#IdeasInForm

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Video essay:

Ambiguous Modes of Production / 3min 5sec / 2020 All video, imagery, and audio created by Wesley Chau

About the sound: recording of the 3D printer at work translated into Ableton as a MIDI track. I love how the sound libraries converted this machine sound into a mysterious track with vintage sci-fi film vibes.

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ideas in form

This project series questioned the meaning and usage of Sign Languages as one of the way to convey the sense of love, care and protectiveness within the domain of parenthood in many different ways extracting hand gestures, facial expressions and body movements from the context, creating artifacts; 2 dimensional, 3 dimensional and 4 dimensional. Below is my process of this project from start to end.

1D :

         (Initial domain maps)

       (Words mapping)

After mapping out all the words I select 5 words below to work with. 

The story is written as a way to narrate my point of view reflected from those 5 words – ‘Early childhood development’, ‘Speaking Environment’, ‘Gestures’, ‘Native Speaker’, and ‘Bilingual’. After reading the story to classmates without telling them my 5 keywords, most of the classmates guessed similarly except for Jason who had suggested that he sensed the feeling of ‘love’, ‘care’ and ‘protectiveness’ from the story. After getting this feedback, I re-read my own story and decided to change my words and do more research on my domains and words. New chosen 2 words are Non-verbal and Parenting.

2D :

HAND GESTURE - definition of the word "Sign Language” and the way it is being perceived by people in general as a communication used only or mostly by deaf people. As the research on this subject continued deeper, I found that the gestures of sign language are used differently for different spoken languages around the world.

I started questioning what if parents have their own versions of sign language how might that be? How would they communicate their love through these hand gestures?

Below shown a line drawing of hands gesture in which I had extracted from the original context of a mother who was knitting something for her child. From the photo, I can sense ‘love’, ‘care’ and ‘protectiveness’ the same way my classmate sensed from my story.

Even though, the illustration seems to appear as a normal line drawing, when zoom in to look closely those simple lines are actually made up of words and story in which I wrote to narrate the love and care.

“We’re busy through the day. We didn’t have much time to play. We’d wash your clothes. We’d cook your food. We’d knit your scarf and it will keep you warm. We’d knit and knit and knit and knit. We’d never stop and it will keep you warm.”

Finalised production of 2D is a laser engraved canvas of this illustration. Originally I wanted to use embroidery as the execution method but with time and pricing constraint I decided to adjust and adapt using this method instead.

3D :

As I started thinking about my 3-dimensional artifact, I looked back at the workshop we had in our class as our ideation for 2D, where each of us took turns to draw one after another.

This drawing is the one that I started. I drew a mother who was holding her baby while saying ‘I love you, my baby.’ in 3 different languages. Somehow someone who took their turn to draw after me turned my drawing into a robot.

Inspired that drawing and Fritz Kahn’s illustrations, I started thinking about how a robot would act as a mother(or father)? what is its way to communicate love and protection to its children?

I decided to use a facial expression of when parents blowing food to cool it down before feeding their children to develop further. I tried to think of this as the functionality of a robot. Below shows the process and demo of my first prototype. The way it works is when something that is hotter than my default setting temperature comes near it, it will trigger the fan to cool it down.

After having the main function works, I started thinking about finishing product. I added LED lighting which will blink

4D :

In the brief, 4-dimensional artifact needs to involve either interaction or time-based. 

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Ideas in Form 4D

Memories would not be so reliable as it once was when time passed by. What if people keep thinking a certain memory, how real would it be at the end?

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Final 3D-printed paper pulp studies.

Visualizations of imagined world utilizing this ambiguous mode of production.

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Ideas in Form - Digital

Experimented with facial tracker in p5js to create a mouth drawing tool. I was interested in playing with the physicality of the body as a mode of production (as a wasp would construct its hive using raw materials and the mouth).

Try the drawing tool here. Click the screen in the sketch to save the image and press on your keyboard to start a new drawing.

[mfadt-chau]

Ideas in Form - Physical

3D printed paper pulp test 02

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Ideas in Form - Physical

Hand-made paper pulp test 01

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Ideas in Form — Narrative

The Queen

The leader. The superior. The monarch. The architect. The mother. She holds many roles and operates with a holistic mindset. During autumn, she secures a suitable mate (the drone). Fertilization commences. By winter, she seeks shelter and rests. It is during winter when true calm and leisure occurs. Come early spring, the queen scouts for the site. She drafts initial plans and sets intentions for the coming season. Expansion begins. The initial groundwork is laid out and she is ready to birth the offspring. Thirty days later, the first cohort of workers emerge...

The Worker

The worker is vital to the community and contributes to the majority of the population. She is loyal, focused, meticulous, and relentless. In the early days, she sets out to forage raw materials for the project and food for the young. For a majority of her life, she is producing and expanding the project — using her body constantly to convert raw-material into end-product. As she ages, she graduates to the roles of caregiver and defender. Messaging and high-level communication are delivered through the interdependent relationship between the worker and the young. By early fall, the worker is no longer needed and reaches retirement.

The Drone

The drone is supportive, emotional, a romantic. When the drone is young, he supports the workers as they expand, forage, and care. Once he becomes of age and reaches maturity, he embarks on his greatest task: the drone must leave the community and is deployed to find a new queen to mate with. After he matches and mates with a queen, his body and presence is no longer needed. He faces retirement.

The Youth

The youth are the receivers and senders of food and information. They rely on the adult workers and drones to tend to their needs. In return, their bodies produce nutrient-rich byproducts and transfer announcements from the queen via pheromones and chemical-communication.

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Ideas in Form 3D

Certain areas of brains are triggered by yearning for return to a past period.

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Ideas in Form 2D

When people are eager to go back to and retrieving a certain memory, the memory couldn’t be separated into space and time.

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Ideas in Form 1D

In 1D, based on the domain research, we need to select 40-50 single words and list them out. Then, from these 40 or 50, choose my favorite 5. For each of these five, write a short paragraph describing what that word means to me and why. Finally, write a story of maximum one page in length that utilizes the five words in some creative way. This story should be a fiction and relate in some way to domains that interest me.

Music:

Music could be one of the most precious present from my mother besides my birth and raising me up. I learned playing the piano from 6 to 16 for ten years. I can also play the flute, drums which I learned in rock club in high school, and the Tin Whistle which I learned in Ireland when I had my exchange student life there. It seems there’s an instrument, a specific sound could connect with every different period I experienced. My mom loves singing. That’s why she wanted me to learn some instruments. She influenced me much. We sang songs together when we were driving on the road. Playing music was the first time when I was aware of my creating things. I also felt satisfied with the moments when people were listening to my music with smiles on their face. Because of the familiarity with music, the sound around me affects me as well. I care about my auditory experience wherever I am.

Psychology:

I was not meant to study psychology in college at first. I always assumed I would learn computer science or engineer in undergraduate degree. With the fail on my exam and the passion to live in capital city which is Taipei, I started my journey in psychology. It totally changed my life eventually. Even I am not studying or doing on it now. Psychology led me to notice the existence of myself and to understand who I was. In different courses, such as perceptual psychology, abnormal psychology and social psychology, etc, I got to know myself deeper from different aspect. Possessing these knowings, I was aware of my motivations and by which I made every decision properly for myself. I could control myself and was not angry at everything I saw without reasons. That changed my life a lot and the relationship between others and my as well. Psychology is much more than just knowledge to me.

Nostalgia:

I chose this word as one of my favorite 5 was because I sometimes felt strange to this word. I am a person who keeps leaving home. I never studied in the same towns or cities from elementary to graduate school. I would attribute it to my family background. It seems it’s my curiosity or enthusiasm on pursuing novelty making me keep going away from those places. However, I know I still care and seek for the sense of safety. I lived in my hometown only until 16. While people first asked me if I had feeling of nostalgia, I felt weird. It’s not because I didn’t have. It’s because I’d even never thought about that. I would say I messed my mom. I would say Taipei was not my home. But I wouldn’t say I missed my hometown. Maybe after living in New York for half a year, I would say I missed Taiwan. I am not sure. So, I am trying to figure out what nostalgia is to most people, and what it could be for me in the end.

Spatiotemporal:

I am watching Flash recently to release some pressure coming from the abundance of assignments. It reminded me of my interests in parallel universes, time traveling, and wormhole, etc. From this sci-fi view on “spatiotemporal”, sometimes I imagine and hope one of another me exists and has a quite different life. But here, I would relate it to music more. During different periods, I stuck to different songs, playlists, and albums. Every time I accidentally heard one of the songs, it reminded me of that specific period, and also, the spatiotemporal details. I started to remember what I did, what I saw, what I smelled, and what I felt then. Under the technology limit nowadays, it never happened again. All the things about that space in that time as the only one existence. And that means a lot to me. I felt upset about those memories even which full of happiness. I felt depressed because I could never experience those memories again. So, that only capability of thinking about those spatiotemporal details is the reason for which I selected this word.

Autobiographical:

I loved to read biographies of famous people when I was a child. I always hope one day I could have my own biography. However, if I want to read it before I die and convey what I was actually thinking then, I need to write down my autobiography. I am not good at writing though, no matter in which language. Finally, I found I could convey my ideas through other ways like art installations, photography and music. That really excited me. Everything I mad could contain my feelings and thoughts. They are all about myself. I also don’t want the existence of any possibilities of misunderstanding. I enjoyed the moments when I was creating autobiographical installations describing myself with my own language.

Fiction

There is an old cabinet in the corner in this house. Grandma said it’s left by grandpa. I never wanted to open it just like it is hard to open my mind again to this house. This is a house filled with sorrow and anger to me. That’s why I chose psychology as my major even that dad always dreamed we could have debates on physics someday. I am not a person who always thinks negatively. I just don’t know what to be happy with. Without doubts, I tried to use psychology knowledge to “save” myself but as you know, it didn’t work. Maybe just because I don’t want to be cured.

Oh, so yes, there is some treasure in the cabinet: a book which looks like a biography of someone and several pieces of music sheet. I had no idea why they were here. I called Nick. I told him what I found. He wanted to see them. 

Nick and I met in a piano studio in my university. I liked people from school of music. They looked really cool. Nick asked for the sheet at first. It took him a while to read it. Then, he took out some sheet from his worn bag and exchanged it with part of mine. He requested me to play the one he just gave me. “No mistake,” he said. I read the sheet for five minutes. I have not played the piano since I left that house. I was nervous because his attitude was so solid.

I played the piano. And the room was spinning with me as the center.

“No mistake, just like you said.” I said. Without saying any words, Nick just went outside. We did not talk until we met my classmate, Suzanne. She was supposed to be in the hospital because of the car accident yesterday. She looked me surprisingly too.

“She’s not supposed to be here,” I said.“Just like you,” Nick said.“I don’t understand.”“The music was for spatiotemporal transferring. The sheet I gave you was for parallel moving; the other one you didn’t exchange with me was for horizontal moving in your universe,” he explained.

I didn’t talk to “her” here, but I followed her back home. I wanted to know if she had a lovely family here. There was a kit with child doodle just hung on the wall in that house which I felt sick at.

I played “Nostalgia,” the same song back. And the room was spinning again as it was while I came.

I opened the book found in the cabinet. It was grandpa’s autobiography for me, only for me, just like that kite.