elainecayenne-blog

[elainecayenne-blog]

Catchup Post Time

I’ve been slacking off in keeping my process journal in check due to the bombardment of assessments as well as trying to keep my sanity in check. So I would liek to apologise before hand for the extremely long post that is to follow.

Starting off from where I left off...

Week Seven: 

Monday: Today our guest lecturer was Senior Lighting Designer Martin Bevs. With 32 years in lighting, Bevs works for Mirvac a property group who works with both commercial and residential projects. From small projects such a dinner parties to Lighting the Harbor Bridge for Vivid, his done it all. Encouraging recycling and adaptive thinking to materials and tools, he believes that you don’t need to spend copious amount of money in order for you to achieve a certain effect

Preparation is important! he mentioned this as an important tip for any sort of installation you make. with regards to large out door installations where equipment and weather play a huge part in the installment stage. This particular advice reminds me of the bump in period for Vivid at my place of intern, Pineapple Design Studios where they delayed the bump in of on of their light installations because assemblage in the studio would be easier and more efficient as opposed to onsite. the studio had everything that they needed and gave them leeway in case there were any hiccups. So by assembling as much as the could within the studio, the bump in on site went quick and smoothly. 

After Class on Monday, our luminaire group stayed back after class to start the production. we began cutting up plastic bags and laying them over as patch work and experimented with different glues to see which one would adhere the best. turns out that they all sucked and clear sticky tape was the way to go and thats what we did.

Thursday: The guest lecturer for today was Joe Snell, the architect and judge for the TV series House Rules. He was definitely one of our most enthusiastic lectures yet. He talked us through his career and how he started off working at his dad’s firm. 

Understanding the lighting was the key, Snell emphasized the fact the without lighting you have nothing because the light was what gave the space illuminance and atmosphere. And i totally agree because lighting is so essential to any space. Partaking in Vivid as well, he mentioned how he like to design things that was aesthetically pleasing both during the day and night. He was very real in his lecture unafraid to tell you that in order to do what you want sometime you have to do things for the money.

[elainecayenne-blog]

Dissertation Final

[elainecayenne-blog]

Newtown Tramshed Final Design Concept - Narrowing down the design concept of a psychedelic enthusiastic therapy centre that is akin to a rave club, the collage begins to spatially depicts important aspects of the concept. 

The bubble mind mapping begins to zone out an approximation of space necessary for each function and begins to unpack the relationship each zone has to one another. I.e. the cooling rooms are situated in between two main public amenities, the bar for the re-hydration of fluid into the body as the side effects to MDMA is the loss of hunger and thirst. with the additional strenuous exercise (dancing for hours on end), the loss of fluids is extreme with come cases of fatality. The other public facility available, is the public rest room because the amount of fluids going in has to come out. 

[elainecayenne-blog]

Investigation: Lighting Application - 2A Hospitality Project

With the Mezzanine Cafe Portal as the site, we were only allowed to change the light fixtures in the space, with possible adjustments to materiality if justifiable. Assigning it a new function, I wanted the cafe to be used more for casual functions, in particular as a nightclub whilst still having the flexibility to function as a cafe or for corporate events during the day. 

[elainecayenne-blog]

Video Response to UTS Tunnel Vision, showing the efforts we put into making our installations for the exhibition, in particular, the two projects I was involved in: ‘Suffocate’ in collaboration with Tiffany and Tanwee & my individual piece ‘Yggdrasil’.

[elainecayenne-blog]

Dissertation Final Draft

[elainecayenne-blog]

Investigations - 2B Retail Project

[elainecayenne-blog]

Interior Design Project: Detailed brief and preliminary concept

[elainecayenne-blog]

Investigation: Lighting Application - Retail Project

Health Couture

Targeting wealthy fashionable youths within the city district interested in the growing fad of health-conciousness, Health Couture doesnt just sell sportswear, it sells a lifestyle all in the one place. From athleisure wear to luxury sports footwear , the store also had a juice and brunch bar and a yoga studio which doubles as an occasional educational space organised by UTS to provide and educate healthy choices and lifestyle.

[elainecayenne-blog]

Progress: Sourcing

Sourcibg the materials for 'Yggdrasil', my installation in the chambers of the Coal Loader, Waverton has been the hardest sourcing I've yet to encounter. In the intial design concept for the project, I figured that bark was a readily available material that had recyclable qualities but I was oh so wrong about that.

Different trees shed bark differently and with what I wanted to do, I needed specific bark off Gum trees which were large and strong. I resorted to going to all the nearby parks and even Blue Mountains to look for the fallen bark.

Utilising the moisture overnight and the mist in the earlry mornings which moistened the bark, I got up early to start flattening out the dried pieces of bark.

[elainecayenne-blog]

Week Seven: Thursday

Assessment 3B - Dissertation Abstract

Explore the role of rave culture and psychedelics and their relation to wellness in contemporary society, touching upon lighting as a constituent for psychedelic addiction

With artificial light being one of the main sensorial stimuli bombarding the occupants of the twenty-first century, the constant and increasing extended periods of time exposed to the overstimulation of modern society has forced residents to seek alternative means of leisure, escape and rest. Exhausted and disrupted from its natural cycle, the body actively seeks out social arrangements within the threshold of distinct spatial practices of displacements, which a club, rave and festival is arguably the best examples of. This paper aims to determine significance of rave culture within the contemporary context and how it is beneficial, almost necessary, to the health of the youth in society. It investigates the facilitation to both the mental and physical wellbeing, the biological response of the body to light stimuli whilst under the influence of substances and how this information can be extracted and used in spatial design. In the last few decades, Clubbing, Raves and EDM Festivals have moved from a minor subcategory of contemporary pop-culture to a global movement that has become a modern-day ritual. But Raves and EDM festivals have more recently been under scrutiny due to its affiliation with recreational substance abuse as the number of overdose-induced deaths continue to increase. Aligned with connotations of religion and spirituality, raves have become places of transcendence, designed and set up to be liberating spatial atmospheres to promote relaxation and spiritual enlightenment and altered states of consciousness can be induced naturally or chemically through synthetic psychedelics. But despite all the negativity, there have been positive reports in studies of the therapeutic effects during and following their experience of EDM events which suggests that these experiences of raves have favourable impact on the mental health and wellbeing of individuals. LSD has been found to enhance the subjective experience and perception of colour where the intensity of sensory content received is increased significantly, heightening the psychedelic trance. Hence, by understanding the psychedelic effects of particular ‘club drugs’ to light stimuli, lighting can be manipulated to spatially enhance the EDM culture for the purpose of wellbeing.

[elainecayenne-blog]

During the Stuvac - Wednesday 24th April

APQ Concert Lighting

A group of us volunteered to help design the lighting of the Christ Church St. Laurence for the APQ - Australian Piano Quartet concert.

Wanting to highlight the beautiful arch of situated in Apse chancel framing the beautiful religious paintings and stained glas window. Opting to completely turn off all the light in that area further empahsised the arch to be the main feature of the concert.

With the rest of the lights saved for the stage lights that lit the musicians and the entrance, the entire church was wrapped in darkness, embracing the audience in an ambient and intimate atmosphere.

It took alot of effort and subtle but constant discussions with the organisers of the event in order to convince them to turn majority of the lights off. As there were concerns about the audiences ability to see the musicians and the musicians their score.

In the end, we had to compromise with majority of the lights but we were unable to convince her otherwise to turn of the laterns, which annoyingly were cool lighting which clashed with all the warm lights in the church and were differnt in tone.

So this was the actual lighting that was used during the APQ concert.

[elainecayenne-blog]

Week Seven: Monday

Assessment 1B - User Research

[elainecayenne-blog]

Week Six: Monday (continued)

We had another guest lecture today, Professor Lawrence Wallen, the previous Head of School of Design in UTS who is now running IKEA x UTS Future Living Lab.

Starting from stage design and transitioning to installation, Wallen lecture took us through his personal journey of his design. He started to view theatres as the experimental box of creating atmopsheres. He goes on to explain how sequences of spaces tell stories (narratives) and as such these points of differences in a narrative could be spatial depicted through atmospheric cues; that atmospheres starts where construction stops, and how our spatial biographies influence and informs the way in which we design.

[elainecayenne-blog]

Week Six: Monday

Today the Newtown Tramshed site research is due. We were in charge of creating the 3D model to be used by the class.

We also had the chamber installation mock-up/ progress at the Coal Loader due. After taking in consideration the suggestions from Mike and Emrah, I have decided to have my luminaire design exhibited in the chambers instead. But as such, its size would have to be quadrupled. Sourcing a turntable in order to hold that amount of weight would be hard. So i got into researching how to make my own turntable.

Taking apart a turntable I bought, I tried to re-attach it to a bigger base.

It did end up spinning but any significant weight placed on it would render it useless. And any motors I found had an rpm way to high for me. The o ly option was to buy it online from china but the shipping wouldnt come in time...

As I did plan on have at least 10 of these bark scupltures within the chambers, the time frame for it wouldnt allow for it. So I have had to compromise with a large one to be placed centrally in the chamber.

Which meant there wasnt a need to make my own turntable as the university has one I can borrow.

[elainecayenne-blog]

Week Five: Monday

I apoligise that this post is out of sequential order. Missed out on posting mondays lesson. We had our luminaire design mock-up due for the coal loader.

My design repurposes the use of bark, a material which themselves eventually are discarded by nature. By mimicking the form of the trees which it discarded them in the first place.

The natural shadows casted by the irregular form of tree barks dance when the light within shifted and moved.

----------------------------------------------------------

We had a guest lecturer, Laura Jade, an illumination artist who combined her interest of art with science. Her work, Brain art, is an interactive work which utilises a BCI (Brian-Computer Interface) with a EGG headset which detects the brain frequencies and translates it into colours projected on to a acrylic brain which is 1.5m long. The colours displayed the concious state of the brain with a single second delay, with specific colours correlating to different brain waves.

Delta waves - (when youre asleep) no colour

Theta waves - (resting state) Green

Alpha waves - (calm, meditative state) Blue

Beta waves - (excited or stressed state) Red

You can find out more about her work in the link below ⬇️⬇️⬇️

[elainecayenne-blog]

Week Five: Thursday

Assessment 1D: Optical Illusion - Jenga Cube