material matters media

A brilliant sum up of the issues and current practices around the value of materials by Droog Lab
 

crumb bum stupid head

The personal vernacular of hubby P and myself has of late been evolving to the tune of the opening skit of this portlandia ep…



…and we’re currently in the midst of calling each other and the doggles “crumb bum” and “stupid head” at an almost constant and ridiculous rate.  It’s quite fitting really, as I am at the moment lifting myself out of a state in which I felt I was a firm stupidhead and definite crumb bum a lot of the time!  Yes, I’ve been wrangling this darned PhD of mine into some kind of ok shape, and I finally feel that I’m getting there.  A fog has finally lifted, while the hazy melancholic autumn is setting in.  Maybe this is a phenomenon to watch out for…decline pushing other areas of my life into the hopefully sublime!

You might have noticed that this little old blog is looking quite a bit different…it’s been on the back burner for a bit, but the wrangling has been happening here too and it’s finally looking a lot more designerly!  The tabs up the top are yet to be populated…this will evolve over time.

I’m still making lots of lettuces as opposed to growing them, (there are some growing too)…I might make a salad…

unraveling time

This is brilliant...I love it!...I so want to make granny squares out of what unravels...

Knitted calendar by Patrick Frey from here...:o)


Gregor Calendar from Patrick Frey on Vimeo.

beach plastic

Check out this Barbara De Vries TED talk about a rethink of a ecological problem.  Transforming the stuff that comes back to bite us from "the mythical place called away"...."where is away, away is here" :o)

Tabliers pour le Printemps

EXCLUSIVE premiere...


Tabliers pour le Printemps from tania splawa-neyman on Vimeo.

orange and a coat

Agnes Varda discussing a poignant moment when observing a gleaner at a market (from here)...

And here is my biggest valencia for this year, happily ripening alongside new shoots and the promising buds for next years fruit :o)

Christopher Kane "home spun" leather

aprons that gather

My response when thinking about what can I responsibly make (which realistically could be nothing!), was an apron for use within the garden.  If I don't really need anything, I might as well have an apron specifically for gathering broad beans.  The finished apron is viewed in my reflective space (workroom window) and different perspectives and lighting conditions reveal different things about the nature of this object.  This apron gathers, but not just beans.

Leather prototypes & a revelation about space

On the back of thinking about the potential of rapid prototyping, I did some tests where I tried to replicate some of the ideas it made me think of. I wanted to stick the small leather scraps together somehow, and decided silicone would work (something I used in an undergrad project). I started by trying to just patchwork the pieces together with small overlaps. It is kind of successful, but the main problem is the loss of "leatherness". It's kind of an extreme example of the re coated leather that I was talking about in an earlier post.

I then tried layering the pieces, in the way that I imagined that the rapid prototype printer would layer up the material as it prints, albeit on a much larger scale! It really was not successful as it just affirmed the problems with using the waste as it is and trying to get pieces to relate to each other.
Out of frustration I picked up some small random leather scraps and mashed them together like a hamburger with the silicone acting as a binder. It is kind of cool and sticks together really well when dry, however there are still massive limitations to this, again the leatherness is lost. What I'm creating here also is like a composite leather - a downcycling of the resource. The other problem I see with these tests, is that it relies on the introduction of another material element, whereas my aim is to find the inherent potential in the material as it is, without relying on something that completely changes it's properties.
Alongside these tests, I made up a model with some strips of leather (scraps from cutting away waistband excess) - this was to demonstrate what I thought would be possible to model in 3D, of course on a large scale. I modelled the strips over a can, in a woven structure, and then removed the can when the silicone was dry.



I reflected on these tests about 2 weeks after making them and asked some questions...
Why does this last model collapse?
It collapses because I let it go....but the main reason is because the can is no longer there. The can is like the body...and this is kind of how it works in 3D modelling i.e. you need to model the can too.
The negative space is AS important as the positive. It is what is not there that allows articulation and the ability to react. As well as the can not being there, it is the space between the woven structures that enables reactivity. This is the big problem with the earlier siliconed samples - there is no space, no way for the particles to "speak" and interrelate with each other. This takes me back to the John Jones leather animation - the pieces have independence but speak to each other to create a whole. Otherwise, the pieces become part of an amalgam, like this Japanese pancake where the individual ingredients are difficult to discern.

Rapid prototyping potentials

On the 30/03/10 I did the laser training on Level 11 with Andrew Thompson. Andrew locked the machine but left his keys downstairs, so we were lucky that he brought some rapid prototypes back with him when he went to go and get the keys. I was blown away by them - my first thoughts when seeing the white powdery ones was how it was made up of particles glued together, and the similarities with the small pieces of the leather waste I'm working with. I'm struggling with how I can organise the leather pieces because there is a complete lack of control - from the shape of the leather being cut from, the flaws in the leather that I cut and around, and what is being cut from the leather. I was thinking about leather particles blowing into a shape to make up a 3D form...and it reminded me of the animations produced by artist John Jones:



This shows the sum of many parts - which together show uniformity, but singularly, are individual, unique and surrounded by space...more on this later!

The printed polymer rapid prototypes were even more amazing and what struck me the most is the potential of being able to model negative space - which becomes the filler material when the model is printed. I saw the bicycle chain prototype, and it's articulation is what amazed me - especially coming after my own experiments with tessellations/articulations in textile forms. I realised the possibility of prototyping textiles, as most woven and knitted structures depend on space between yarns/threads which forms the tension of the cloth, and therefore can be modeled in the 3D environment.

Third tessellation test

The final position of the reversed tessellation test is where I start in this last test on the stand. It shows how the articulation works as it shapes over the body. I have started adding some commentary to these last 2 videos - a strange and hard thing for me to do and hear, but hopefully something I will get better at. It is giving me some insight as to how I sound when I talk about my work, so hopefully will help me to express my thoughts in a concise way.
I will use these video's to sketch from, in order to release more of the ideas that there might be here.

Reversed tessellation

This is the tessellated sample reversed....
When it is turned inside out, the materiality of the leather is embodied in the scultural form. The leather helps make the shapes....the leatherness is about form rather than feel or appearance

Tessellation on the body

Just having a little play around with the tessellated leather piece on the stand.
After being able to see some of the inside when playing, I decided to use the inside as the outside on the second try (video on the next post). I think this is an interesting concept as the leather creates form only and kind of acts as the bones of the model. I need to reflect on this further....so I'll come back to this later.



Further thoughts (which I may add to):

- the piece falls away from the body where it is attached - the attachment is the start of the interaction with the body and it continues as the articulations work over the body and interact where the angles touch.

Tessellated leather

After the confetti sample, I decided I needed to make a more controlled model. I followed the example in the origami book again, cutting the shapes exactly this time. I had some some leather samples gleaned from NSW leather - these are foiled/perforated leathers - really lovely.

The leather samples divide almost perfectly into 8 squares, with only a small strip of waste down the side. The pieces for the model are right angled isosceles triangles, so I cut the squares in half diagonally.

I decided to use glue (foss - contact adhesive used for leather), as I can get a crisp finish and fix the pieces all the way to the edges without messy/crafty looking stitching. I glued them onto scrap lycra in the origami configuration.



The result is very beautiful and as you can see fun to play with! It interacts with your own movement - and this articulation is created by the spaces. It is an interesting contrast to the paper version which holds it's own weight, and also the direction of the articulations is controlled, which is what holds the form. This is an example of the material fitting the use - this leather is very firm and cardboard like, which lends itself well to this. The waste leather I have been using is a garment weight leather which is more malleable and organic in feel - which are usable properties in it's own right, but not suited to this. So, this exercise has shown that clean and crisp is more visually successful, something difficult for me to achieve with my regular waste. Also, there is something in the articulation and the gaps....what?....there is room for more work here.
Another thing....videoing myself was very intriguing. Viewing myself afterwards doing something gives a different perspective, and I think this could be a valuable way of capturing and understanding what I'm doing, and even changing how I feel about what I've done.

p.s. I just watched the video again and it has triggered further thoughts....
- there is something in watching my hands "doing"
- the collapsing of the model and the way it folds on itself is in itself "uncontrolled", especially in contrast to the paper model. This started out as being very controlled in the material and make, but the outcome has much less stagnancy and a life that none of the other experiments have so far....so????