DESIGN NAME: You Shape Tools Shape You
PRIMARY FUNCTION: Exhibition
INSPIRATION: ‘We shape tools and thereafter our tools shape us.’ (McLuhan, 1964)
UNIQUE PROPERTIES / PROJECT DESCRIPTION: The first ‘shape’ in the expression ‘you shape tools shape you’ is used to mean build, create and devise, while the second ‘shape’ conveys the meaning to influence and reflect.. The operation of ‘shape’ is more simultaneous and continuously reciprocal than sequential, which reflects our current software culture.
The graphic on the wall stages this new model of relation, by adapting the reflectivity of material to resonate the reciprocal and mirroring symptoms of ‘shaping’ and ‘being shaped’. The posters show a series of images – exemplary products of the new model of relation – in which the typographic forms are visual instances of the reciprocal interaction with a computational system, involving processes of designing rules and parameters. In the Language of New Media by Lev Manovich ‘automation’ and ‘variability’, are presumed principles in new media, and thereby through algorithms, designers can generate a myriad of iterations through their tools. Therefore, design output is no more a single end result, but a range of variations produced within a rule-set. For this exhibition, I wrote an algorithm which generates typographic forms based on the relations within a set of parameters. To demonstrate this system, I rendered two posters for each of the two different modes (setting; each setting has a set of parameters). There are different iterations and moving images available to view on the online gallery. Each iteration is a resulting combination of the parameters.
OPERATION / FLOW / INTERACTION: Installation, Poster
PROJECT DURATION AND LOCATION: January 27 - February 1
Hockney Gallery Royal College of Art
Kensington Gore, SW7 2EU London, United Kingdom
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PRODUCTION / REALIZATION TECHNOLOGY: Installation - Aluminium tape
Poster - Digital print
SPECIFICATIONS / TECHNICAL PROPERTIES: Installation(Silver 'S') - 2650mm x 4000mm
Posters - 700mm x 1000mm (each)
TAGS: shape, tools, generative, computational, system
RESEARCH ABSTRACT: The group of works, presented together in this exhibition, reflects upon and questions the contemporary relationship between designers and their tools. From Culkin's statement ‘we shape tools and thereafter our tools shape us’, which was quoted by McLuhan, I have orchestrated the phrase ‘you shape tools shape you’ to activate a sense of continuous loop within the expression and reflect on the interactive process of tool customisation which occurs on an immediate and personal level. Therefore, there are two propositions to reframe McLuhan’s statement to contemporary design practices: (1) the interaction with our tools is a continuous and reciprocal activity (of shaping and being shaped) and (2) the procedural sequence is considerably faster, so much that it is perceived to be simultaneous, because the use of tools involve logical thinking processes much more than the assembly of physical compartments. This new model of reciprocal and looping relation between designers and tools is part of computational design’s framework consisting of input, algorithm (rule) and output. It re-evaluates what tools have become in relation to the design practices, different from the traditional model in which tool is simply an instrument used to carry out a function.
CHALLENGE: When facing unexpected circumstances at the exhibition site, I would say that physicality of space reshaped this project, and thereafter my system regenerated an iteration for the installation.
ADDED DATE: 2015-02-11 06:19:44
TEAM MEMBERS (1) : Kyuha Shim
IMAGE CREDITS: © Kyuha Shim
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