brittany graham

Prototype Presentation

Brit — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:33:55 +0000

My context was all about cause and effect and the tipping point between the primitive cause resulting in the final effect.
This lead to the exploration of the accordion effect and the butterfly effect– which covered an area where a small change can create an unexpected outcome.
I first started experimenting with little set ups of chain reaction events to come to an unpredicted effect or outcome. I did this with illustration.
The first was meant to be a planned system which created a “chance event” ex. spinning of bike tires gets tangled in string. The string lifts bread and drops it into a toaster. Again– this wasn’t meant to be accidental.
The next was more of a chance event chain reaction: a phone vibrates knocking loose change off the ledge and onto a kettle switch. The kettle switch is turned on and the water boils.
After was another planned event of chain reactions. A system is in place to knock over items to result in a napkin moving across the face after eating–again this wasn’t meant to be a real chance event.
The last drawing in this set is one of a sink tap being left on. The dripping of water from a tea towel tips over a bin. The contents of the bin spill out, knocking some cat food off of the counter. The result is a fed cat.
After these drawings I wanted to illustrate the concepts through film. I ended up making three films.
After these I started to think of causal changes in linguistics and what comes from these changes.
I created a list that started out with “big cat” and ended with “black plague”
This was done by passing the list around and only changing one word at a time. With this list i ended up making another book.
(will post big cat black plague book images later)
So after my tutorial on friday matt mentioned a railroad switch at a railroad junction. This small device can send you down one of two paths. So I’ve come to “designing causal disruption devices” which are meant to set you on a different path than anticipated.

I then drew up some more prototype illustrations for my trajectory.
The first being a colour coded door lock you have to align the correct colours before being allowed to open the door. This effects time and could potentially effect you being in the right or wrong place at the right or wrong time.

A variation on this is timed locks-where the door locks and unlocks on timed intervals- again effects timing.

Next is a question cupboard- access to cupboards relies on your ability to answer questions. Right answer grants you access to the right side and wrong answer grants you access to the left side of the cupboard.

Another idea is unlabeled and alternating switches. You have set amounts of time to learn which operated what before it switches. This creates unexpected results.

Another is mixed assembly- which includes a box of disassembled parts, based on which set of instructions you receive you will assemble one of two things. ex. lamp or food processor.

A rotating door in your house which creates a new path to travel through every time.

After this trajectory I planned on showing and documenting more through film and split screen to show this idea of setting you on a path that starts at point a but can end at numerous different outcomes through causal disruption devices.

After the prototype presentation I might be going back to the original cause and effect machines but am currently awaiting further feedback.

Cause and Effect 2

Brit — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 12:27:04 +0000

Here is the second video in my cause and effect series..
after these are finished i’m moving more towards “designing causal disruption devices”

cause and effect 2 from Brittany Graham on Vimeo.

to come: big cat black plague book

Cause and Effect: film 1

Brit — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:01:34 +0000

So, here is the first film I’ve made out of four of the cause and effect mini series. Jimmy left a comment about design to enhance chance events. (extended tab in the video) I might try to explore this a bit further. More to follow.

Cause and Effect 1 from Brittany Graham on Vimeo.

Territories up to present

Brit — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 11:48:42 +0000

Again, this was from ages ago but just wanted to put a little catch up on the project work so far.

After the 4960 Ideas I left off with exploring paradox and perceptions (see earlier post)
I felt a bit stuck at this point and we moved on the following week towards looking through articles to see if we could locate interesting areas of exploration.

I ended up finding an article on DDT which lead into:
persistence
shelflife
how long it stays in existence
learning outcomes:
breaking down
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

Mapping week was next
I was looking into DDT still and biomagnification, cycles and half life.

Next came our briefing documents (will add more images later)

I started looking into trails and the left behind
some small areas I was developing interest in included
snails, mines, shadows etc.
Again, started to feel stuck and this brought us into drawing week.
Through drawing I was exploring:
the left behind
out of sight out of mind
still existing
the reused
and original intention

We then had our design debate: Design is Pollution
Following week was the object fiction project with Rosario

Learning outcomes included:
re-use/refashioning
no longer useful objects
removal from context and identity

Next was film week:
Again was looking into objects left behind, new uses and context & continuation of existence

About A Fork from Brittany Graham on Vimeo.

This was now a list of intended areas of exploration after our territories presentation

The outcome of this was a new brief about cause and effect
and the exploration of the accordion effect
See new brief here.

Updates

Brit — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 20:38:22 +0000

Next updates to put up:
Project work
Films
Context Report

Electrowerkz

Brit — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 20:34:16 +0000

At the end of last year (04/12/09) WTandG were a part of Electrowerkz and we had another opportunity to exhibit the Go Scan Yourself project. We had a lot of fun (and drink) and the project seemed to suit the environment it was in quite nicely. See some photos here.

MPC

Brit — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 20:22:37 +0000

WTandG at MPC see photos below.
More updates to come as the work progresses.

Thanks to Sam for the gif

Dezeen & Design Week

Brit — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 20:16:50 +0000

I know that this was ages ago, but have been meaning to post some of the things that Waggott Tripp & Graham have been up to.

Back when we did Tent Digital we appeared on Dezeen.
This past week we were also featured in an article about the work we are currently working on at MPC in Design Week.
You can have a look at that here.

note to self

Brit — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 20:03:59 +0000

i’ve been so busy lately..have loads of updates to put on:
project work- territories up to film series
context report
MPC
design week
electrowerkz
dezeen

Direction part 2.

Brit — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 11:07:30 +0000

The second brief I chose was Paradox. Paradox 1. A seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true: the paradox that standing is more tiring than walking. 2. One exhibiting inexplicable or contradictory aspects. 3. An assertion that is essentially self-contradictory, though based on a valid deduction from acceptable premises. 4. A statement contrary to received opinion. It is something that seems illogical initially but somewhere in reality it could potentially be true. I started by researching and understanding some famous paradoxes specifically “all horses are the same colour.”

So I started to think of paradoxes in everyday life.. which got me to come up with the idea that:
Initially you would say that this is untrue and you could undoubtedly argue that this is pretty illogical. We all know that everyone’s favourite colour is not red.
Hypothetically though this could be entirely plausible, because there is no way to know or see how other people perceive colours in their minds eye. In theory this would be impossible to prove but to put it simply the way that I see MY red may just be the way that you see MY purple. I started to morph a little into the synesthesia brief around this time. So, to demonstrate this graphically I did some experiments by asking people what their favourite colours were out of a list of 11 colours. I asked them to label 1-11; 1 being most favourable and 11 being the least.

The posters showed some interesting views between similarities and differences with their perceptions of which colours were favored and which were not.

To get away from colours I wanted to focus more on perception. Everyone has a different view on the world around them and just how people perceive it is entirely dependent on a broad range of variables.

So I drew up some common drawings just to test people on their initial reactions and perceptions to the images they were shown. I wanted to know what they saw initially and what they saw upon examining the image further.
After this experiment I wanted to see how preconceived perceptions effect someones performance.
Do changes or alterations in original perceptions enhance or deter the subject?
So I made a deck of cards but reversed the colours of the suits making:
hearts black
diamonds black
clubs red
& spades red.
What this experiment ended up showing was a slower reaction time in peoples’ perceptions while playing a game. They had previously been exposed to seeing something a certain way and an alteration in this confused a subconscious reaction.

The idea of devices or tools used to enhance or manipulate perceptions/understanding is very intriguing to me, and although this was mostly design through experimentation I find the idea of machines for perceiving very interesting and would like to expand on this further through continuing experimentation methods.