Choosing groups

We were encouraged to decide on our groups depending on interests which would become prevalent through initial discussions. However, the college as a whole didn't get may students join (and all of us who did are either textile or interactive arts) and if we were to split into two groups, there would be about four or five in each group. So we have decided to work as one big group. It's a shame because I would have loved to meet and work with students from a wide range of disciplines to get the most out of the unit. But not to worry. And it's still great to work with the students from Interactive Arts as they have a totally different approach.

Initial Discussion

After the design festival presentations we had a group discussion about issues we could work on for the project. Design can be used to both high light and solve problems so we were encouraged to discuss issues related to Manchester. It was so easy to talk about the things that are wrong with Manchester, but the hard part it coming up with ways that we can use these ideas to develop a concept for a Design Festival. This seems really out of our reach at the moment, but we'll get there. It was good to get talking and to generate ideas together. We are also going to split into two groups so this discussion was aimed to see who works best together and has similar ideas. 

Changing negative connotations of Manchester

- Rough areas

- Bad weather

- Crime/ poverty

- Dangerous

- Miserable

- Concrete city

- No greener in city centre

Making new connections

- Waterways

- Trans-Peninne trail

-Cycling

- Oxford Road too busy with buses, not safe.

Lack of Greenery

- Integrating nature into structure of life/ buildings

- Make people aware of existing greenery

Manchester International Festival

- Exclusive/ expensive

- Brings wider audience to Manchester

Community

- Don't know our neighbours..why?

- Typical Manchester terraced streets- once close knit communities

- Festival that everyone inc local communities can engage in

- Gentrifications in areas such as Levenshulme/ Northenden

Remember: Using Design Solutions to Solve/Highlight problems

Design Festival Introduction: Stockholm Design Week

Mark and Fiona delivered presentations on current design festival models and the kinds of things that go on at such events.

Stockholm Design Week (Stockholm Furniture and Light Fair): The design week was launched in 2002 as an umbrella event for the Furniture and Light fair which has been running for over 60 years making it one of the oldest events going. From the examples shown, it seems that the fair isn't just about showcasing design products (although that is pretty important) but more the way in which things are displayed, similar to art installations. The whole event is a memorable experience with design to be admired from every aspect.
The Glass Elephant Installation was used to showcase glass pieces from several designers. This is such an exciting way to exhibit design, yet it still doesn't take away from the pieces themselves. The contrast between the fragile glass wear and the heavy bulky robots seen to be taking care of the pieces is playful and fun. AND it all takes place in a mystical looking cave.
80 Sheets of Mountains by Nendo provides the backdrop for a seating area at the entrance to the fair. Sustainability seems to be important to all involved at this festival as the installation collapses back down to be used again as well as taking up minimal space when being transported.
Swedish architect Gert Wingårdh and Finnish artist Kustaa Saksi created a paper installation above the area in which talks would take place. Again, not necessarily exhibiting product, but the design is still important to create an experience for every part of the event.

Glass Elephant, 2013/ 80 Sheets of Mountains by Nendo, 2013/ Paper Installation by Wingårdh and Saksi, 2013

Brendan Dawes

Brendan Dawes is a self confessed button pusher and collector. He delivered a lecture and I would say it was my favourite out of all the Unit X talks. I could write about all the things he showed us but the most relevant I feel is The Happiness Machine. It is another examples of the "The Internet of Things" as it physically communicates data from the world wide web. When the button is pushed, a little receipt is printed off displaying a tweet containing the word "happy". I cant remember if it was selected from just accounts that Brendan is following, or all Twitter accounts, but you get the idea.

Brendan said the reason it works so well is because the receipt is small and can fit in the palm of your hand, making it personal and special. You can put it in your wallet, give it to a friend or stick it on your notice board. This is a really interesting concept that I would like to explore further.

The Happiness Machine from Brendan Dawes on Vimeo.

The Internet of Things

The Internet of Things was a concept I had never heard of before. We had a talk from Ian Forrester and Zoe Barker who both work for the BBC. Zoe showed us some examples. The Internet of Things are basically real, tangible objects, that in some way visualise information or data that would usually be viewed on a screen.

I am interested in bringing a physicality back to our increasingly virtual world. We now have smart phones that do pretty much every thing we need yet these creations are moving in the opposite direction, having just one function or purpose, which at first I couldn't see the point. But now I understand, these objects put a smile on people faces and they are fun.

#Flock: A Cuckoo clock powered by Tweets

Developed by London-based technology consultancy, Berg. 

The clock reacts physically to different twitter notifications.

 

#Flock by Berg

The Good Night Lamp
The Good Night Lamp is such a lovely idea. In a world where texts, Facebook messages, likes, Tweets and hash tags have taken over real, physical and verbal communication, these lamps bring back the sensory element to letting someone know you are thinking of them.

"Good Night Lamp is a network of internet-connected lamps with a Big Lamp triggering a family of Little Lamps to turn on anywhere in the world. Our mission is for Good Night Lamp to become the first physical social network. The Good Night Lamp allows customers to keep in touch with their friends, family or work mates, and is designed to be simple to use." http://goodnightlamp.com/about/

The Good Night Lamp by Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino and Daniel Fogg

What is a Design Festival????

I have was initially pretty confused about the outcome of this project. So we are designing a potential design festival to be held in Manchester.  But it's not real. But we are pretending it is. We can do whatever we want! But we need to pitch it to the council. So it cant be too out there. And we are going to use our skills in making to create a concept. Wait. WHAT!?! 

We can either design the main concept for the festival. Or design an element of the festival such as a workshop, or piece of art. We could even design the space it takes place in. One of the groups last year designed a bridge to bridge the gap between Manchester city centre and Ancoats. We could design the branding. There's a lot to think about, and we could easily get over whelmed by the possibilities. The most important thing is to come up with an over arching concept that we can all work on using our varied skills to create different outcomes.

Then there's the question of what does a festival actually have to be. Does it need to be an actual event or something more sustainable.

Sally Denton- Macro Trends

After the colour workshop last term I realised colour/trend forecasting is something I am interested so was really looking forward to this lecture. 

Sally Denton is a trend forecaster and delivered a lecture on Macro Trends. I had always associated trends with fashion, but they are so much more than that. I thought the lecture would show us examples of future trends but instead Sally showed us what is currently influencing trends which was very interesting.

Trends are influenced by what's happening in the world

What has gone on in the past and what is happening now

Personally Sally Denton uses a mixture of intuition and research. And she does A LOT of research. 

We are currently in the "Turbulent Teens" and in post recession which = BIG THINKING

And we tend to look else where for answers.

1. Look at OURSELVES

2. Look at the PLANET

3. Look at SPACE

The four main macro trends Sally talked about were:

Human 2.0

-Ageing population

- Celebration of Age

- Mental Health

- Robotics

- Replacing limbs with prosthetics as they will eventually work better

- Becoming cyborgs

- Vaccinations: polio nearly eradicated 

Generation X.Y

- Women's century

- Over sexualised

- Freedom = naked/sex??? (Miley Cyrus)

- Objectification (Kate Moss shoe campaign, why naked if aimed at women??)

- Return to modesty

- Male grooming taken to extreme (Joey Essex)

- Return to more masculine look

- Androgynous era

Global.isation

- Shrinking world

- Rise in wealth in Brazil, Russia, China, Africa

- Use technology differently

- New wealth

-Brands

- Graphine: lighter than air, stronger than steel

- Small technology

- Mega companies

Create.Consume

- Rurban (rural/urban)

- Gorged on stuff!

- Back to basics

- Stripped back

- Raw materials

- Self containment

- Self sufficiency

- Less space

- Use nature for technology

- Finding new resources, less wasteful

The talk was so insightful, I felt excited and overwhelmed but I've got pages and pages of notes which I'm sure will come in useful throughout the project.

Unit X Briefing

This session introduced us to the two options for college 3:

1. Centre for the imagination
- Working with Manchester City Gallery
- Taking inspiration from the work of Ryan Gander who's work will be exhibited
- Promote active imagination, games and play within thinking and creativity
- Come up with ideas for workshops to run at MCG
- Work with children

2. Manchester Design Festival
- Design a "Design Festival" to take place in Manchester.
- Process not product
- What makes a design festival?
- Present to Manchester City Council
- Look at space and public engagement

It was a lot of information to take in and we needed to decide quite quickly. Because both options were very open ended/ anything is possible/ vague briefs, it was hard to imagine what either would entail but the design festival option seemed more related to what I am interested in.

College 3- Blue Sky Thinking: The Unconference

The "Unconference" was our first session of Unit X. It was good to meet some new people and generally chat about "stuff". The idea of an "Unconference" is that there is no set agenda for discussion, and instead we decide the agenda as a group by coming up with a set of questions.

It was a little awkward at first trying to think of questions but we ended up with the following which all sparked some interesting discussion between us and worked as a good ice breaker.

1. What is Blue Sky Thinking?
2. What are the consequences of Blue Sky Thinking?
3. Can thing change through creativity?
4. In todays world, what is more important, the process or the outcome?
5. Where is the line between "head" thinking and "physical" thinking?
6. Is idealism and creative forward thinking a luxury only some can afford?
7. Where is the boundary between the human body and technology?

Manifesto Workshop

I really enjoyed this workshop. I was aware of the manifesto from my CP lectures and studying Communism but it was interesting to discuss the importance of them and why they are important. There were plenty of examples for us to read which highlighted how different they can be. Some were even funny or sarcastic.

What is a manifesto?

-Definition of practice (who, what, why)

-Statement of intent

-Group/individual intentions

-Group rules

-Political declaration

-Ethics

-Formal outline

-Beliefs/ what you stand for

-Policies

Why is a (artist) manifesto important?

-Professional

-Credible

-Taken seriously

-Supporting political ideas:

Many of the artists involved in movements of the early C20th were heavily involved in politics such as the Constructivists, Surrealists, Dadaists etc. and expressed their beliefs through their work.

The 1st artists manifesto was written by the Futurists in 1909

Some interesting manifestos include: The Stuckists, The Cult Of The Done Manifesto, 

Droog Manifesto

Annie, Henna and I worked together to come up with our own manifesto after reading some well known and not so well known examples. Some of the issues we wanted to target were: inclusiveness (sometimes feeling "stupid" for not understanding certain art) sharing ideas and collaboration, being open minded, wanting to learn, not mindlessly going along with what we are told, actually do something with your ideas, just do it.