Thoughts on furniture

So recently I have begun to think about what I might want to actually exhibit in my final degree show- in particular the karate chop chest of drawers, and the action hero door. I do not think these objects will be shown as they are. The context of the products completely changes how they work, and what they do. When used in the context of the classroom (as the door is in the video) they become a tool for play- showing off, messing around, meaning that the user does not actually become someone else, they are still them, it's just that they are messing around with a door.

I think that when placed in the context of the home, the objects will work much better at acheiving their aim- to make the user act as someone completely different. Placing the objects in a sistuation where there is no one else watching will mean they are taken seriously. When discussing this with Tom and Milan it was also brought to my attention that it will be interesting to see wether the user replaces the foam door or not. 

This raises another question about if the products should force you to use them as they are meant to be used or not. With the kung-fu chest of drawers the only way to open them is to push the buttons, there is no handle, no other way of opening them. The door however has to be replaced by the user, a choice can be made about wether to do this or not. There are situations which would make it impossible not to replace the door though- for example if it is a toilet door in a shared house- or a bedroom door in a shared house- as the user would need privacy.

I have also been thinking about one of the main points raised by my tutoril feedback- who is the user? The question is valid, howeevr I can't help but think that the user is simply anyone who wants to be someone else. If the 'user group' for my designs needs refining, I want to know how to go about this- do I need to focus on refining it? Or will that come naturally with the development of the project? All these are questions to raise in my next tutorial (5 days time) Inbetween now and then the plan is to continue making the drawers and foam door, until they are at a standard to be placed in a home environment and tested.

Here it is

I have been working on prototyping all my ideas for the last month or so, which is why I haven't blogged in a while. These weer in preparation for the Prototype presentations (I will also post my feedback here later)


So, there were a few main areas that have emerged through the prototyping I have been doing. The idea of moving away from products that force the user to act like James Bond has been replaced by broader areas, (mainly films) which include a stereotypical character for the user to swap into. I believe that using a more ambiguous character it becomes easier for you to see yourself as that character. Products to allow someone to act like a specific person also have a high risk of becoming cheesy, or a novelty product, which is exactly what I don't want.

ACTION HERO

These are designed to subvert the mundane use of objects (for example a door) and force the user to act as if they are in an action film. These products are all very much in the prototype stage.

I made a door out of foam that can only be opened when punched or kicked, I hoped that for the split second it took to jump through, the user would become a different person, an action hero.

Images below also include subsequent experiments and prototypes exploring ways of creating break-through doors.





I also made some light switch covers, which make it impossible to turn a light switch on or off unless you punch it really hard.



KUNG-FU FIGHTER

Action hero creating products turned into and idea to create a Kung-Fu chest of drawers, which could only be opened by karate-chopping it.



FILM NOIR

I thought it would also be interesting to develop a range of products that made you feel more sophisticated. I made a load of prototypes exploring different techniques used in film noir, and tried to translate those into products. Some of the ones that worked best were constantly smoking rings



And lampshades that cast shadows like blinds across your face.




The main problem with these designs is that they rely rather a lot on someone else viewing them, and the aim of the project was always to make the individual feel different based on an action or experience they carried out, not based on other people viewing them acting differently.

One of my favourite, although least developed concepts, is one which aims to replicate the parts of film noir when the actor is in a car. I am not sure how I will do this yet, but I basically want to create a structure including a mirror, and a video screen, so that when the someone looks into the mirror, they see this:



I am also going to blog the trascript of the feedback my tutors gave on these ideas.

It's Been a Long Time...

A month is a long time to not blog in. I finished my context report (soon I will upload it to my website) since then I have been working on about a million prototypes. Photos of these will also be up here soon, so watch this space. Or just go and do something else until then, and come back in two weeks, that is probably a better idea.

Context Report

THE TRANSIENT IDENTITY

Introduction

Living is hard. We have to do things we don’t want to, we experience stress, guilt, fear and anger as a result of things that are beyond our control.
“For thousands of years, human beings had screwed up and trashed and crapped on this planet, and now history expected me to clean up after everyone. I have to wash out and flatten my soup cans. And account for every drop of used motor oil. And I have to foot the bill for nuclear waste and buried gasoline tanks and land filled toxic sludge dumped a generation before I was born.”

Cunts are still running the world , and there is nothing you can do about it.

“Let’s suppose your omnipotent and uncompromising government, with the support and the cheering of the masses, decides to use the taxes you pay to finance a golf course that will spoil the landscape of your childhood, or an airport that will deafen your ears, or an unwanted war.”

“Everything is served up in a brochure, with its prescribed etiquettes and its set price. There is nowhere to run. All hideaways are typified, programmed and standardised. They are not, and never again will be, your “own” escape.”

So where do you go? Holidays, books, films and computer games allow you to escape in some way, but what if they don’t cut it anymore? In times as stressful as these, do we need a more complete form of escape?

What if you could take a holiday from yourself?

The philosophical theory of dualism is based on the idea that an individual is made up of two parts, mind and matter. This theory can be traced back to Plato’s Phaedo, in which it is suggested that the true substance of the self lies not in the physical body, but in the mind . Descartes believed that "There is a vast difference between the mind and the body" and that although interlinked, the mind and body are separate entities.
With the right design intervention this separation could be encouraged, and an identity swap could possibly be facilitated.

The type of identity swapping I propose is borne out of disillusionment with modern society, and the problems it brings. Identity transplanting or swapping does not aim to encourage people to escape themselves. It is to encourage and help people to deal with their lives, and with the stresses, problems and fears that everyday life brings by swapping all or part of their identity.
There is a big difference between wanting to be someone else for a while, and wanting to no longer be you. I hope to find the best way of catering for the former. People who wish for the latter are not suitable candidates for identity swapping, it is not permanent and the user should return to his or her original identity feeling refreshed after escaping themselves for a short while.

I AM JAMES BOND

Mark: “Jeremy please, don’t smile like that, you’re not James Bond you’re disgusting.”
Jeremy: (says in his head) “I am James Bond”

Imagine how much easier life would be if you could employ a different identity, perhaps of someone who was more confident, or more polite, to do something you didn’t want to do. James Bond is clever, popular, and confident, he is refined and relaxed in all situations. We could all benefit from a bit of Bond.

James Bond is fictional; his public image is much less likely to change. As he has been played by many different actors, over many years the average person is less likely to attach his persona to one face, making it easier to imagine yourself as him.

ANDREW W.K

Identity can be manifested in many different ways. Celebrity culture often causes individual identity to be abstracted from the physical person it belongs to.

The concept of an identity that can be changed and swapped through a number of different bodies is mentioned in ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces’ ‘A Scanner Darkly’ ‘The Journey to the East.’ (Quotes, further explanation)

Andrew W.K is a musical performance artist who has had popular chart hits across the world. He has appeared in T.V and radio shows, released two albums, and had 2 world tours. His Wikipedia page contains his entire life story (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_W.K.) As does his extensive website, which also contains videos of shows, photographs and press (http://www.andrewwk.com/)

Andrew W.K is a fabricated person, and his identity is purely conceptual. His promotional photographs and album covers are all of the same person, but his concerts and interviews are played by a series of actors. (I will collect proof of this- interviews with fans that know he is fabricated, people who have booked him to play etc. and fans that don’t know he is fabricated)

I HAVE THEREFORE I AM

The second part of my project focuses on swapping one specific part of someone’s persona that contributes to his or her overall identity.

In the early 19th Century “Objects were regarded as indicators of moral character, directly measuring the integrity of the owner. However, “correspondences” of this kind were eclipsed by the consolidation of capitalism in the middle of the 19th Century and by the triumph of the self-made man. The interior ceased to be a moral barometer and became instead a domain of material display. The case of the soul was equivalent to the quantity and variety of objects that could be collected and accumulated and, as Marx observed “the more you have, the more you will be”

In the 21st century this trend has intensified “The inner space of western citizens is more likely to be found within the walls of their own cave than in some hidden corner of their soul.”

“The fact is that, far from contributing to your supposed ‘uniqueness’, what objects really do is ‘brand’ you.”

To be branded by objects is to have an identity forced onto you by the manufacturing companies and mass-producing factories that make those products.

“You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.”

Despite the current trend, it is possible to take control of our personal environment once more. We can create our own environment “an environment that would go beyond institutionalised patterns of consumption” this requires a greater level of understanding.

To understand first people must think more deeply about their favourite objects, why they like them, why those objects in particular mean so much to them.
Considering this would hopefully discourage someone from buying mass produced objects, that seek not to hold true meaning for the owner, but to purely decorate the home, to ‘brand’ the person.

Object Identity

Objects that change identity, either due to interaction from the user, or of their own accord would sever the ties the user has with their object, forcing the user to think more deeply about what their possessions mean to them, and why.
If the user could change the identity of their products at will then they could truly create an environment that was an expression of their identity, instead of an environment that created their identity for them.

Storage Of Objects

Most people display their favourite objects, but not in any particular order. If the user is forced to order their objects, maybe they would think more about each object, what it means to them, why they like it.

DESIGN FOR THE POST NUCLEAR FAMILY

There are many situations in modern society that already require a certain degree of identity swapping, sometimes without the individual even realising they are doing it. A nurse for example will often use a more detached persona to give patients bad news, and this persona is often different from the one they would use at home. People in these situations would benefit from design interventions that encourage, or make this partial identity swap easier.

The Post-Nuclear family is a good example of this. Families where the parents have broken up and gone on to have new families often exhibit partial identity swapping independent of any design interaction. There is often a significant age gap between the two families; one is often older than the other, meaning that the parent has to act quite differently around each family.

For the parents there is a certain amount of guilt that inevitably comes with the break up of a family. (I may include interviews with my family to back this up) If there is a product available there is almost always demand for it, showing the consumer that they are not alone in their situation. I think that if products were available to encourage this type of identity swapping, either for the parents or for the children, then even just the fact that those products were available would provide reassurance that this type of family (and this type of identity swapping) was acceptable and normal. I also hope that these products would be useful for the family.

The most productive way to encourage identity swapping is not to try and force meaning into objects. “You can’t design things that people will feel emotionally attached to: people’s feelings about objects develop through processes that are out of the designer or maker’s control” But to facilitate identity swapping through storage of treasured possessions.

IN CONCLUSION

I have none as of yet.

Design for the Post Nuclear Family

I have also been working on developing some products for the post nuclear family. I think there is a certain amount of guilt associated with a couple who have children together breaking up nowadays, even though it is now completely normal. I think if products were available, either for the child, the parent or the house it would make the parents feel better. Parents often go on to start other families after a breakup, with each set of children having a large age gap in-between. This means they often have to alter aspects of their identity when dealing with each family. I think this is an interesting example of identity swapping occurring naturally, and it would be interesting to intervene and try to encourage this swapping.

I am James Bond.

I have begun to think that it would be interesting to find ways in which average people can become fantasy figures, if they could swap their identity for a day or more, to be someone who is more confident, interesting, or has some personality features that they don’t, and wish they had. I don’t want to allow someone to get rid of their identity, I want to create a sort of ‘Identity tourism’ where the user could swap identity to try out a new personality, or maybe use their identity to do something that they don’t want to, or couldn’t do on their own. The person will always be able to swap back to their personality again, like a holiday where you can return home.

What if everyone could be James Bond for a period of time? How could this be done? I decided to use him because he is a fictional character (so his public image and personality is harder to be ‘tarnished’ than a real person’s is), he is well known (so a number of people would know what he is like without having to have a personality explained to them first) and he has a desirable personality.

I will look into what constitutes James Bond. When I have researched this through experimentation I will try and create methods of applying James Bond to people.

The Android is a Human

I have recently been thinking about the implications of digital identity. Although this wasn’t a path I originally wanted to explore ( I felt it was very broad and has been extensively explored through various design disciplines already) I find the need to digitally document our entire life interesting. Philip K Dick says in his speech ‘The Android and the Human’ (1972)
“It is the tendency of the so-called primitive mind to animate its environment. Modern depth psychology has requested us for years to withdraw these anthropomorphic projections from what is actually inanimate reality, to introject -- that is, to bring back into our own heads -- the living quality which we, in ignorance, cast out onto the inert things surrounding us.”

In the world of today an infinite amount of ourselves, of our identity, can be stored on the internet for all to see. What would the implications be if the record of our identity we have spent so long pouring into the artificial constructs that surround us was to be lost? How would we survive in a world without a digital identity? I am not interested in a world where the internet, and all computer systems fail. I want to investigate the possibility, and subsequent consequences of the collective identity stored on the internet being lost forever.