First of all I want to credit the blog Stark (listed on the left there) for this clip. I’ve never heard of this artist before but this truly is ‘without thought’. If you can develop something that can exploit environment - whether that be wind, gravity or social networking sites - the results can be mind blowing. Theo Jansen has presumably spent a life time working on this with astounding results. This style of thinking is very similar to Elsbeth Joy Nielson’s ‘Silk Story’, letting environment dictate form.
In the realm of collaboration and user centered design etc. I’m not usually a fan of these kinds of sound experiments but I can see how this could be fun. A bit like twister without the hard contact.
It’s often difficult to get across to people just how sitting in front of a computer, pushing things round on a screen can provide so much pleasure. This may help explain a few things.
I’ve been doing more research as part of my MA course and I’m not sure if it’s one of those things that will appropriate a chorus of ‘Duhhh!’ but I’m starting to see a growing trend of creation through agitation. What I mean by this is that people are looking more to environment as their canvas and what I mean by THIS is that in some cases they are constructing environments which enable organic growth. All clear? Good.
Design Academy Eindhoven, in Holland, has an emphasis on humanitarian design and may well turn out to be a huge influence in the rocky years of eco melt down that lie ahead.
The image above is taken from the work of a recent graduate of Eindhoven, Elsbeth joy Nielsen. As part of her project, Nielsen created a loose structure onto which she has placed silk worms, allowing them to roam freely and create complex patterns and forms on their travels. This is democracy on silk worm level.
But more interestingly the bi-product of this methodology is that during the narrative of its making Nielsen has created a story which in turn can be used as a commercial selling point (if we were being cynical).
