A selection of projects from my MA (Design Products, RCA) - visual storytelling to make information more tangible
"For you were made from dust, and to dust you shall return" - Genesis 3:19
Project brief: minimum:maximum
Machine: Phoenix
I was interested in the neutral state between the poles of objects; how something very ordinary like a pencil with a rubber on the end is an object which both creates and destroys itself. This lead to the bigger idea of creation and death but in reality unlike a pencil it is a perpetual cycle, an idea united across science, religion and mythology.
Mythology: The Phoenix rises from its ashes
Christianity: "For you were made from Dust and to Dust you shall return" - Genesis
Thermodynamics: No energy in the universe can be created or destroyed - rather it constantly transitions from one form to another
The Moon moves away from the Earth approx. 3.7cm / Year
Brief: The Modern Daily Ritual
Product: Moon Boots
I am obsessed with the Moon - our controller of time and tides and the object of many ancient rituals. Yet it is leaving us, at a rate of 3.7cm/year. This seems relatively small and yet, in my lifetime it has left me, personally, over 1m behind!
I wanted to quantify this universal data in a domestic way so I could feel a daily connection between me and 'it'.
Here is my very practical solution which would become my modern daily lunar ritual...
Moon Boots: Daily Ritual
The moon moves away from the earth ~ 3.7cm a year (~ 0.1mm a day)
This ritual is based on the calculation that a thin coat of paint can be measured at 0.1mm / layer
Step 1:
Buy some boots with flat soles and 12 pots of paint / spray cans of different colours - label one for every month of the year
Step 2:
Each morning coat one layer of paint on the bottom of your boots, swapping colour each month to keep track of time
Step 3:
Time can be measured like the rings of a tree and when you wear your boots you will ALWAYS be the same distance from the moon
“Jelly responds to an electroencephalograph (EEG) in nearly the same way as a healthy human brain."
"The jelly exhibits alpha rhythms as human brains do when people are awake but have their eyes closed (eg. someone in a coma). From its EEG results alone, a jelly would not qualify sufficiently ‘dead’ to have its life support removed.”
- Neurologist A. Upton, The Electroencephalography of Gelatin Desserts
Project brief: Living
Installation: Jelly Responds
No-one has ever been able to firmly define what ‘living’ is. Scientists have made attempts to factually rationalise life and yet with advances in research it keeps changing, most recently with the discovery of the ‘virus’, which opened the argument that all living things breathe.
So, this continuing evolution in definition along side our progress in biology makes me think maybe this is not a question with a scientific answer, but a philosophical one where people project life into what they choose.
This project was an installation based on the findings of Neurologist Upton, and the ridiculousness of the fact that using an EEG, a scientific measure of human life (or at least brain activity) you would not turn a jelly's life support off in a hospital.
McDonald’s: "60 second breakfast or you get FREE food" - CNBC Report
Project brief: An Instantaneous Moment of Genesis
Live Performance: Faster Food
The project started by investigating explosions - moments of surprise and creation, but while playing with mechanisms realated to this I realised ironically these are usually destructive weapons not weapons of mass creation...
I built a '6 barrel gun' which could be loaded with party poppers and the trigger would shoot them at once to create a sizeable explosion. To start with I filled the party popper 'bullets' with powder paint and shot them to see if the force would be strong enough for different materials.
I started to think about modern impatience and people wanting things instantaneously. One product of this behaviour is the Fast Food industry. Even now with entire meals being delivered in less than 3 minutes, people want it in 60 seconds.
I created a fictional Faster Food Restaurant where people could shoot their food to create it - the cuisine of choice: Pizza!
The Pizza Connection was the longest criminal jury trial in US history ending with all but 1 of the 22 defendants being convicted. It was a case about a branch of the mafia who owned many pizzeria chains around USA who would actually be selling drugs and laundering the money back into Italy - a convenient marriage of weapons and fast food.
