SLQ Wiki engagement:the_great_and_grand_rumpus:light_installation

Light up The Edge Design session

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 27 May 2021 16:19:09 +0000

Light up The Edge Design session

Held on Monday 26th March 2018 in the Fabrication Lab

Preparation

Book a facilitator or do it yourself

Book the space

Buy snacks

Cold water and glasses

sticky notes

pens

white board and markers

table and chairs

The plan by Nathen Street

1. Welcome to Country

I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet today and pay my respects to the Elders past, present and emerging. I extend my respect to the Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people who are present today.

2. Introductions

a. Who is everyone? What is your name, what is the craziest project you've ever built or worked on in a group

b. Who am I? What I do?

3. Focus: What are we doing here? How long do we have?

a. We’re here to make a light installation.

- Monday 26th March: Light design session

- Thursday 29th March 5.30-8pm prototype

- Thursday 5th April 5.30-8pm iterate

- Thursday 12th April 5.30-8pm make

- Weekend 14th April make and install.

So tonight we’ll be focusing on design thinking. It’ll give us a chance to think about colour, shape, light and space. Through a series of activities we’ll together break apart what we think about light.

Then on Thursday we’ll take what we learnt tonight and start shaping our design, coming up with solutions, which we’ll eventually refine and build over the next couple of weeks.

4. Activity: space - what about it?

Describe your journey once you got into the Cultural Precinct tonight. What stood out to you? What was it? A tree? The river?

What do you remember about it? The shape? The colour? The smell?

a. Coffee shop, need coffee, knew its there

b. Pond outside - bronze spheres, contrast water, tourist sitting staring at cityscape and bridge which was purple

c. Community member 1: light at the library, security guard herding kids, Shepherd with kids

d. Community member 2: lack of lights, pretty bleak along the way

e. Community member 3: sat in quad string of lights, pink and yellow, ping on white lights , nice indoor outdoor

f. Community member 4: last time here noticed square blocky sign thing points edge to museum

g. Community member 5: dark, big neon sign at GOMA, couldn’t tell if it was for hotel or gallery, stood out, retro sign in (modern) present, touch screens (bright)

h. Community member 6: whisky clouds

5. Activity (brainstorm) : Light. (Focus design, ask why questions, write down what I hear, pay special attention to moments that feel like deeper understanding into why the person does what they do)

a. What is the purpose of light?

b. Where is light?

c. How do we control light?

d. How do you use light?

e. What light appeals to you? (Sunlight? Fluro light? Afternoon sunsets?, Moonlight? Glow in the dark light?)

i. Community member: light as communication, easy distinguish, neon needs to be clear what its trying to mean, at what is trying to say. Fluoro: stand out, something draws attention, something that communicates needs to draw the eye, get people to want to investigate, not blinking animated light flow on to tell a story and keep engaged, blinking distracts, light that may start on the left and move to the right, moving beams. Not too bright or too fast, Matthew has epilepsy. They do stuff. Unpredictability of light at time

ii. Community member: Morse code, someone may notice there’s an underlying message. Triggered by communication. Long light short light. Message “come inside”, what are tracer lights bands that build up and flow, like Kaiju , like the colour flow that goes between pink, purple and blue, colours remind you of: warmth, flowers, garden, your hair,

iii. Bright: something that stands out, more primary in colour use of neons attracts people, Fluoro: luminous: really glowing, subtle: perhaps use of colour, through fog, faintness Andy: then totally luminous, busting out

iv. Community member: sunset, where I live I see the whole clouds, the clouds block some of the light out, light rays, organs or red. Sky is is beautiful. Bright colours, pinks, colours and blues, in awe of the whole. Makes her think it’s a painting

v. Community member: leader lights: path through front door to stars, chevron light as an arrow, climbing floor, to pathways, indicate path. Words: panel some words please come in, just another scene, can have Morse code and letters

vi. Community member; light in dark. Closing of winter Olympics, drone lights created a 3D snowboarder, novel, created a point cloud, white, it was unexpected. Eel wire, sculptural, has to be dark to see it. . Fun / positive: it’s a attractive, someone riding past on bicycle with delights on wheels, gives pleasure, like sunset which is a beautiful experience, awe in beauty of nature, colour evokes emotion or memory. What unusual light: formation of drones, see people with lights and letters

vii. Community member: changing interactive light, if someone comes close it would change colour, or shape, it moved and then it “change”, motion sensors, luminance: something any movie or stores you hear about God appearing, luminance light appears/becomes rays, interesting lights, appears in rays, light and shadow: light is also interesting with shadow, use plain and insole cardboard to create letters, people, something double take on, understand there is a shadow, attracts attention, light cubes: same as interaction, where different cubes and colours are placed, walked on , different cubes change colours, as they move they become pink

f. From your list circle your favourite type of light on a card

g. Reflect: What did we learn?

6. Activity (draw / collage) : Shape.

a. What shapes do people like? Circles? Squares? Straight lines?

b. Why do you like them?

c. What is it that appeals to you about them?

d. Create a 2D version of your shape using straight lines using paper, scissors and masking tape.

e. Put your shape next to the shape you think looks good together

f. Draw multiple copies of your shape positioning them so the sum of the parts is greater than the whole

g. Choose one other shape that someone else has selected (can't be the same as your shape), and use the shape along with your shape to create a new image using multiple copies)

h. Reflect: What did we learn?

i. CM: something natural, growth, something growing up,’

ii. CM: inspired by clouds, no straight lines, flowing, organic

iii. CM: human shape, humans attractive by humans, people. Circles: any organic shape, not straight lines feels more comfortable, organic more pleasing. Emotional response, if you use straight lines they’re more active, but round shapes are more inviting. Multiplicity could also help aiding feeling comfortable, circles, spheres

iv. CM: directing to site: boat wake, close to the water, leading close to the water, thought bubbles: someone thought they were rocks, representing the edge could be forming a stone like someone has been here, signpost. Thought bubbles: a place that evokes thinking, sharing thought bubbles with others, working part of a group, working on something that is bigger than the individual part. Shared vision, playing a role, this is what this place is about, people do their part

v. CM: simple linear shapes, tangram: they fit together in so many different ways. Often in puzzles.

vi. CM: love polkadots and stripes, not together, fabric drawn to, love Kara as works, abstract geometric, like silhouettes, organic dark and light, spots mostly has to do with spacing, irregular or overlapping in different sizes

vii. Cm: hypercube - like 4D shapes because they are imperviable, it looks complicated,

viii. CM: design geometry, when I teach, building blocks, dividing, adding, corner comes out: corner falls out, someone said Minecraft, Lego building blocks, when sketching, start with a Form like a square, rectangle or cylinder, before get to initial design phase, start with little squares on a page to break things down

7. Activity (card sorting): Colour.

a. What colours do you like (pick one), Why do you like this colour? What does it remind you of?

b. Organise the colours into a single order so that the colour you put down “goes with” the previous colour.

c. Put the colours into groups of 2 so that the colours complement each other

d. Reflect: What did we learn?

i. CM: like red during the day, more attracted to yellows, no red and black together , red and cyan: enjoy the jitter, opposite on colour wheel, get movement from, red and cyan are opposites, but they form movement, any simultaneous combination acts, dance

ii. CM: hot pink, purple, blue: flow got ether, bleed into each other, gradient

iii. CM: red and blue.

iv. Alex: red, sun rise and colours, bright colours, yellow and green: more calming than red and orange

v. CM: love blues and greens, Fluoro and bright colours, purple and green come up together, colours on cars look amazing: orange and purple come together,

vi. Cm: sunset and sunrise , orange and green: units,

vii. CM: like all colours, light to colour, soft colours, pastels , red is favourite colour, but not aggressive colour

8. Activity (bundle ideas)

a. Now select one light (it doesn't need to be yours), one shape and one colour and write it together

b. What is it about this combination that appeals to you?

c. Repeat

d. Reflect: What did we learn?

9. Focus: project plan.

What are we going to do next 2 workshops?

10. Homework:

Post up some photographs of light installations, lamps, colour and shape that you think is inspiring onto our Slack page. This will become our visual diary over the next few weeks and allow us to keep us focused.

11. IDEO: Design

Post workshop:

1. Download the learnings

The Plan (what Emma Che observed)

1. Introductions around the table (name and craziest project you have worked on)

2. Around the table describe your journey to The Edge tonight. Share anything that stood out.

3. On sticky notes write down what you find interesting about light

4. Nathen to talk to each one and drill down a little with each persons idea and ask why

5. What shapes do you like?

6. Share back into the group and drill down again into them

7. What colours do you like and which ones do you like together

8. Mention the slack group and that notes will be written up there. Set homework of posting favourite light installations to the group.

(this process followed a human centre design process from Ideo https://www.ideou.com/pages/design-thinking

Reflection

There were 8 people in attendance. Everyone engaged throughout the session. There were many similar ideas that emerged during the process.

Photos

Evaluation

Pre

10 participants signed up online

Community Development

40 % of sign ups feel somewhat connected to The Edge community

60% of participants have been coming to the edge for over 12 months

90% came to the design session as they are interested in design.

Post:

9 people attended (2 English as a second language, 5 women, 4 men)

Community Development

Do you feel connected to The Edge community?

Cultural participation

Did you feel engaged by the design session?

Community Development

Did you have a conversation with someone new?

Accessing Resources

very much felt the book club was inclusive

Idea building

had new ideas

Light up The Edge Install

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 27 May 2021 16:38:36 +0000

Light up The Edge Install

Nathen went away and designed the kaleidoscopes and the overall structure design for the final installation piece.

Here is a little insight into his process via photo's

1. Concrete is setting for the base of the installation

2. Preparing the wires

3. Lighting patterns

4. Concrete for the base is out of it's mould and ready to go

5. The housing for the Kaleidoscope's was cut on the CNC router and has now had a trim

6. Trim put together and looking good in black

7. First glue gun for the housing

8. Soldiering on with soldering

9. Tarzan grip and tape

Light up The Edge Iteration session

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 27 May 2021 16:33:50 +0000

Light up The Edge Iteration session

Prep

Have computers available with Adobe Illustrator/Corel Draw on them

Pencils and paper

Chips

Table and chairs

The Plan

Nathen's initial plan:

The plan is for everyone to design the pattern / design of their light cube. We've agreed on making a series of Tangram like lamps (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangram) that can be stacked up on top of each other. Essentially a bunch of cubes that are easily movable and can be stacked in any order. I'd like to get everyone to choose their shape (either a triangle or cube) and then decide on the acrylic they'd like to use.

The plan for each of the cubes/triangles is either one of two designs 1) a simple shape using interesting materials 2) a simple shape using clear acrylic to sandwich the unique design to create a “stained glass” window. By the end of the evening we should know exactly what material to order and how much.

Nathen Street's workshop plan: Workshop 3

1. Who are you and what is your favourite colour?

2. Review of what we’ve done over the past 2 workshops

3. Tonight: pair up to make the designs for a small cube.

There are six sides to a cube, each pair come up with three designs each for cube. Someone asked about lighting, I said it would have a white light to illuminate the cube.

4. Most of the designs can be easily cut out using vinyl

Work to do:

Scan the images made tonight into Illustrator and clean them up

Decide on the size of each cube - 80mm x 80mm x 80mm

Come up with a design to incorporate the cubes… I think I’ve decided on a kaleidoscope that uses the cubes to create the effect.

Take the printer to The Edge

Design kaleidoscope

Nathen Street's workshop plan: Workshop 4

1. Welcome to Country

2. Who is everyone?

What is your name and what is your favourite dessert?

3. The design process: ideation, iteration, observe, iterate etc

This workshop has been the design process in action, how we solve problems, how we think about problems and how exploring ideas we can move our thinking towards an outcome by building on the learning of each experiment before the last. To finesse the idea until it's something that we like, makes you feel something, .. There are so many reasons why you stop working on the idea and present it to the world.

4. What are we doing today?

- I've been thinking how to incorporate the boxes into a design, and since I've been doing a lot of research on light and reflection lately I thought we could use them to drive a kaleidoscope. I have with me today a prototype three mirrored kaleidoscope with an open end. Through the open end is where we'll place your box designs, for which they will rotate and drive the movement. We'll also use the LED lights that we will program to transition slowly through some of our favourite colours. These changes along with any colours you have in your box will change the way we perceive the colour. For example if the lights are Red and you have a Blue surface it will appear Black

Reflection

What actually happened was everyone was given the freedom to design a small feature box that will sit in the installation.

Why did the plan change?

The series had reached the point where so many ideas had been offered up and many strong personalities existed in the group that were willing to keep and keen to contributing ideas. The facilitating artist realised that it was time to do some culling of some ideas and go forth with what had been decided upon in the previous week's session (the tangram). The facilitating artist decided that they will work on the design of the tangram shapes and use the colours that have been offered in previous weeks by participants. In this session the focus would be on participants designing feature cubes for the installation.

There were 14 participants in this session which is the most that we have had in this series. About 5 were completely new to the process and new to The Edge space as well. Due to the large numbers the facilitating artist broke the group broke up into pairs and participants worked with pencil and paper to draw their 6 sides feature box ideas together. They also chose colours for their designs.

The facilitating artist has taken these 7-9 designs away to enter into Illustrator to then be either laser etched onto cubes or to be cut on the vinyl cutter. Participants will put together their cubes and cut out the vinyl. Basically make their contribution. Some participants have taken their designs home to work on them in illustrator themselves.

Evaluation

Pre

14 participants signed up online

Community Development

28% are not sure if they feel connected to The Edge

42% of participants it will be there first time to The Edge

64% came to the design session as they are interested in design.

Post:

3 people completed the survey

Community Development

Do you feel connected to The Edge community?

66% probably not connected

33% very much so

Cultural participation

Did you feel engaged by the session?

66% somewhat yes

Community Development

Did you have a conversation with someone new?

100% somewhat yes

Accessing Resources

33% very much felt that the session was inclusive

33% somewhat yes

33% not sure

Idea building

33% somewhat had new ideas

33% Very much so

33% probably not

Comments

I feel that there was a disconnection between the penultimate session and the last one due to a change in what Nathan the Designer envisioned as the final display. This left me and other attendees having to change completely our own designs to fit in with the new final product. I got the sense a couple of attendees felt a little frustrated with having to redesign their elements.

A disappointingly lack lustre session. Most people left very early. There was no making and the design component was self guided aside from general direction toward sunset colours. It could have been improved by a demonstration of the process of making one of the planned cubes through Illustrator and laser cutter and seeing a prototype. Also by a discussion/ brainstorm of how the cubes will be arranged together to make a cohesive sculpture. I appreciate it is a free event but would have asked for my money back had I paid.

Photos

Light up The Edge Making session

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 27 May 2021 16:37:47 +0000

Light up The Edge Making session

This was to be the final making session leading to install. The timeline was pushed back to give the facilitating artist time to design and make the main components to the installation.

The Plan

Nathen to share where he is up to

Everyone to work on their individual boxes

To share them with the group

Materials

In a Bay Window- table and chairs

vinyl cutter

Have the 8x8x8 acrylic cubes cut and ready for participants

Have black vinyl ready with all vinyl materials ready

box cutters

scissors

cutting boards

scanner

computer

printer

Reflection

There were 12 people in attendance in this session. The space was full and everyone got into working on their cube that had been cut and made over the week. Nathen shared what he had been working on with mirror acrylic ideas and kaleidoscope. He had chosen to confine the acrylic to silver and black. People also wanted to have colour so they chose to colour in with textas and pens. One community member had been working on their art and Nathen scanned it into the computer and printed it out to be then stuck onto the cubes. One community member who has been coming to each session of this series brought along crackers and dip to share with the rest of the group.

Photos

Light up The Edge Prototyping

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 27 May 2021 16:25:31 +0000

Light up The Edge Prototyping

Prep

Order the following:

• cr2032 or similar cell batteries ~20

• masking tape

• clear sticky tape

• scissors

• string 1 roll

• drinking straws 1 pack

• 200gsm card x 10 A3

• cellophane (if possible, clear and coloured, or any small acrylic scraps you may have)

• textas / coloured markers

• hot glue

• moulding wire x 1 roll

Plan from Nathen Street: Workshop 2

Pre workshop:

• Setup the iPad so it can be used to post photographs to the Slack channel

• Make sure Slack is on my and Emma's mobile phone

1. Acknowledgement of country (6pm)

2. Who is everyone? (6.01pm)

a. What is your name, and what is your favourite food?

3. What we learned last week (6.06pm)

a. What is our design problem?

i. Encourage people to come into The Edge, perhaps take a selfie and discover something more?

ii. Design and build a light installation that is free standing

b. Light, shape, colour

c. Let's go through the visual diary

4. What are we doing today? (6.10pm)

a. Prototyping

i. Start with pen and paper, move to playing with shape and then light

ii. Play around with building some lights

iii. Mashup - bring some of the design elements together to come up with a few designs

5. Breaking the design apart:

a. Floor standing

b. Power of three - bottom, middle and top; or base, body and head. Keep this in mind over the next few activities. It'll help us to solve smaller problems rather than larger ones

6. Activity: draw the shape (6.15pm), quick you only have 30 seconds

a. Take a piece of paper and draw the outline of how you imagine the installation would look like (30 seconds)

b. Pass the paper to the left

c. Continue building and adding elements to the shape (30 seconds)

d. Pass the paper two people to the right

e. Continue building and adding elements to the shape (30 seconds)

f. Return the piece to the original person

g. Go around the room. What was the original shape you had in mind, and what happened to it? (5 mins max)

h. @Emma photograph each of the designs and post it to Slack

7. Activity: plasticine, card, string (6.30 - 6.45)

a. Form groups of three / three groups

b. Using plasticine, card, string and straws start to build a model of your design.

c. Reflect:

i. Place each model on a piece of card / paper and write out the responses to each question:

1. What do you like about each model?

2. Why do you think it works as a shape?

3. What single words would you use to describe each model / elements of the model? Use arrows to point to parts

d. @Emma Photograph the model and post it up to Slack

8. Break: grab a drink, eat some lollies, pick some lights for the next activity

9. Activity: reflect (7.00)

a. Circle the words that you think are important when thinking about the design problem, which is “How do we make something that will attract people inside The Edge,

to want to move closer to it and maybe take a selfie?”

10. Activity: filter (7.05)

a. In your groups pick the parts of each model that matches our design problem, and mash them together to create one new model

b. Refine it until you're happy

11. Activity: lighting (7.25)

a. Using the LEDs and batteries start lighting your model with different lights, take a bunch of photos and post them up to the Slack group

b. @Emma and Nathen photograph these iterations and post it to Slack.

12. Activity: materials (7.40)

a. Place the model in the middle of a piece of paper. Using arrows start suggesting the materials to use, choosing from: acrylic, wood, EL wire and RGB LED strips

13. Activity: voting (7.45)

a. Place the two models at the centre of the table and rate out of 5:

i. Overall design

ii. Potential for lighting

iii. Potential to attract people

14. Next week:

a. Some designs will be drawn up over the next few days considering all the work we produced tonight. We'll post these up onto Slack, along with a list of materials and get the team here at The Edge to start machining

b. We'll start building! We've got a bunch of EL wire and RGB LED tape on the way. There will be lots to do to put everything together, as well as deciding on where the lights go, what colour they should be, and deciding how often they change or move

Glass cutting component - Work with George help people make lead lighting designs for some shapes

Kaleidoscope component

Plan

- recap on where the group got to last week

- 30 sec drawing on white paper of the space that we are working with for light installation

- Pass the paper to the right. Now have 1 min to draw a light idea in the space

- pass the paper 2 places right to add to the drawing

- reflect on what has come back to you and share with the group

Using the straws, sticky tape, card etc the group will sculpt a shape by themselves. Then after a small amount of time bring an individual sculpture together with another one to see how they go together.

- come together as a group to chat about the prototypes that emerged and how we can move forward as a shared vision.

Reflection

This part of the process is challenging to bring many ideas together into one idea to move forward. At this point we notice that participants often look to the facilitator to guide and cull ideas that do not serve what is being created.

Evaluation

Pre:

6 people signed up online. 9 actually attended.

Community Development

33% are not sure if they have a connection to The Edge

66% are in interested in design.

Post:

9 people attended (2 English as a second language, 5 women, 4 men)

1 person completed the survey

Community Development

Do you feel connected to The Edge community?

100% somewhat connected

Cultural participation

Did you feel engaged by the design session?

100% very much so

Community Development

Did you have a conversation with someone new?

100% very much so

Accessing Resources

very much felt the workshop was inclusive

100% very much so

Idea building

100% very much had new ideas

Comments

It was very generous and very interesting and enlightening to see the design notes-visual diary and his thought process that Nathan kept as he designed his upcoming installation at the Powerhouse. Thank you Nathan.