9 years since my last post. Goodness. This is now changed from my design and art degree blog to my nursing degree blog.
I took many twists and turns to get here where I am, studying Nursing. Ignore any of the posts underneath this one as it is irrelevant to my nursing degree.
I thought it’d be a good reminder to keep the blunder years of my 2010 entries in my once long ago certificate in art and design.
5 Intersecting TetrahedraMade during my first module, (visual arts) this is an attempt at upsizing my favourite origami model. I selected this work because I’m quite familiar with it after making at least 20+ models in the past 2 years. I was focused about this models scale, usually I would make 5IT’s (5 Intersecting Tetrahedras) out of A4-A3 sizes of paper which would measure out the final model at roughly 30 cm high. Using the paper that was available to me, I constructed a model that sat shy of 1.2 meters high. The fact that it’s size was on a different scale than my other ones really interested me. The materials I used kept to the tradition of origami: paper. The scale added a large hurdle to my work, the card (or thick paper) wasn’t strong enough to hold the form so it was re-enforced with paper mache. Concerning its spatial qualities, I think this model would fit in a space where it’s hung from the ceiling as a main attraction.
Origami SpringThis origami spring is symmetrical if split in half through the middle, the folds flow clockwise-anticlockwise in an alternating pattern. This form of origami transforms a rectangular piece of paper into a circular form. The design of the folds gives the form a dynamic shape, which leads the eyes to flow up and down diagonally through the form. Mathematical origami has always been my forte and something that I take a lot of interest towards. The subject matter of this piece was ‘analytical dynamics’. Since this model was based on a spring, it has ability to change its form by expanding and contracting. The form of the nodes coincides with the springs function of expanding and contracting. The nodes rotate clockwise or anticlockwise according to their position and whether the spring is expanded or contracted. The scale of the origami being 2.5cm/2.5cm/5.5cm (unextended) was a new area that I explored with scaling my origami practise.
Texture ConceptThis folded for is part of a series which comes from my visual arts module. The method I chose to make this was to paint first then fold afterwards. I usually choose to leave my origami unpainted, so I experimented with style change and painted the paper before folding it. I painted a pattern consisting of paralleograms which the tesselating folds are comprised of. I wanted to see what effect would come out if i made a contrast of painted tesselations vs folded tesselations. It reminds me of the theory of form vs function. Form representing the painted aspect while function representing the folds of the origami piece. I think that the weight of the contrast made by the paint overshadows the subtle tones of shadows expressed with the folding.
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) The systematic treatment of magnitude, relationships between figures and forms, and relations between quantities expressed symbolically.) Mathematical procedures, operations, or properties.“mathematics.” Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 07 Nov. 2010. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mathematics>.
1. The traditional Japanese art or technique of folding paper into a variety of decorative or representational forms, as of animals or flowers.
This is relevant to my work because with Yuko’s works, she plays with the ideas by folding paper to give it different shades and tones without painting or marking the paper. My texture concept comes along these same lines as the subtle tones because the shadows created by the folds are similar to the folded works of Yuko. When I’m making my origami, I like to keep my paper to its original colour just as Yuko does as well.
“NISHIMURA Yuko” http://www.keikogallery.com <http://www.keikogallery.com/artist/others/nishimura_yuko.html>
“As a teenage mathematical prodigy, Erik Demaine developed a theorem demonstrating that, with the right folds in a sheet of paper, any two-dimensional shape–whether a star, a unicorn, or a letter of the alphabet–can be formed by a single straight-line cut. He was 20 years old when he received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Waterloo and 22 when the MacArthur Foundation awarded him a “genius grant” in 2003.
Now an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, Demaine (above) remains involved in the craft and science of origami while pursuing research in algorithms, combinatorics, and biology.”
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My 5 intersecting tetrahedra was the result of research into 3 dimensional forms based on mathematical formulas. With my origami work, I like making use of maths when making sculptures because of the tesselating and repeating forms that can be made out of paper. Although the sculpture itself is made of 30 pieces of paper, the 3D object had it’s origin from the 30 pieces of 2D paper.
“Knowing When to Fold” The American Scholar v.75 no.4 Autumn 2006 <http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com/hww/jumpstart.jhtml?recid=0bc05f7a67b1790e539b3bfb2e86d1bd2ea64eca8bb71a3ed46f42f944eab8d8b25a2f3b63ce8fd2&fmt=H Knowing When to Fold. The American Scholar v. 75 no. 4 (Autumn 2006) p. 13>
“Crease patterns have become much more popular in the last 15 years as a means of conveying origami. Part of the reason is that it’s a lot easier to draw a single crease pattern than to draw a detailed step-by step folding sequence. Part of the reason is that many origami composers (including myself) construct crease patterns as part of their design process, so the finished crease pattern comes “for free.” And part of the reason is that with the general rise in folding ability worldwide, a reasonable number of people now have the skill to “read” a crease pattern and fold the encoded form.”
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The method of “Crease Patterns” is relevant to my origami spring because the instructions or diagrams that I found to make the sculpture was just a piece of paper with lines drawn in a tesselating pattern across it. My task as an origamist was to decipher the pattern and make the origami spring. The crease pattern being mathematicaly puzzling sparked my interest in figuring out how to make the sculpture.
“Crease Patterns” http://www.langorigami.com robert j. lang origami 2004–2010 <http://www.langorigami.com/art/creasepatterns/creasepatterns.php4>
Jen StarkRegal Genesis / 34″ x 27″ x 3″ / hand-cut metallic and black paper on wood backing / 2009
When I compared this piece of art to my origami spring, it reminded me of how the original model of the spring was made from a rectangular piece of paper which folded into a circular design. Examining the square within a circle whintin a square reflects the muiltiple layers of nodes within the origami spring. The alternating pattern between black and white resembles the tones that the multiple folds gives the paper. With the work’s title: “Regal Genesis” Regal is defined as: of or pertaining to a king; royal. Genesis: The act of producing, or giving birth or origin to anything. I assume that the message that Jen was trying to portray was that the outer square (being a king) gives birth to it’s next in line which is a circle. Then the cycle repeats again and again. This is also reflected on the design of my origami spring: there’s multiple nodes throughout the sculpture, the diagonal folds travel from one node to the next and the one after and the cycle repeats.
Icosahedron II/Paper Sculpture/Diameter approx. 80cm/200gsm cartridge paper, adhesive./www.richardsweeney.co.uk
If it wasn’t already pretty obvious, this is a work from another artist which is relevant to my 5 intersecting tetrahedra. One thing here that’s not shown is the scale of the origami. My origami, unlike Richards, has been sat on the floor with plenty of objects to give a sense of scale. Richard’s origami sculpture has been hung up and given a thoughtful light source to give detail and lets the origami sculpture express it’s complex design and curves. If I were to develop my own design, I would have my own set up the same as his. The sense of scale would be hidden behind a blank background, which gives the viewer more to focus on the form of the origami itself.
(name unknown)/Paper/http://www.simonschubert.de/
When I saw this folded piece of paper, I thought it was a clever way of making a picutre without making marks from a pencil, pen or brush. The folded paper itself is the marks. I compared this with my “texture concept” Where I make tesselating patterns, Simon makes “drawings” of interior spaces. Simon cleverly makes use of the tones made by the subtle folds on a piece of paper. I think I could improve my own designs if I added subtle tones to give an optical illusion in my tesselational works.
For my 5 week module, I chose to do 3d Design. In 3d design, I wanted to make a shelf based on the aspect of gaming. When I was going through the internet looking for artists to refer off, I wanted to find a range of areas that I could express in my shelf. Though I had already come up with an idea, I wanted to see what other areas could arise. My research was aimed towards the gaming culture and shelf based furniture.
A 'cosplayer' from the book: Fandomania
This is a photograph form Elena Dorfman’s book: Fandomania. The context of Fandomania is about the people who dress up “in costumes that represent characters from video games, animated films and Japanese graphic novels”. This photograph depicts a person wearing the same/identical costume to a character in a video game.
I wanted to add this artists work to the exhibition because I though that we tend to like games so much, we have the desire to re-enact one of those characters as a show of admiration. When I’m usually playing games, I like to speak to talk to my friends in the same manner featured in the games. Some people take that aspect further and dress up and act like those characters.
Examining the photograph, I assume the method that Dorfman took was: pose the person in front of a black background and then add two points of light to the left and right out of view to the camera. The style of photography is identical to the dark backgrounded aspect of baroque paintings. I think that the dark background shifts the viewers attention to the model.
Lightcycles from the film 'TRON'
This is one of the many pieces of artworks featured in the art gallery: ‘I Am 8 Bit’.
‘I Am 8 Bit’ is an art gallery in Los Angeles, California held every year featuring artists who base their artworks on the retro and 8 bit era of gaming.
In this framed sculpture, I can see that the artist used a technique called ‘vacuum forming’. The process is performed by heating up a piece of plastic, then applying it on a template and having the air underneath it sucked out. The displacement of air pulls the plastic on top of the template. Since the plastic has been heated up, its form can be easily manipulated. After the process of moulding the plastic is done, the right colours are painted onto the ‘light-cycles’. The resulting sculpture is the framed. I wanted to add this to my exhibition because I don’t commonly come across this type of method in artworks I find.
In my opinion, I don’t see why the artist had to constrain his work to only ‘TRON’. Any other game could be featured. Bit since the theme of the art gallery was 8-bit gaming, having pixel based games would express block shaped figures and forms. If there was a sharp corner in a template for a vacuum moulded plastic, not only would it be hard to mould but the sharp corner would penetrate the layer of plastic letting air into the vacuum and ruining the sculpture.
EBOY's Maker Faire Poster, 2008
Eboy: the godfather of pixel art. Eboy is a group of 4 artists who specialise in the area of pixel art. Their extensive range of different forms of art developed from 2d media formats to posters, art gallery wall spreads, little toys, wallpaper for phones, shoe designs, snowboards and many more.
When the group first started, they only wanted to work with pixels because they found a common interest to making pictures and images only for the screen. Over the years, they have developed their artwork to graphic design.
This is similar to Tord Boonotje’s works where his works are in a 3d medium, it covers a wide range of product designs e.g. Tables, Chairs, Textiles, Lights.
What I like about this image and every other one made by EBOY is that they can all be used for nearly everything relating to product design e.g. Magazine spreads, Laptop covers, mug designs, lamp shades, mouse pads, calendars. I liked the flexibility that these works can adapt to so it was added to the exhibition.
When i look at their works, I think that EBOY was trying to make an impact to revive the old art style of pixel art mainly featured in games from the 1980s until today. The style of pixel art is still around today because in mobile phones and portable gaming, the hardware can’t cope with complex 3D models. Instead, using 2D pixel based ‘sprites’ the Hardware can cope with.
'Carlton Bookcase' By Ettore Sottsass, 1981
This very elaborate bookshelf is made by Ettore Sottsass named the ‘Carlton Bookcase’ it was marketed for parents to buy for children due to its colourful and playful design full of angles and shapes.
I liked the design of having modular components but having them still attached to the same structure. If you look closely, you can probably see that the top of the structure resembles something that looks like a stick figure.
The structure looks to be based on a typical children’s drawer on the bottom but then had multiple lengths of coloured wood added in a symmetrically randomly way.
Although, colourful in nature, I ha a few questions about the fact that being based on a children’s shelf, it may be too tall for a child to reach the top shelf. Another issue that came across me was that the fact that the shelf was just so big for an average child that it may be overbearing and scary for them. In my opinion, it would be better suited if it was kept in a kindergarten, day care or places where children and supervision was close by.
'Chest of Drawers' by Droog
Droog is a conceptual design company who researches and develops designs of furniture with various independent designers. As a concept design company, Droog makes a lot of furniture designs. Their concept furniture is still fully functional for its intended purpose. Their focus is not just on the form of the furniture but on the practicality as well.
In this shelf/drawer, many single shelf components have been stacked on each other without any regard to fitting perfectly, size hierarchy or even a crucial aspect of any type of construction: level and . The resulting cluster of drawers are then belted to each other to hold it steady.
Due to the disregard to proper form and function used with typical everyday furniture, I thought that this was a good exploration from the featured area of conceptual design, so I included it into the exhibition.
Ron Arad's Bookshelves
This shelf caught my eye when my tutors were going through a slide-show featuring the works of many furniture designers.
These bookshelves are wall mounted moulded thermoplastic, technopolymer. The plastic used have been moulded into a spiral form with the bottom right moulded into a repeating blob shape. The spirals have an added divider to allow books to be situated onto.
What I liked about this shelf is that, it’s mostly just one piece of long plastic. With Arad’s method, he accommodated a form that is not usually identified with bookshelves: circular. Most bookshelves are usually rectangular shaped. In my opinion, they’re shaped like that to offer maximum space for storage and display for the books to be put on the shelf.
With the spiral bookshelf, instead of having space, it takes it and gives it a form which is probably a reference at the quote: ‘function follows form’. In this case, the form of the bookshelf takes away the space, but gives the viewer something to look at besides the books on display.
Elena Dorfman’s Website: http://elenadorfman.com/art/fandomania/statement.html
‘I Am 8 Bit’ gallery: http://www.i-mockery.com/minimocks/iam8bit-07/
EBOY’s Blog: http://hello.eboy.com/eboy/
Image of the ‘Carlton Bookcase’: http://www.greatinteriordesign.com/tag/noah-balmer/
Droog: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droog_%28company%29
Ron Arad’s shelf: http://www.design-conscious.co.uk/mall/designconscious/products/product-71981.stm
Greetings and thanks for visiting my blog. Here’s an update for what I’ve been doing lately.
An art exhibition that I have been invited to contribute with (outside of Unitec) is for a upcoming art gallery at Mangere. The theme of the exhibition is ‘Matariki’ and the looks towards the new year.
A small peek to my project that I’m collaborating with is making some origami 5 intersecting tetrahedra.
For Exhibition details, please visit this link:
http://www.eventfinder.co.nz/2010/jun/mangere/he-whitu-te-whetu-te-tau
Contributors from around the world, 48 Hours, 1 Magazine.
In my opinion, great idea, many people around the world have their own opinions and styles that they can put forward to the articles featured in the magazine.
Sorry guys, I haven’t updated recently. This post isn’t going to be a long one, but since i’ve been busy lately, here’s what i’ve been up to with my AD brief making monuments:
http://jiekai.deviantart.com/art/Origami-it-s-in-my-blood-165128976
If I Were President – Joseph Ford
Today’s featured artist is Joseph Ford. “JOSEPH WAS BORN IN LONDON AND STUDIED MODERN LANGUAGES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. AFTER UNIVERSITY HE ASSISTED ADVERTISING PHOTOGRAPHERS IN LONDON AND PARIS, AND SINCE 2004 HAS DIVIDED HIS TIME BETWEEN THE UK AND FRANCE, WORKING ON ADVERTISING AND EDITORIAL COMMISSIONS FOR BRITISH, FRENCH AND INTERNATIONAL CLIENTS.” (http://www.josephford.net/contact.html)
Skipping to the meat of the story, I found this artist by stumbling upon his works when i was Touring the internet. Here’s the link:
http://gizmodo.com/5543663/a-window-office-inside-a-nintendo-ds
Heres his website:
The name of these sets of images in the first link is: If I Were President. It consists of digitally edited images where buildings are manipulated to resemble gaming consoles. In my personal gaming background, i quite like the idea that a widely used item of entertainment is used as a building. Although, when my realist’s opinion comes along, it questions the structural integrity of the second building.
Though in essence, i think the picture was made for a joke. Referring to the title: “If i were president”, i think this means, that with the power of being a president of a country, building a building with the blueprints of a video game console would be anything around feasible.
Thinking that the previous statement is plausible, i think that the message Joseph is trying to give out is that the president has the power to do anything that he wishes even if it is for personal desire.
Ok, well it’s 3 weeks til the deadline for my blog eek! I haven’t done anything since the two random posts since march!!! anyway, since i’ve got the motivation for some gaming why don’t i put that energy into some of my homework? Well, anyway, time to get this started!
Are you human? – Aram Bartholl
This caught my eye today when I was taking my leisurely stroll through the internet. Aram Bartholl is a German architect whose field is based on contemporary art, digital art and conceptual art. (Source:wikipedia) In the video, Aram acquires CAPTCHA images from the internet, prints them out, implements it into boards and then hangs up multiple “CAPTCHA” signs around the city.
For those who don’t know what CAPTCHA images are, it’s the funny distorted mutilated words that websites command you to decipher before they let you into the delicious content of their websites.
This caught my eye because in my native world of the internet, i’ve always seen CAPTCHA images throughout the internert, yet I have never seen it in real life.
I really like the idea of using typography that’s original purpose was to repel bots, into real life signs and imagery. What i find interesting is that Aram has found that modern day tagging in the streets closely resembles the typography that of CAPCHAS.
Another thing, this relates to my course because when i was doing my first 3 week module I got into the animation module. One of the first tasks we did was to go research typography to go towards our animation. Well, in my opinion, i think i could of made my work better if I had used the same process as Aram did.
So far so good, Look for me tomorrow!
Well, this is the thing i made for the “leis” at the beginning of the year. Nothing much.
Justin's Journey 