joshunsw

[joshunsw]

Final Submission

NOTE TO PETER:

The images seem to be blocking this upload, I’ll just have to host them separately somehow. Which is weird but totally believable considering my previous tumblr experiences. For my final project submission, I reused the 3 survey questions that I had performed for assessment 1, however, inspired by the work of Mitchell Whitelaw decided to work in an analog medium. While the foundation of the work relied on the research of collaboration, the idea of collaboration has actually become secondary to that of data representation. The idea of taking studies and information with a grain of salt transitioned into taking it with a grain of such, Which leads me to the interesting conclusion of working with M&M’s.

I would first need to sort these into their colours,  so it would be faster later on with counting and assembling them into their respective representations.

Irrelevant inclusion, just wanted to see if anyone found it annoying.

After looking through glass bottle bins for a branded vessel to use for my second, I found an empty corona bottle. The trouble was, however, getting it dry internally after cleaning it. I made the mistake of adding M&M’s too early which caused the colours to run and the M&Ms to stick together. I needed to start again from the beginning.

While the first two had M&M numbers accurate to that of the data collected, I had fewer responses for the final question than I anticipated. I, therefore, decided that I would instead fill the vessel in the ratio of the data that had already been collected. This allowed me to prioritise visual aesthetics of the vessel over its capacity hence the choice of a more elegant form. Plus I liked the contrast it made with the dog food.

The first piece is a simple glass tube, filled with M&M’s whose colour corresponds to a particular response to a corresponding survey. This was made to show a way in which data can be represented aesthetically and uniquely while still appearing impartial and accurate to the original findings. I organised the original M&M’s of which there are 212 into the order of the visible light spectrum, believing that this would increase its visual appeal, the main issues with this component were finding a tube that would accommodate 212 M&M’s without leaving too much excess space, and also being thin enough to show clear colour boundaries and therefore make the data easier to interpret.

For the second, which used the data from the second question, on dislikes of collaboration I wanted to raise attention to the notion that when reading or looking at information, the source of the information is important. A credible source without a bias to the issue else an incorrect conclusion may be made. I represented this by filling a Corona beer bottle with M&M’s as, being a company rather than an independent third party they may have a bias to work in their favour. In order to represent this, I used larger crunchy and peanut M&M’s in the blue section of the bottle, by doing this and also using blue for the neck of the bottle it appears that blue is the dominant or preferred survey response. However, it wasn’t even the most popular, coming second to brown. While this will not be relevant to the installation of the work, it was also possible to bias the data more significantly through camera angling.

Finally, I wanted to show another way in which data could be biased, by manufacturing questions in order to channel more responses toward the desired outcome. I used my third data collection to represent this. For the answer I agreed with I used orange M&M’s as they were vibrant and would, therefore, attract attention, and for the answer I disagreed with I chose to use dry dog food biscuits. I hoped the dog food biscuits would be associated more readily as a negative despite the data technically being accurate. I also had the additional benefit of the dog biscuits being smaller than the M&M’s, skewing data further to suit my personal opinion.

While I came into this assessment with the intention of building a 3D model, after performing practice lead research and looking into other creative practitioners I developed more of a message I wanted to convey that I could not do as easily being restricted to the medium of 3D modeling especially given my limited experience. I chose instead to work with M&M’s, I find the final product to be aesthetically pleasing and intuitive while also capturing the message I hoped to communicate.

[joshunsw]

Definitely not Clickbait

After realising that there may not be enough time to learn how to use Maya software to a degree I’d be happy with I decided it is probably best to make an analog submission considering my first assignment was a digital construction. Although I used collaboration as a starting point, after looking at different ways data could be represented I started thinking about data bias and trickery. In today’s age of “fake news” and stories hitting the media relying on clicks and purchases rather than significant journalism through eye-catching titles.

I came to the conclusion that studies like these should probably be taken with a grain of salt.

Has science just become a pile of nonsense and an excuse for click baiting titles?

Is “New study shows” just a get out of jail free card to say whatever gets an audience?

[joshunsw]

Itchy Hands

While my initial idea was to try and create a city within Maya in order to represent data, I thought I’d try working with a physical medium. I chose modeling clay and tried to construct an interesting cityscape esque work. Granted, this was without appropriate tools and was all done by hand which is extremely evident along with my lack of experience sculpting.

Either side of the “road” was made to be the two questions of the survey I used in my first poster, however, in this example, the data was proportionate to the vertical height of the buildings.

Unfortunately, I think I may have had some sort of reaction to my clay as they began to turn red, splotchy and became itchy so this may not be the best medium to work in further, and I may consider gloves for future projects.

Despite this, the draft city provided me with a new and interesting idea, even though the height of the buildings was proportionate to their corresponding survey response, the width and total mass of each building were extremely irregular and to my eye conveyed a heavy bias. This made me think about how data visualization while technically accurate could be made to a clear bias either coincidentally or to suit those who may benefit.

[joshunsw]

Lesson Learned

I learned a lesson, don’t write everything directly into Tumblr for when it inevitably crashes. 

I’m a bit annoyed I have to write this again but alas, it was my own fault.

I looked at an artist called Mitchell Whitelaw, whose creative practice often involves coming up with unique ways to express data in a way that will hopefully instigate change. I looked at his work of ‘Measuring Cup’ in particular. Which took the form of a 3D printed object resembling that of a disposable plastic cup. The cup was designed in order to raise attention to increasing temperature over time, particularly in Sydney. The cup features 150 unique layers, all of which have a changing radius proportionate to the average recorded temperature for every month since 1859. The final product tapers similarly to a cup, raising insight to the fact that there has been gradual, yet a consistent increase of temperature and an obvious overall change between the base and the lip of the cup.

The final object is interesting as while it resembles a crushed plastic cup, the final shape is also fairly aesthetically pleasing. I really like how there is no discernable reason for the two to be linked and without explanation, it is just a cup, however with additional information, it communicates information that is in fact very easy to interpret.

[joshunsw]

Decided to carry through the idea with the previous assignment, though instead of working in poster form I’m going to try and represent data 3 dimensionally. At the moment I’m just playing around with a software I’m not yet familiar with to see if I can learn enough in order to have a finished product by the deadline.

While I could reuse the previous data from the first assignment, I’m going to try come up with something else that is both relevant to the topic as well as current goings on.

[joshunsw]

Amazing how a small space between lettering changes the entire message.

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[joshunsw]

I decided to combine a few different ideas with regards to collaboration to use in my final work.

At what stage of input does someone become a collaborator?

I started this work through an anonymous survey, without telling most responders the reasoning behind their responses. The responses people gave had a significant impact on the final work produced. However, it was unknowingly and without any creative directive, only a confined response.

Graphed results of survey responses

2. A major barrier to successful collaboration.

One of the things I find particularly difficult with collaborative projects is being unable to communicate with other group members. Be it due to them being just uncontactable, disinterested or not being able to overcome language barriers. Inspired weirdly, by a graph presented against Planned Parenthood by Jason Chafetz during a congressional hearing. (Watch it 10/10) https://youtu.be/iGlLLzw5_KM The graph was actually produced by an anti-abortion group known as Americans United for life and had many flaws, it seemed they had tried to turn an absence of data into something that looks like it conveys important information. I instead have chosen to use actual data in a way that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

In order to do this, I used the data I collected during my survey as the subject of the final work.

Each answer is represented in a colour at a reduced opacity, each question’s answers operating in their own individual half. The area of the shape of any particular colour is exactly proportional to the frequency of its corresponding chosen response. However, the shapes produced are abstract, overlap to the point where it can be difficult to distinguish different colours and completely absent of any indication of what each colour is representing.

It took a lot longer than I’d care to admit for coming up with a way that would actually turn the data into a correctly corresponding area of a shape in photoshop.

I believe I’ve achieved my goal of having no discernible link between the collaboration and the piece without an explanation.

An example of 50% representation of ‘Working with friends’ - Q1

Some of the required calculations

[joshunsw]

The final product is complete!

For my final choice of work, I used what I believed to be a teapot until just recently. It is in fact, an odd shaped bowl thing. Anyway, I used this odd shaped bowl thing that I recovered from the Re-Use shop at Kimbriki Tip in order to try the traditional Japanese art form of Kintsugi. Unfortunately, as a student I can’t afford real gold or any expensive metals, therefore substituting gold metallic paints as well as various types of glue.

I smashed the bowl with a metal mallet that was normally reserved for pounding meat and smashed the bowl into some rather nicely sized pieces. I was very happy with the range of sizes from small to large. I then coated the edges of every single broken piece with the gold metallic paint. While this would not provide a perfect substitute, I liked the effect it gave in my experiments especially with the more metallic paint. From there I tried to best rebuild the shape to roughly that of the original and held everything in place with PVA glue. In order to ‘Vague it up’ a bit more than it already was, I removed pieces from the rebuilt shape and stuck them haphazardly around the outside of the bowl. This provided a much vaguer feel. For added vagueness, I completely discarded the entire bottom section of the bowl, as this would mean that no matter what it was now. It would not function at all as a bowl.

I’m really happy with how it turned out considering the inexpensive process.

[joshunsw]

Nonetheless I poured in some glitter in the place of sand to try and give it a bit more mojo and make it seem more artistic. I thought it looked pretty cool

[joshunsw]

Tried to drill through a glass jar as a filler in place of the hourglass just in case it didn’t work. In the end it failed miserably, the drill bits were not diamond tipped as it turned out and shattered without putting up much of a fight.

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Glued together a pair of glasses I found at the base, and I thought I might be able to make some sort of vague hourglass from it, mildly inspired by the clock in the week’s resource. 

[joshunsw]

Because I’m a poor uni student I can’t afford to use actual liquid gold in order to produce my works so I caught a bus to a local art shop and wondered if I could fake it with some gold paint. I tested it on a porcelain spoon I broke with the hammer and painted over the resulting edges. 

[joshunsw]

Interesting considering that the basis of Kintsugi is normally accidental. But I tried to deliberately break a pot in order to try out the practice. However the first pot I chose didn’t seem to want to break. In order for this practice to actually be practical, I need it to break into somewhat large piece, also improving the safety of the experiment. This teapot would not budge even when hit with a metal mallet, so I didn’t really have anywhere to go with that.

[joshunsw]

Kintsugi

I found out about a Japanese art form in this class called Kinsugi  where a material, usually a valuable such as a liquid gold is used to repair broken objects which would otherwise be discarded. It celebrates faults and failures within a material. I thought this tied well into vagueness as the results are not predetermined and often appear very abstract. 

[joshunsw]

Travelled down to the Kimbriki Re-use Shop to find some bits and bobs in order to integrate into my ADAD1001 works. Hope to find some interesting materials that are no longer loved

[joshunsw]

Trying to communicate the main feature of McHappy Day across to the public in a simple way, by substituting the iconic Big Mac middle bun with a $2 coin.