Lauren Slowik 9/29/11 Lauren Slowik 9/29/11

Five Projects in Five Days - Major Studio 1

Complete five projects in five days.

The Goal of this project is to create and complete one project each day, for five consecutive days. There are no rules or proscriptions for the projects that you undertake, but they must be built, and documented each day in entirety. The project will begin with each student defining a set of constraints for the week, then working with those constraints, following through and creating something, each day of the week.

Since beginning school, feeding myself has become a negative experience. I would like to change that so I am using food, both as a constraint for the project and as a constraint on my continued existence.

1) Determine your creative constraint. Constraints are always present in the design process. In this case, you define the constraint you will work with. Use this as an opportunity to explore a topic or theme you are interested in. Do not spend too much time belaboring over this part of the project, but give your constraints the consideration they deserve. (Your constraints are the outlying parameters you will establish for this experiment and will drive the results of this assignment.) Use your experience from the previous week mapping your interests and environment as inspiration to select your constraints. It can be as simple as a spectrum of colors, a set of words, or favorite quotes. Most important is that the constraints reflect your personality and outlook, and reflect an internal logic that you can explain when asked. Will your constraints be random, or will they reflect a question upon which you build upon to finally answer? The choice is up to you.

If you have difficulty with developing your own constraint, use a set of “chance operations”. John Cage, The Situationists, the Surrealists and many more have used chance operations to create synergistic constraints for their creative work or to break out of a creative blockage. Here are a couple ideas:

- Use the first verb in today’s newspaper to develop your work around; - Look at the words buzzing on twitter at this moment to inspire your work; - use this random set of 1-minute stories by John Cage to make a piece to: http://www.lcdf.org/indeterminacy/

or use Tristan Tzara’s advice: from Tzara’s “Dada Manifesto on Feeble & Bitter Love”: Take a newspaper. Take some scissors. Choose from this paper an article the length you want to make your poem. Cut out the article. Next carefully cut out each of the words that make up this article and put them all in a bag. Shake gently. Next take out each cutting one after the other. Copy conscientiously in the order in which they left the bag. The poem will resemble you.  And there you are–an infinitely original author of charming sensibility, even though unappreciated by the vulgar herd.”

2) Execute and document your projects You are allowed to complete each project in any form or medium you like, but it must be finished and documented in one day. (Do not allow your discipline to waver on this point.) Starting and finishing is a necessary part of completing this assignment, and if you are diligent you should conclude the week with seven complete projects which exhibit conceptual and material integrity. Though the development cycle is short, the creative potential is very, high. In your documentation be sure to present your work consistently across the week and to visually develop a unifying presence for the work.

3) You cannot do this assignment incorrectly. There is no “wrong” way to do this assignment, but you can still do it badly if you do not commit fully. Put everything you can into each day’s project. Consider all aspects of what you create. Be cognizant of what you can start and finish. Go the extra step.

4) Read the accompanying assigned texts and write a one page paper which analyzes and reflects on your experience. Be sure to relate concepts and terminology introduced in the readings into your work.

Guiding Questions:

When is a project fully complete? How do you know you are “finished” with a project?
How does the framing of a project, its context, scope, and parameters, determine the content created? What is the relationship between concept and execution?
After completing your projects what do you think could have been improved? If you were to do another iteration of the project what would you change or refine?

Reading:

Excerpts from “Silence“, John Cage
“What Do Prototypes Prototype?” Stephen Houde and Charles Hill
“Experience Prototyping” Marion Buchenau and Jane Fulton Suri

Lauren Slowik 9/25/11 Lauren Slowik 9/25/11

Painted Love at BMW Guggenheim LAB - Fashionable Technology

Tasked with making an interactive fashion project that celebrated the theme of love night a team of ten students created one hundred thermochromic ink-printed HUG Shirts to give away to participants.

Parsons MFA D+T Fashionable Technology Lab shows Painted Love, a thermochromic ink experiment. Music by Javelin

Lauren Slowik 9/20/11 Lauren Slowik 9/20/11

Performance "Piece" - Fashionable Technology

The idea of fantastical human mutation has led me to think about a garment that could make itself. The only thing missing is intent. The human body can contribute that. There are many craft-based examples of the body literally making the textile piece.

Humans are defined by our incredible, contextually adaptable armature (finger, arms, legs). Even if we have incomplete armature we can adapt and perhaps improve upon what we had before. Taking the human body as Swiss army knife metaphor a step further, I believe we could make a method for the natural kinesthetic motions of the body to create a textile as natural motions occur. Below is a speculative visualization of what such an armature could be.

I have no clue how to literally go about making this happen though…nano-tech? 3D printing?

As a speculative exercise I created this extension armature to simulate extendable skins.

Lauren Slowik 9/19/11 Lauren Slowik 9/19/11

The Non-Entrance - Major Studio 1

My first group project of grad school.

The department relocated to 6 East 16th street on the 12th floor and there are a few odd spaces outside of the classrooms. It used to be the offices for Vitoria’s Secret PINK.

The assignment was as follows: Interrogate the space. That's it. Here's what me, matt, jeremy and KJ came up with.

Lauren Slowik 9/6/11 Lauren Slowik 9/6/11

Super Hero - Fashionable Technology

Rogue of the X-Men. Absorbs all power, strength and memories of anyone she touches.

I was a huge X-Men fan when I was a kid, probably because they had the coolest X-women and the. 90s cartoon on repeat. Two of my favorites were Rogue and, even though she was hugely annoying, Jubilee. Both channeled power in different forms.

I didn't realize it as a child fanlady but most of the female characters in X-Men channeled natural and super natural phenomena. None that I know of were given pure brute strength except for Rogue and her only because she absorbed power uncontrollably. This led me to think of the most physically powerful and superhero-esque person I know of, who is real: Aimee Mullins.

Two of my favorite artists, Matthew Barney and Alexander McQueen, have been inspired by and worked with Aimee.

Aimee wearing Greek god-like prosthetics in a still from Matthew Barney’s epic multimedia piece The Cremaster Cycle.

Mutant Designing

Some initial sketches I made in class, mostly with very silly more than serious results. The bottom right idea is my favorite. Madame Flea has powerful lower body mutation that allows her to jump up to 80x her own height.

Chicken Girl has a crazy head waddle that also intercepts any radio frequency and serves as a broadcaster.

Sweater Woman channels electricity and radiation and can control the surface to transform like an animated knitted play-doh.