I’ve never been much of a structured academic, in College I spent 2 semesters in isolation exploring & teaching myself CAD/CAM and basic hydraulic die forming techniques. The application of both the theory and practical provided me with a lousy graduation show, 2 bulging sketch books of failures and mathematical tolerances, a few samples in acrylic and copper, questions, and a burning desire to finish what I started.
I actually used those failed samples in my interview with Central St. Martins for my Masters application. The Dean of applied arts said: “Your concepts, sketch books, and designs are incredible but the finished product doesn’t match your research, are you a theorist?”That sorta hurt, and I wasn’t sure at the time how to reply because she called me out. Deep down I knew exactly what she was saying. Though I was accepted (but couldn’t afford to go) she took me to school right there; I realized that greatness is forged through practice and application the idea is the first step.
I’m lucky to be opening my atelier on August 1st and with it I want to pick up where I left off focusing on design innovation. ‘Formation’ is as much a personal research project as an exploration of design, a quick look at previous posts on this blog (and twitter) should illustrate my personal war with theory w/o the practice.
Formation
The ‘hacker’ movement represents a counter culture that I feel a deep connection with. DIY everything, evolving, mashing, & communicating. I f you listen closely there is a low drone under all the high pitched Twitter meme noise from: Hack Labs , information architects like Matthew Milan , change agents like Mark Kuzniki , Futurists like THMVMNT , Mad Scientists like Ricky & Matt , and more.
That drone is the sound of production, people producing. No other time in history have we had the opportunity to predict and tackle future problems or simply prevent them armed with aesthetics & design. That exiting fact is the ‘Formation’.
Start-up: What does object design look like when it’s very existence is forged from change, interaction, & future application?
# As a small group exercise @ftjco will host a ‘solder camp” a #BYOS(older) event where we explore simple sensors, soldering techniques, application & design.
Essential to any Formation is Volume. In this case it’s a community seduced back from the cutting edge for a few hours of playing Dr. Frankenstein with crude electronics (and beer).
Forming, back to basics:
A challenge for most of the forms I produced was the material limitation of the dies themselves. Because the school limited the materials on the mills to waxes and plastics I had to source a dense resin. I settled on a product called ‘Butter Board’, a decent material to machine single cut no roughing passes needed. It actually held up pretty well in the hydraulic press forming .5mm (annealed) copper sheet without deformation. Thermal forming acrylic produced a result which was predicted: Complete die failure. The heat and pressure lead to cracking and deformation. The Devcon ‘Plastic Steel’ (dies) produced much the same results despite being enclosed in a heavy gauge steel ring. Objects often needed to be ‘organic’ in form, faceting or texture was rarely transfered.
This has lead me to explore both the sustainability of both the formed material and die (uses). Waste is the greatest problem with this form of prototyping/production and should be designed out of the process.
I felt a logical move away from plastics is glass production; an abundant, resusable, alternative material. And with it the classic inspirational design and production techniques of Lalique. The challenge with his methods is the cost of the moulds, we lose the ability to quickly prototype modify and scale. Enter graphite, machinable graphite used in the EDM process to be exact. It’s density make it excellent for texture & detail, it’s thermal properties would handle the heat of molten silica, and it’s strength make it a good candidate for the forming of metals.
Sounds good eh? Not quite. Graphite is MESSY and requires a serious vacuum system to protect the mill from being clogged with particles which are a lubricant in one direction, diamond hard in the other. So my search begins for a resource.
Begin Formation.
Replies welcome to @ryantaylor on Twitter convo tag #formation
Had some fun working with Michael Penney @ Afterlight Films on his logo. It’s more fun to do these design projects as an amateur I can’t imagine doing this fulltime. It’s a little Thundercats, but I think Mike’s desire to use superstition, antiquity, light/dark, and artifacts like amulets (think indiana jones) were all successfully incorperated. Next up getting www.afterlightfilms.com online.
This post is related to a comment posted by gapingvoid via Twitter “”Don’t Steal”. Sums up for me why some artists are so CLUELESS about the world we now actually live in.” And, the ‘Don’t Steal’ post at The Rally Flag
Normally I don’t like posting knee jerk reactions to things posted online but after reading a few posts recently with regards to intellectual property theft or ‘stealing’ I felt it was time to clarify a few things for the online community.
First: When you toss about the term ‘Art’ or ‘Artist’ on the web it is not limited to or exclusively a reference to the digital medium and it’s writers/ bloggers, film makers, music /companies, web designers, graphic artists and photographers. It may surprise many of you to know that there are people in this world that produce physical properties i.e. paintings, sculpture, jewellery, fashion, accessories, objet d’art. Shock horror I know. For those of us who choose this path (for whatever insane reason) do so with the additional challenges of rampant commercial idea theft [see: fashion industry], lazy and aggressive companies, middle men, cost of materials, cheap international labour, mass manufacturing, love of our craft. The problem is when we digitize that work for promotion on the web these factors are amplified.
I am not arrogant enough to think that all or any of my work is good enough to be knocked off but it is hard enough to penetrate the world/local market(s) without the work being devalued generally in the public by those who *doodle/shoot/click/type upload and then move on to the next idea. (*See what I did there, I undermined the creative process, oversimplified and commodified). I know how hard it is to produce content, and appreciate it. I’m just not sure those on the web do. I believe it is ok to start with someone else’s idea, evolve it, make if your own that’s what art is about master/apprentice/influence but it is NOT ok to tell consumers to simply “Steal” because it has a new marketing ring making it the new ‘Free’. As mentioned in the comments here it may work with doodles & indirect marketing just not so much in the physical world.
Part of me posting this is to stamp my feet, rant and bitch, because I believe consumers (all of us) are losing in the end. The other part is because I’m eager to have someone change my view rather than conveniently have this conversation ignored. Or continue to be one sided.
I don’t use comments on Tumblr, I do welcome @replies on twitter & friendfeed: http://twitter.com/ryantaylor http://friendfeed.com/taylor
