SELF MADE - THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

I am at the moment setting in stone the idea for my new self initiated, and am starting to think of things that I can make and then give the instructions to someone so they can make it themselves, there is two ways that I want to go about this, one is to design something like a chair or a table and then give the instructions away to it, this is very in the style of Enzo Mari, and brings up all he was talking about with his autoprogettazione projects. I was then thinking about the mass consumers that the western world is and maybe confronting that, by getting say a sandwich that is all nicely wrapped and priced at around 2.50 or 3.00 pounds then to get all the ingredients and see how much it would be to make it myself, then to give this information away to people in the hope it shows what they spent on something as little as a sandwich, and how they could make the quality better and be more cost effective.

These are both idea that I am trying to think around at the moment and ways of using them as solid workable ideas.

LOW COST DESIGN - DANIELE PARIO PERRA

Low cost design is a book that is about the design that springs from daily life. The best project is not necessarily the one that is patented, or created by the most prestigious design company in the world. Pario Perra presents the results of a research project carried out across Northern Europe and Southern Mediterranean...

MANNERS DONT COST A THING

After long last my patches for 'MANNERS DONT COST A THING' has arrived, and I am really pleased with how they have turned out, very plain and simple but it gets the message across well...

SELF MADE... MAN

I have just been looking at research upon my new work of 'self made' and have come across the term of 'self made man'. Which is basically associated with the rags to riches story...

'A self made man is anyone who attains far greater success than his original circumstances would have indicated was possible. The self made man often has to overcome great obstacles to achieve his goals. Self made men attain their success through education, hard work, and sheer willpower. While no man is an island, it’s not external help or special relationships that make the crucial difference in the self-made man’s rise.'


I thought this was pretty weird as it sort of ties in with the 'modern gentleman' work, while coinciding with the new work I'm undergoing. It is a very interesting subject though, with this idea of rags to riches from your own hard work, I suppose that anything you put your time into something good comes out of it. There is a list of men that they think fits the self made man status, and it ranges from P-Diddy, Benjamin Franklin and Ben & Jerry's!

It got me thinking that maybe anything that is self made is of merit, that is if it actually has time and care taken over doing it.

LOVE KOMPOTT - BOXES

I have just come across this design company called Love Kompott from Poland. I was looking specifically at their project, 'boxes'. The company have taken an old wooden box, presumably used to store any kinds of things, from food to paper. They then have reinterpreted the box using the slots in-between planks...

IKEA

Last weekend I took a trip to Ikea with my brother, as he was moving flat, I went by car and picked up a few things, including a full size double mattress, and bed-frame, it was quite an achievement to get it back to his new flat in one piece and in one trip, in a VW polo. It got me thinking about my new work, 'self made'...

SELF MADE - SELF INITIATED BRIEF 2

I am now moving on to my next self initiated brief, this is being named 'SELF MADE' here is the brief that I have written for myself. I have written this as a starting point, which im sure like any brief will, evolve and change, however it will have the same essence that I writing here.

SELF MADE

In times present, there is a constant need to buy need things, due to the fact that objects either become old, or they break. This means that either the product itself is badly made, or the desires of the user has changed from what it once was. If given the choice to buy a product then remake it to its exact specifications will the user prolong the life of the object that they have made?

BRIEF

'Design a product that is used within day to day life and make guidelines of producing the same object that empower the user to make the product themselves over and over. Giving them the option to refine and customize the original design.'

CONSIDERATIONS

What object is worth concentrating on that is used within everyday life that could be reproduced, to high standards be anyone.

The limitations of time and money when people are making their own product form the guidelines.

READING/RESEARCH/EXPERIMENTATION

All these things will unfold along the way.

STAGES

This brief I am aiming to have done within the two week time frame, so that I can move on to other related or totally different subjects after this one has been completed.

As well as starting this new brief I will be carrying on with the 'Modern Gentlemen' work and be refining the set briefs to a greater extent, so the work becomes more mature and professional. But for the time being I shall be concentrating on the notion of SELF MADE.

AUTOPROGETTAZIONE - SELF MADE

Coming back to Enzo Mari, he came up with this idea of 'autoprogettazione'. A personal manifesto, mari’s text laid out the issue he saw as central to industrial production – the quality-quantity ratio, quality being defined as when the shape of a product does not ‘seem’ but simply ‘is’...

ENZO MARI - SEDIA 1

Enzo Mari is one of the most thoughtful and intellectually provocative Italian designers of the late 20th century. Mari has designed many amazing products and objects one I want to concentrate on is the Sedia 1. Sedia 1 is a self-assembly chair designed in 1974 by Mari and put into production by Finnish brand Artek...

THE CORE - EMBOSSED POSTER

I am really starting to warm to the idea of an embossed poster, I have been playing about with embossing at the moment, and how you can emboss layers and the effects it gives. I like the idea that the posters for the installation are all done with embossing, as the piece is sound based, I want to portray the image of sound imprinting itself onto paper, through physical ways, and not just printing with ink. I also like the link between the subtlety of the sound piece that I did and how sometimes you could hear it around the building and sometimes you couldn't, mirroring this with the embossing, which sometimes can be seen clearly and sometimes not depending on the light. Anyway hopefully this will be done soon, but at the moment i' focusing on getting my head round a new self initiated, while also carrying on with the modern gentleman work.

BRUCE GILDEN - 08/03/11

Bruce Gilden is a street photographer from New York. Yesterday he came into school to give us a talk about his work. Gilden is an unusual character, who is very loud and outspoken, with a think bronx accent, but never the less a very interesting and clearly clever man, who knows what he wants and go's and gets it...

THE CORE - EMBOSSING

I have been looking at the process of embossing for 'the core' work that im doing at the moment, and how I can use it within the work. I have been developing ways of using it, and why I am using it within the work. There is a simple reason to why I want to use it within the work...

THE CORE - PLAN

My plan for the ongoing 'A Space For Sound' work is evolving at the moment. I have made the sound piece and have done the installation, but I currently have nothing to show for it, excluding the sound. So I have been thinking of ways of showing the piece visually through a piece of print, I almost want it to be a visual piece of the installation, without having to be there and physically hear it or take part in it, like an exhibition book. I also want to make a set of posters to go with this book too, that show where the installation was and what it was, quickly and interestingly. I would like the book to be as visual as possible, with very definite nods towards, the time that the piece was constructed in, where the piece took place and the atmosphere it provoked, to build up and idea in the readers head. I will be working on this along with a few other projects in the next coming weeks, so look out for that.

JENNY HOLZER - PROJECTIONS

At the Tate yesterday, We saw some work by Jenny Holzer, who is a conceptual artist from america, I vaguely knew of her, but I wasn't sure why. When we saw her piece I was instantly mesmerised, the work that was on show was called 'States Of Flux' Which consisted of seven LED strips that words would appear on...

TATE MODERN 06/03/11

Yesterday I made a trip to the Tate Modern to see what was going on there as I hadn't been for a little while. The first thing I wanted to see was the Ai Weiwei Piece Sunflower Seeds, which is made up of over 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds all handmade and the same, but each individual at the same time...

LE JOURNAL

Some marvellous photos from a guy called Cedric Viollet. The guy in the shoot should be reading a copy of 'The Changing Face Of The Modern Gentleman' for sure...

ASFS - CORE

Today I have gone back to the ASFS work and am working on ways to show it, one way I have thought of is to make almost an installation poster, and leaflet, which explains what it is and give you a link to the sound that was played. I have been experimenting with different ways of visualising an identity for the work...

MANNERS DONT COST A THING

As an extension of the Modern Gentleman work, I was trying to think of appropriate sayings, that are in relation to what my work is trying to put across. When in my car this morning driving around in the depths of east London I was getting rather irritated to say the least, this is down to the fact that nobody says thank-you...

MILLER GOODMAN - SHAPEMAKER

Zoe Miller and David Goodman are the designers behind Miller Goodman and they are at the forefront of design for children, that combine function with the highest design principals, producing fantastic products within the children's market. These blocks are another form of empowerment...

DUCHAMP - FOUNTAIN

Marcel Duchamp the infamous conceptual artist made art that was out of everyday objects. Fountain is a piece that Duchamp did in 1917, and it was one of his pieces in the 'readymade' series (or found art). In this particular case Duchamp used a old urinal that he signed 'R. Mutt'...