My cards:
Mood: pleasure
Device: juxtaposition
Attribute: responsive
Pleasure
What is pleasure to one versus the other?
Can you create pleasure and discuss criticism?
Juxtaposition
As a graphic design I find myself falling back to juxtaposition methods. because at the very core of graphic design is the practice of putting text + image , image + image to communicated your message best.
When you think about it as a “device” it becomes different, I had an immediate connection with my body. What can I juxtaposition my body to? Aren’t I am doing it everyday? What can be different?
Responsiveness
Can we be responsive more than the technology?
I want to create a different relation ship with this project, I want people responding the technology.
What can drive people the most? Image? Words? Data?
Thinking directly about critical thoughts that I have about technology felt like an impossible and not so honest way to solve this project. I wanted to be able to extract an idea, an honest problem that I have with technology. I’v been researching lately about bunkers, shelters, concrete and post-trauma. throughout my readings I came across Paul Virlio, a French cultural theorist, urbanist and aesthetic philosopher. I came across an interview with Paul Virlio, where he spoke on the subject of parallel universes: reality and virtual reality. He suggests that there isn’t one universe, but two universe that we can use. Amount this subject he discuss the lost/disassociation of our physical body and reality+virtual reality.
“We forgot our body”, he said in this interview and in that moment I actually had to touch my body for a second because I was truly not sure that I was connected to it. I see myself as a hyper-“aware” to my physical being (Pulse, blood stream, movement inside body, muscles and bones). I am aware of my internal being.
Although, I remember to this day, the experience where I first felt connected to my outer physical body while visiting DIA, Becaon. I came across Bruce Neuman, Body Pressure poster from 1974.
The work invited the spectator to become the performer, the physical form of the work is a simple poster. The performers have a set of typed out instruction for merging their bodies with an architectural surface, it is some kind of mental journey that make you think about the limitation of our bodies.
I bought the poster, hanged it in my room and tried to preform Neuman instruction when I could. I loved the new feeling of awareness, I loved the fact that I can feel my body in a different way.
The juxtaposition between my body and any given surface reminds me the form of my body, the form of a specific limbs the texture of them, the density of my muscles, the heat and the coldness in each part of my body.
From this part to the actual idea, i had a long way, this is how my thought looked like in my sketches:
And then it clicked!
Going back to my thought, Paul virile thought and this experience that I had,
I felt like I have an idea:
We forget about our body
Limitation and aspects of our physical body vs Limitation and aspects of our online body.
what is our online body?
Its documents, bookmarks, emails, text messages, pictures, profiles, likes and many more “limbs” that we have. i spend hours online to design-update-maintain and shape it.
It made me sad thinking about this term “online body”, I hated the idea that there is a body out there, that I can’t feel, I can’t connect to ground with.
I want to remind people their own body, their own physical attributes. I want people to exercise on being closer to themselves. How can I do that? Laying on the floor (juxtaposition our body with the floor) was always the best way for me to relax. The connection, the weight transformation from my body to the floor seems so natural that there are no questions only pleasure from doing this.
The idea was starting to get more and more visible:
I would create 4 block: 2 for the hands an 2 for the legs.
These 4 blocks would became a “frame” for a person meditation. They will be heavy enough so they will “hold” my body but light enough so I can. Move them when finished.
The way that I will put them on the ground will determine the position of my body, which I like in a way that it is modular and move around. Once there I want to be able to relax my muscles and give my entire body the freedom to loose its weight.
After achieving this: I wanted also to be critical, I wanted to connect the online body to this meditation, I want people to maybe maybe be able to feel their online body more while using their physical body.
One brick will be the smart brick, it will have a screen that will be the user guide, each mediation will last 20 minutes and have 7 prompts.
Since I have 4 boxes - I have 4 channels to channel the energy, to move the energy from one side to the other. I should use them
1. think about the last 3 emails that you send, for each Email press your legs to the ground
2. Think about the last like that you did on facebook, for every detail that you remember about the post move energy from the right side of the body to the left side of the body.
3. Think about the length of your last chat on messenger, imagine the typing, for each line press your elbows to the ground.
After the quick and dirty version, i made the actual mold for the plasters, so i used the laster cutter.
for cutting i used: s30 p40 f50 and for creating little indents for the card board to bent nice and create a box i used: s:80 p9 f100.
After I did a quick and dirty mockup from cardboard, I tested it on my self and some other friends from the floor. It seems to work.
I went to the second step, making the bricks from plater.
i had to buy 60 lbs of plaster, carry it to ITP, find a creative way to mix it well so the plaster would come clean.
I learned a lot from doing to project:
I never used plaster before, that was a first.
I learned about time management when It comes to materials.
I never made mold from cardboard.
I want to continue with it to the midterm.
I want to implement the technology in the bricks, i want to send them so they would get the finish that i want, i want to document it when it is working.
Here is a demo video i created to better understand how it works: