for time so this method was really useful. 

A snippet of the conversation Indra and I had. You can tell there was a lot of excitement and energy during our discussion/interview, which I didn’t expect to happen online!

The song Indra chose was Delete by DMA’s, which I had never heard of before, so it was interesting to listen to it and imagine listening to the song in Indra’s perspective. Indra first heard the song Delete when she was 16 on a trekking trip in the mountain ranges of Nepal with friends from school. The scenery she described to me was really beautiful, as you could “see the stars so clear [sic] and the house lights looked like stars”. 

Indra’s story really stuck to me and I can even imagine the beautiful night scenery in my head when I listen to Delete. In response to this, I did a drawing of what I imagine in my head while listening to the use (using a screenshot from the music video, to use as the background)

We had to submit a return brief, in which we had to present the conversation we had with our partner. When creating the return brief, I stayed true to the aesthetic of the music video/song, as Indra had spoken about how the music video/song really appealed to her aesthetic. I used a screenshot from the music video and used it as the background, and I wrote all the white annotations and the heading by hand, to give it a lo-fi/grunge feel to it. 

I took key parts of the lyrics which I felt strongly captured the emotions and essence of Indra when she was 16 years old in Nepal. 

After listening to the song and hearing Indra speak about it, I made a few conclusions that helped figure out a few ideas regarding the artefact. I thought the song reminded me a coming-of-age movie, as that moment Indra first heard song signalled a turning point in her life, where she was becoming independent. Because of the backstory, I thought the song would evoke a lot of nostalgia. With all these themes in mind, I thought of an object that could represent all these things: a candle. In a church context, candles may be lit during a time of reflection and the soft light it gives provides comfort. The small flame also reminded me of the stars that Indra saw in the Annapurna mountain ranges at night. 

I used an empty glass bottle and many, many wax candles to create this overall candle. I used the white, melted wax over the bottle to create an impression of a mountain (referencing the Annapurna mountain ranges Indra trekked through). The lit candle wick is another reference to the beautiful stars Indra saw at night in the mountain ranges (and the song Delete mentions stars, which I thought was a great connection between Indra’s experience and the song).

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FOOD - 21/10 (Reflection)

I admit that our bowl had a few (many) design flaws, as it almost collapsed with the weight of the food. My team and I expected that the food would be heavy but didn’t foresee the tarp slipping from the table with several people holding onto it for dear life. While the bowl pulled through until the end of the event, there were many design flaws that we’ve now taken into consideration for next time. Firstly, the tarp had a few rings which should’ve been used w/ the rope to PULL down the tarp, rather than to wrap it around the table. Beside that, I think the overall concept of the bowl worked really well. Having that middle ‘bowl’ section and the two tables beside it for chopping the fruit worked exceptionally well, as there was limited space, but this compact design allowed us to serve two functions while taking up little space.

Photo Cred: Taylor Boram

Photo Cred: Andy Simionato

The experience of preparing the fruit salad was really fun and I really liked how I got to participate in the experience of using the bowl my team and I created. I was under the impression that the table would be the “centre piece” of the FOOD event. The table was also designed to have two queues, however due to the arrangement of the rest of the space, we could only have one queue. It was unfortunate as the original plan was changed on the day, but it still worked well nonetheless. While the colour of the tarp was not intentional, thought it looked really beautiful against the other colour fruits.

It was really satisfying seeing something my team and I created and designed come to life and actually function, as this semester has really been a long turbulent process. Like most groups, I think my team may have interpreted the brief too literally, therefore our ideas were so constrained and limited. However, only after we had conversations with Chris and Andy did we really begin to understand the brief and the creative freedom we had. I would’ve never guessed in the early stages of this project, that we’d be using a tarp and two tables to create a (somewhat) function bowl/preparation table! 

It was fantastic to see the all of the groups across the two classes come together to create a large event (which ran successful). Although we all planned our own thing separately, together there was a great sense of cohesion, which was surprising to see. Planning this FOOD event has been a spectacular yet turbulent journey since the beginning of semester 2 and seeing it all come together has definitely been the highlight of this semester! 

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Craft Stream - Final (Reflection)

I’m quite pleased of the digital outcome of the Exquisite Corpse, as I love the beautiful, rich colours (referencing the late 80′s/early 90′s haute couture). I found that I was reluctant to add small details, as I was concerned about how the details would show when printed on wood, as the grain may hide certain details. In comparison to the final printed on wood, I found there was a significant difference in outcome. I felt like it performed well on the wood, however it’s much more muted than the digital outcome. I could’ve used a lighter wood, but I felt this colour (mahogany) would’ve suited the haute couture style I was trying to achieve. 

Final outcome on wood

In terms of the food porn concept I mentioned in an earlier post, I incorporated that idea through the foods I represented. I chose the wine and hors d'oeuvres because when I think of them in their context (i.e. cocktail party where women are dressed elegantly with beautiful dresses) I find them sultry and sexy. 

Here’s a quick visual representation of my rationale of why I chose to represent hors d’oeuvre and wine to represent my “food porn” idea. (Collage created by yours truly)

I found this project extremely engaging and fun! I found the brief to be a great challenge that motivated me to research and to come up with really intriguing concepts, such as the food porn and representing it through 80′s/90′s haute couture. Adding that extra challenge of using the wood media made me more aware and conscious of my design. 

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Craft - Brainstorms

So now that I had discovered the theme I wanted to focus on (Food Porn), I began to work on sketches! In my mind, I wanted to present my EC in a really sensual and enticing way, as to clearly communicate the idea of food porn, but I also wanted to present it with a Haute Couture twist! I’m very fond of 80′s and 90′s high fashion, therefore I wanted to include that aspect in my EC (as a reflection of myself). 

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Craft - Research/ideas

The first step I took in approaching this task in delving into a good ol’ brainstorm. Since the EC (Exquisite Corpse) had to reflect ourselves, I tried thinking of a few prompts such as ‘You are what you eat’, to guide me. However, I began gravitating towards the pop culture theme but was unsure how to incorporate food into it. However, when I spoke to a few people about my ideas regarding pop culture, I was reminded by the ongoing trend called ‘Food Porn’ (by some), where people photograph attractive photos of their food on post them on Instagram (with a hashtag #foodporn). 

Screenshot of Instagram from my phone

With a quick search on Instagram, you can see all the posts with the hashtag #foodporn (all 101,252,002 of them). This quick glimpse tells me how significant this food culture is today. It also seems to me like an art form as well, as all these photos are well taken, at the right angle, to capture the beautiful textures and colours of the food. 

From here, I began researching the significance of this food phenomenon. Menulog.com (a food delivery service company) suggests that food is no longer “fuel”, rather it has become “cool”. Food has now become fashionable, and just like fashion, the food you post on your social media indicates status, class and how interesting your life is! 

From here, I began comparing these #foodporn photos to high fashion editorial photoshoots. They’re both beautiful and have a significant influence in our society, and of course, I have a great interest in fashion, therefore I could reflect this interest in my EC. For this particular task, I decided to focus my interest on late 80′s/early 90′s haute couture. I was particularly interested in labels like Christian Lacroix and Chanel, as I really love their use of rich and bold colours. 

I was particularly drawn to this 1991 Chanel campaign, which featured lots of bright beautiful colours, and many of these colours feature on my EC

Nude by Yves Tanguy, Joan Miró, Max Morise, and Man Ray

I drew a lot of inspiration from this particular piece, because I loved the way they’ve included a realistic female feature among the surrealist mess. 

Sources: 

MenuLog. 2014. How Social Media Is Changing The Way We Eat. https://www.menulog.com.au/blog/social-media-changing-eat/. [Accessed 21 October 2016].

Karl Lagerfeld , (1991), N/A.  https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/b5/9a/e0/b59ae0365df3bd1d82277d9aea008f78.jpg [Accessed 22 October 2016].

MoMA. 2016. Nude. https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/max-ernst-levade-the-fugitive. [Accessed 22 October 2016].

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FOOD - Friday

Today, for the first time we brought our ideas to life, as we trial the table x tarp idea. 

Firstly, we spoke to Adrian’s group about our ideas, as they wanted an update on our ideas thus far, as they were working with the furniture layout of the atrium.

As we began to experiment with the life-size prototype, we had begun to make changes to our plan already e.g. we originally thought of using three tables, but due to the tarp size, we only need two. This also worked out better in the end, as now people can go from two sides to grab food. 

The process of putting the tarp around the table with the rope became a process of trial and error, as we had to find different ways to thread the rope around the tarp to ensure it’s security. The photo above is the final format we achieved, that created that bowl shape we were striving to create. We don’t want any food creeping over the edge, so having that barrier helps. 

Overal, I was really happy with the outcome we’ve achieved, as I was quite worried that the tarp and table weren’t going to work well together and we’d have to find another idea. But luckily (with a few adjustments to our original idea) the tarp x table idea played out really well!

photo cred: Amarat

We may need to develop more on using the rope, as we want it to tightly wrap around the whole table, with no loose ends. This will require more work during our Monday’s class.

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FOOD - Monday (It’s) the 3rd of October

Monday’s class for our group was used as an opportunity to go over our ‘game plan’ for the Bowl.

Before class, I went to the Alumni Court to gather the measurements for the two different tables that were available at the Alumni Court. Amarat and I decided that using the taller and longer table would be most fitting for the arrangements we had in mind,

Andy has so kindly bought us tarp for the bowl and we will begin to experiment with the table and tarp on Friday. 

We’ve spoken to a few different groups and since one of the groups are using food scraps as compost later, we’ve decided that it would be ideal to provide cardboard boxes underneath the table, to put the food scraps in while we prepare the food. I’ve e-mailed the Maker Pals team to help us scour for some cardboard boxes that will meet our size criteria.

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Visit to the QVM...

Today I quickly visited the Queen Vic Market to ask about the availability of the boxes and it turns out that they don’t throw away the ones that we had our eyes on. However, they have an area allocated where they throw away unwanted cardboard boxes, which I checked out. While there may be a slight change in plan, a new solution has be found.

The next step will be going to the market as a group on Monday (and even throughout the week) to check out the different kind of boxes they have available and work around that.

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Week 9 Sprint - the BOWL

 Today was really great as we got to play with our ideas and bring them to life! 

We’re currently playing around with the idea of using a large box used at the Queen Vic Market that hold fruits like watermelons and oranges (shown below)

. It’s large enough to hold all the food but it’s also doable and easy to manage. We also experimented with the layout of tables where the food will be cut, served etc. Initially, we thought about using small cardboard boxes as tables, but one of the constraints we’ve enforced in order to minimise waste, was to use existing materials. Therefore, we’ve decided we’re going to use one of the tables found at the alumni court. 

One of the greatest things about Snapchat is being able to quickly illustrate small images and place them in reality! I used the pen feature on Snapchat to sketch our ideas of how we want the Bowl to be used.

We’ve taken inspiration from one of the case studies Andy showed us (Alison Knowles, “Make A Salad”, https://vimeo.com/104729193 ), where three people were using one table as a platform and throwing the chopped food onto the tarp. The seamless movement between the platform and the tarp works really well and we hope to replicate that kind of movement through our design.

By next week, there are several things we need to do in order to progress to the next step. We need to grab the measurements of the cardboard box and also of the table at the alumni court. This is to make sure they’re proportionate to each other, so that the movement between the preparation space and the ‘bowl’ is seamless, with little obstruction. We also need to visit the market and ask if we’re able to use the box (ideally, this should be done A$AP incase anything goes wrong) 

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Monday Class - Ideas

Now that the Food project is starting to take some shape, we’ve been able to create more focused and clear ideas. 

Since we’ve decided that creating a salad was the best way to go, my team and I have begun sketching some ideas of ways we can create this experience. At the moment, we’ve been working on some ideas of how we can prepare and serve the food in the same space in an easy manner. 

Andy supplied us an interesting idea of using some of the large cardboard boxes used to hold watermelons at the Queen Vic Market, which can be used to serve the salad in.

We’ve also thought about creating a salad bar, where each ingredients of the salad is held in a seperate box and people can build their own salad. However, there’s a lot of problems with this idea, including excessive movement, human traffic through space and we simply don’t have enough ingredients to supply this. 

From all these ideas, we’ve found a lot of threats and weaknesses, (e.g. how can we serve food in a cardboard box and keep it clean? If there’s oils and water present, how do we make sure it doesn’t leak onto cardboard?), however these will all be resolved or help us think of better ideas.

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Monday Core Class - 5/7

Today we’ve begun to merge, collaborate and talk with other groups. We’ve decided to work with groups 20 and 16 because they share similar values and revolve mostly around environmental design and installations. 

We’ve also set up our Facebook page, which will be our main form of communication and exchange of ideas. This platform could prove to be a great solution as one of the groups we’re interested in working with are not in the Monday class. This could be difficult and unproductive to work with a group from another class, but it’s still worth a try!

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The Milk Cow - Inspiration

I’m slightly late in posting this as I visited this place last week but no matter! On my way home, I passed this lovely neon sign that read “GOODNESS INSIDE” and of course, that was enough to grab my attention and go inside to check it out!

I quickly found out that the Milk Cow was a pop-shop that served frozen yoghurt and it was it’s last week in the CBD. The notion of this place leaving was enough motivation for me to try their yoghurt.

I was actually surprised that it was a pop-up shop because of the elaborate decorations, but I found a few things worthy of noting. Since my group has chosen to focus on environmental design for the FOOD project, I’ve been trying to gather inspiration. We’ve also decided as a group that we wanted to use ready-made materials/items to create low waste. Therefore, I was really captivated by the way the black milk crates were used to create seats, with the cooper pipe acting as the ‘back’ of the stools. 

I really like the idea of using exposed pipes or building structures as part of the environmental design, as it creates an interested affect that can’t be easily replicated or stimulated. In relation to our project, using existing building structures around RMIT would be a great way to create our space without adding too much materials.

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8bit - Themed Space

I’ve been visiting a few places during my spare time to gather some ideas for the FOOD project and I decided to visit 8Bit on Swanson St and Caledonian Ln, for some ideas about how to construct a space or environment with a THEME. 

Upon entry, you are greeted with fun and quirky 8bit imagery and playful colours (even the burgers were filled with bright colours)

The 8bit theme was followed through all throughout the restaurant without overdoing it which is what I liked. Even the kitchen area (as pictured), with the colourful sauces and blue shelving added to the overall visual treat. 

The reason why I love themed restaurants/cafes is perhaps the consistency but also people may go to visit the restaurant specifically because the theme appeals to them. 

If my team and I decide to go with a theme for this project, I think it could really help us have a clear image of what our outcome could be and help us keep on track. However, having a single theme could potentially limit the interest of our stakeholders, as it obviously won’t appeal to everyone. Additionally it could also limit our brainstorming potential, thus limiting our ideas.

Image Source: http://www.notey.com/blogs/burgers 

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Fake Food Park - Martí Guixé

During one of my brief visits to the NGV, I noticed there was a children’s exhibition called the Fake Food Park and thought it would be appropriate to visit it since the theme of our studio class is food.

One of the main activities was where children could create dishes using the fake foods. One of my favourite parts was where you could add SMELL and TEXTURE to our dish (unfortunately I wasn’t able to take many photos of the actual activity, but I can assure you it was quite fun). 

I found a quote by Inga Knölke which summed up my experience at the Fake Food Park, which is “a food designer is someone working with food, with no idea of cooking”. I was marvelled by Guixé’s work and the way he completely reimagined food! In real life, you cannot just add texture or add whatever smell you’d like to your food, but he was able to bring these ideas to life. It’s almost like he’s able to completely divorce himself from the food itself (thus giving him more room to move creatively) and completely reimagine food as objects and props.  

Source: "Food-Designing". Food-designing.com. M.G., 2016. Web. 18 Aug. 2016.

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THE BEGINNING OF SEM2FOOD

Cento Mani Cafe - The Experience

My group (Amarat, Benjamin and I) chose a small Colombian cafe on Flinders Street. Amarat suggested this cafe and we agreed pretty quickly that this would be our place to gather. 

Coming into a Colombian cafe and being exposed to unfamiliar names of dishes was an interesting experience, as it was almost like choosing blindly and just hoping for the best! The unusual combination of foods (e.g. Ben ordered a soup dish which came with rice, avocado and a banana). Being in an unfamiliar environment with unfamiliar names I think forces you to be more observant and aware of your surroundings. You begin to appreciate small things and notice quirks about the environment and it’s all these things that come together and create an interesting overall experience. Not the mention the beautiful flavours of the food that engage your senses. It’s also nice to enjoy this experience with new people that you don’t usually go out with. The company is also a really important factor in the dining experience and I can genuinely say that sharing this experience with Ben and Amarat was a pleasure. It’s always interesting to learn about people and hear their story and share jokes over delicious food. 

Our experience would be extremely different if we were a larger group and it definitely had a different outcome to the Friday’s soup kitchen. I do prefer smaller gatherings as it feels a lot more casual, relaxed and organic and it’s definitely ideal for me.