Week 7
Form Exploration
After the last consultation, I really had to think about what my artefact actually is. What is the context behind it, and what kind of scenario is it being placed in?
Going back to my original goal of trying to spark discourse in others around the topic, I decided that instead of creating a piece that is just meant to be looked at, I wanted to position it as if it were a product.
I was thinking that if I set it in the context of something you could actually buy, when people walk past it, they might think, “why would I want to buy that?”
If presenting it this way sparks any sort of question, no matter how negative, it would still prompt some kind of thinking around the topic being presented.
My brain was honestly quite fried this week, so all I could really do was sketch and try to imagine what this product might look like.
Going back to the idea of creating discomfort, my initial sketches treat this product-companion more like an entity. Right now, the form is just a block.
Trying to figure out what form it should take is quite difficult, especially since I don’t want it to just be a screen. At the same time, if I give it the shape of an everyday object, I worry that the meaning and associations of that object will carry through and shift how the work is interpreted.
At the same time, I do think it could be interesting if it takes on the form of something everyday. Technology is already so embedded into daily life that we barely notice it anymore, so having it exist as something familiar could reinforce that idea.
The issue is choosing an object that has a strong enough rationale behind it. Right now, my sketches are quite plain because I haven’t landed on a form that feels meaningful yet. The shapes don’t really represent anything significant at this stage.
Next week, I’ll focus on narrowing down the form it takes, because right now there’s something quite unsatisfactory about just giving it an ambiguous shape without a clear reason.