A way finder πŸƒβ€β™€οΈ

This project has helped me set a great title and direction that I would like to continue researching into for the next phase of study.

In this first week, I was trying to get ideas organized in words as I have retrieved from the second project. One day, I was cooking, when I check my fridge, there’s this carrot having some small yellow leaves poking out. I was curious about how it grows within such cold conditions with no sunlight and enough water. So I cut the top part off and put it in a small tray with some water just to see if it can become alive. Surprisingly, the leaves start turning green, and more branches start standing up. During that time, that beam of green has become a microecology in my home. I took one picture a day and send it to my mom. She is surprised with that little green garden as well, but she also mentioned, carrots grow with seeds, putting a part of the carrot in the water will die eventually.

The leaves grow fast every day, and I was trying to record the secret grow process of the buds, but it seems to have some camera-shy which never let me catch those growing moments but the quick change of the outside environment.

It indeed dead at the second week, which makes me think of the lifecycle of plants.

It is an inevitable process of participating in the lifecycle, but the moment when it blooms itself has become the highlighting moment of its life. Observing the growth of a plant is a common activity that most kids will do at a very young age, and repeating this activity at my age of view has changed. The world never stops moving, and there are things that die every second. Facing of fall of lives is not that hard as before, it is just a part of the cycle. Largely speaking, I believe the world is connected together since time starts, there always some clues that connect the universe system as a whole. Just like the patterns on the rock, changes through time forms the rocks we see now. We react to the environment around us, also the environment is reacting to what we have done.

ln this case, I would like to visualize the situation with “cycles” There are a lot of cycles happening at the same time. The system may seems messy, but every single of them has their own trajectories. In the case of home care, I would like to describe my life like these wires. There more and more things overlapping with the growth of my age, and it has become harder for me to find the true self in this chaos system. I want to refer back to the 5 senses that I would like to explore in the previous action.

I was planning a workshop within my friend in order to see the effect of 5 senses, but the results doesn’t wroks very well.

In the workshop, there were 13 friends participated, and I had the lighting system with color changes to create a different sense of feeling under each color, with wine and essence burning on the side. Then we started to play a game with easily get arguments among us so that I can monitor the changes in people’s voice to see how their emotion changes. The light color shifts every 30s.

chart of sound loudness change

The X-axis represents the amount of wine they take, and the Y-axis represents the measurements of the talk (Hz). The results take me to nowhere, so I stopped recording it and feel kinda lost at the moment.

Thinking of the cloud changes happening when I was trying to record the growth of the carrot, in the meantime, I’m very interested to see how the world moves in no sense. Things always change without our notice. I started recording these beautiful moments of time that actually give me a sense of relief.

There’s another tool that gives me a lot if insight and try to help me thinking in another way is several crystal balls. When I feel lost, I look the world through it’s sections, the worls shifts with the rotation and this process refers to the activity of mimicing the perspectives of cat and dog.

With the variations, I have tried several materials and forms to see if there’s any new insights would come up.

The way how things interact with each other is a great way of exploration, with the tension of itself, outside power, free forming, or interlocking system.

Life is like a sphere, the things around us affect our small world. Most people believe that what you see is what you get, so they are busy all day for the two or three trivial matters in front of them. And I believe that life has no boundaries. Breaking conventions can open up infinite vitality, just like those sticks poking out of the ball. To me, nature comes from the inside of our hearts. One of the sentences from Kenya Hara: “The more technology evolves, the closer it will be to the form of life. “

I was experiencing a huge barrier at this moment when I feel completely lost in the program, I started question myself, what is the purpose of continuing studies, and why I am here studing sth I don’t understand. Things overlapping together, and the voice of questioning is always pulling me backwards.

It is hard for me to overcome this project. The project has experienced a lot of development through these weeks. I was so confused again when I was in the middle of the project and trying to get it to make sense. However, when things tied up and think in a smooth and clearer way, it seems every action that happened in the previous time has constructed the situation where I stand, most of them are making sense in a way. There may be some ideas being abandoned, but the overall thinking process is pushing itself towards what I initially expected. Sometimes, I got distracted by other interesting elements and started confusing myself, but thanks to those who always help and listen to me, I’m still keeping myself in the lane.

At this time, I would like to thank my supervisors and Laura, who always support me with these hard time. I started making when I eventually have my mind clearer, and make sure what I would like to do is the continuous process of design products. So I started with lighting system.

The lights are called 1/2 light and tri-lit. 1/2 light is made from wood panel, acrylic boards, and LED stripe, it concept is inspired from my previous confusion about the program. I want to remind myself with this light that things are not only front and back, there’s some way more than that, and not trouble myself in a single perspective which maybe just a half of the whole situation. The second light is made from acrylic panels and fibretek material, which is a more sustainable material that made with paper, but has a strong tension of use. Tri-lit is mimicing two tones of light that I saw on the reflection of the window by chance.

Moving forward from the lighting system to another level of thinking, I would like to talk about breath. I was watching the Japanese animation: Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba and in this work, people are all talking about the way how they breathe to upgrade their skills and abilities, which made me think about traditional Taoism and Buddhism.

sitting posture

The world is constantly in motion, whether we are running, ironing, martial arts, boxing, qigong, yoga… In almost all sports, breathing training is a very important part.

In China, in the ancient fitness techniques of Yijinjing, Baduanjin, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, breathing seems to be more mysterious, which is almost equivalent to the secrets of becoming immortal. There are far more secrets to explore in terms of breathing.

Taoist practice requires focus on breathing, and sitting posture is a very common posture in so many cultures, I would like to take the sitting panel as a way of explorations.

When I figure out a clear way of thinking, everything can become an inspiration.

At the time, I just found ideas flood into my head, and I would like to have them all on paper for future manufacture.

First, I tried with ballons. The softness provides comfortness but at the same time, my mind is always keeping me aware because I’m afraid if the ballon is broken when I’m sitting on it is going to definitely scare me. I was holding my breath when I was sitting on it. Eventually, they break because I was trying to do activities on it. Then I would like to move on to some hard materials, so I shift my battleground to the woodshop.

Then I move on to wood balls and see how that works with the balance. The rounded shape is the most balanced but unbalanced thing, it is a very inclusive shape to discover with.

The curve also represents a kind of spirituality. In your furniture, it represents a kind of faith in your loyalty to the curve. You may never replace it with a straight line. Eventually it will become a kind of belief. I personally think that it is fun, or it can be said to be feelings.

Final title decided:

Design Slomo: A miracle balance

Furniture as an environment to build a flat lifestyle

I think objects nourish its user, just like a jade product. A good environment is also elegant with people. It’s a double-way relationship. For example, I am constantly affected by the objects in the house. Every moment my spirit interacts with it. I think the best way of living is to define your lifestyle. It is like the Yin and Yang relationships, it never ends.

I am a designer, but a designer does not mean a person who knows how to design, but a person who keeps the concept of design to live. Kenya Hara.

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