Logan Wilkinson MDes X

So persuasive is the power of the institutions we have created that they shape not only our preferences but actually our sense of possibilities.

Ivan Illich

Following the open studio, I began to consider the ways that my Play Portals project could be used in institutional spaces focused on productivity, such as universities, office buildings, and hospitals, but also in institutions whose aim was more related to fun and playfulness, such as music festivals and art events. So, when the prompt for our fourth studio project was to focus on research and investigation, I decided to investigate the ways that these different institutions overlapped and how I might be able to apply some of the fun and playful elements of festivals to other institutional spaces.

My motivation was to further blur the line between work and play, as Hannah Arendt suggests is necessary for individuals to move away from “dark times” and towards political action, but also to explore my interest in the often alienating and cold feeling invoked by institutional spaces and its effect on how people interact within them. With the emergence of an asocial society named as one of the sixteen key global challenges by the Canadian government in 2018, and the Covid-19 Pandemic accelerating the process, the return to physical spaces is an opportunity to reassess the ways we might use institutions as places of connection rather than sites of impersonal bureaucratic relations.

Research and Ideation

My conversations with Amber during the ideation phase were very helpful. She drew my attention to some existing works and artists that invoke a similar theme, such as the work of the Situationists, a group of artists and intellectuals in the 1950s-60s who created “situations”, or events intended to evoke genuine human interaction and experiences in a society where social relations are mediated through images. I found their idea of psychogeography to be interesting, which is the “the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals” (Debord, 1955). I imagine the institutional spaces to be an environment this form of study could be applied to, and by gathering insights on how these spaces make people feel, I might be able to get a better idea of what festival tactics I could employ and what specific locations for events I could use to maximize the benefit for those who attend the festival.

In order to understand how I could apply festival tactics to other institutions, I first had to define what a festival is, and define what other institutions I would want to apply festival tactics to.

What is a Festival?

Drawing from an investigation into a collection of existing festivals and existing definitions, I used the following traits to develop the definition of a festival as it pertains to this project:

• Time Based
• Collection of performances and events
• Performances and events are held in a variety of locations across the festival grounds
• Involves live music, art installations, transformation of a place
• Often held outdoors

What Institutions Could Benefit from Festival Tactics?

Site 1: Emily Carr University of Art and Design
When considering possible sites for the project, I decided I would draw on my current position as a student at Emily Carr and make the first festival prototype at the school. It would be an opportunity to test the scale and feasibility of the project in an environment that would be open to the idea of a festival, especially considering the fact that it is an arts school where there are often creative events and performances going on. Indeed, the nature of the school made me consider how a festival might lead to meaningful change in an institutional space that already incorporates arts and culture as a part of it’s everyday.

Site 2: 555 Great Northern Way, Office Building

There is a large office building next to ECUAD, and many ECUAD design professors have connections to companies based in the building. I hope to draw on these connections to propose hosting a festival in the building.

Site 3: Hospital (TBD)

Through my conversations at open studios with people who have experienced long term hospitalization, I believe there are several elements of music festivals that could be greatly beneficial to patients if applied to a hospital setting. Through my work in the Health Design Lab, I hope to make connections with local hospitals and eventually find one to partner with for this project. This would be the final location, as there would be several ethical and privacy concerns that would make hosting a festival especially difficult.

Prototype

Once I had decided site for my first prototype, I began to consider what I could create to communicate my intentions and set the framework of the festival within the remaining timeframe for the studio project. It quickly became clear that I would not have the time to actually produce a festival in three weeks, so, I set my scope to creating a visual identity and a framework I could use as a launchpad for the creation of the actual festival. I decided to create a set of informational materials, drawing from materials provided at most festivals, including a poster with a lineup, a map of the festival grounds, and a schedule. The latter two I planned to build into a festival app that would serve as a sort of guide.

After I decided on my deliverables for this stage of the project, I started looking around for inspiration of how to convey my intention through a visual identity. I was originally wanting to take pictures of the walls of Emily Carr and use them as a backdrop to the design that I would create. When I went to go take the photos, I was struck by how much the outlets look like faces. It made me think of how the electrical system of a building is a sort of an analogy for the people within the building. Electricity is moves organically in a way, kind of like it’s alive, although it is structured and controlled for a functional purpose. It also is something that is connected throughout the building, and that the building wouldn’t be able to function without. With this in mind, I started taking pictures of outlets instead of the walls, with the goal to tie in the theme of electricity as part of my visual identity for the festival.

I started off by looking at all I started off by making some little cartoon drawings of outlets trying to like really draw on the idea that they look like faces and making the middle characters, but I wasn’t really happy with how those turned out.

I decided instead to take some of the photos I had the outlets and distort them to give them a sort of photocopier-esque look. I thought was a bit edgy, which would be suiting for the setting of Emily Carr. It also would go nicely with the institutional green colour I wanted to incorporate as a major part of the colour scheme.

I uploaded the outlet images to Photoshop and I edited them in the to the style of my liking, adding text elements for the logo, date, and location. I also edited the bottom outlet “mouth” to make it look like it was smiling.

Next, I added illustrations that I had made on procreate to make a poster with a lineup as the initial product of my project. And for the lineup, I use some names of real musicians and artists at the school and within the Vancouver community, along with some made up names. The illustrations were inspired by circuit diagrams.

After making the poster, I moved on to making an app for the festival. I used to the outlet image and the logo from the poster for the loading page. Then I made a menu page where I took images of of power cords/plugs and applied the same effect to them as I did to the outlet in Photoshop, and used them as menu options. I decided to keep the text mostly as my own writing in procreate. I thought that it created a writing on the wall effect that translated nicely into the idea of doing an institutional critique of a university. It reminded me of leaving secret messages on desks or bathroom stalls.

Future Directions and Reflection

Clarity of Critique

Reflecting on the project, the biggest concern I have the lack of clarity there is surrounding the intent of the festival. Although it is not a protest, it is still a critique of the alienation that bureaucracy in institutions creates. Without the slogan of “an institutional experiment”, that message seems to be lost, based on the feedback I received during my design studio critique. I will do further prototypes of the branding and work on developing the “info” page to make the message clearer.

Co-Designing a Festival

I would like to work more on making a co-design plan for the festival, where members of the institution that would be partaking in the festival would also be able to contribute to creating it. This could be done by reaching out to students/workers/patients (depending on the setting) and having them contribute their own art or music, or to help with the planning and setup of the festival. In this way, the festival would be able to empower people to become an active part of the mission. The co-creation process may be just as beneficial in creating real, more long lasting change in relational dynamics as the festival in itself. In my personal experience, going to festivals where I am volunteering or working to make the festival happen makes for much stronger connections with the people I encounter.

@sigh_swoon

#portals #portalsareeverywhere #spiritual #existential #surrealism #astralprojection #energy

♬ PORTALS ARE EVERYWHERE – sighswoon

From Peers to Community Through Play

If people never did silly things nothing intelligent would ever get done.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Play Portals is an interactive tool and art piece consisting of two iPads, each mounted to the wall on two different floors within Emily Carr University of Art and Design. When a passer-by presses the screen of one iPad, it causes the other iPad to ring. When another passer-by accepts the call, it triggers a 1-minute long video call between the two users. Inspired by Eric Gordon’s 2020 paper “Play” alongside my interest in the psychology and sociology of relationships within institutional spaces, Play Portals seeks to blur the binary between work and play while fostering a culture of community among ECUAD students.

Ideation

Play and Hannah Arendt’s “Dark Times”

Eric Gordon’s 2020 paper “Play” describes philosopher Hannah Arendt’s writings on the dangers of play and work being viewed as opposing and separate facets of life. When play and work are seen as binary, “we look to the world, not as something we have to contend with, but as something we have to escape.” This is said by Arendt to lead to “dark times,” where people withdraw from the world beyond their immediate surroundings to maximize play and minimize work. The public avoids involvement in politics, fighting injustices, and other societal issues that require great collective effort as they are deemed as part of their working lives.

…playing connects us to the world through action, where it generates discourse not about one’s individual sense of fun but about the “public,” or the structures that comprise the space in-between individuals.

Eric Gordon, “Play”, 2020

Gordon and Arendt’s writings made me consider how connecting with others within institutional settings may have come to be seen as “work” by many, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic. With remote work making it easier than ever to efficiently complete one’s “working life” and transition to “play”, and interactions with coworkers and peers being reduced to Zoom meetings, connecting with those we work alongside is now often viewed as a mere obstacle to accessing our playful life even upon returning to in-person work. The isolation between members of institutions not only introduces a further barrier to collective action, but also contributes to the epidemic of social isolation and its related health and economic consequences (e.g., Harris, 2023).

Brainstorming

Once I had laid out my initial thoughts in a flow chart, I began settling on the hypothesis that playful communication between strangers who share an institutional space might be the key to blurring the line between work and play, especially when it comes to people’s perspectives on connecting with others at work or school. This brought to mind existing tools such as a tin can telephone or Omegle, with the tin can telephone allowing for communication between people who share an approximate space, and Omegle allowing for random connection between strangers.

I ultimately decided to combine the video calling aspect of Omegle and the shared space aspect of tin can telephones to create the idea of video call “portals” within the school.

Physical Prototype Inspiration

Given the time frame of the project, I decided that iPads would be the best device to use for the video call interface, as they would allow for interactivity, video, and sound.

I was inspired by Jenny Holzer’s LED text displays when brainstorming ways to frame the iPads. The brightness and starkness of the displays would draw the eye, and could be used to add to the playful aesthetic of the project.

Prototyping

Digital Interface Prototypes

Digital Interface Prototype 1

My first interface prototype used a variation of a GIF by Gleb Kuznetsov to create a mysterious, futuristic seeming impression on the user. I imagined the users to be intrigued by the mystery of the interface, and that their curiosity would lead them to engage.

However, after receiving feedback from some of my peers, I realized that I may be biasing the interface towards a certain type of user (i.e., users who have high openness to experience), and that not all users would be compelled to interact with something that seems mysterious and slightly ominous. Seeing that I wanted my interface to be accessible to the widest range Emily Carr students possible, I decided to try a different approach to the design.

Digital Interface Prototype 2

To make the Portal more appealing to a wide range of users, and to make the playful nature of the design more direct, I created an interface using 32-bit pixel artwork. Although I believe the pixel art version is truer to my intended audience, I would like to make changes to the colours and theme of the art to more closely align with my typical style.

Physical Interface Prototypes

Since the video calling function is not running yet, the physical prototype has yet to be mounted to the walls of the school.

Video Call Platform

Getting the video call function to work was the biggest obstacle I faced in the creation of the project. I had planned on using a Figma prototype with a deep link embedded to trigger a video call on an existing video call platform. However, no existing platform had both deep link functionality and the ability to “ring” another user.

In the next stage of the project, I will experiment with using Max MSP, a multimedia programming software, to add video functionality.

User Testing and Feedback

I received a lot of useful feedback upon presenting my progress with the project. Some of the key pieces of feedback and my takeaways are summarized below:

• Not everyone in the class said they would be comfortable showing their face on a video call.
  – Perhaps I could include the option to turn off video. In this case, I would also have to consider how to facilitate situations where only one user does not want to have video on.
  – This also made me wonder- does not showing one’s face defeat the idea of building community among users, because people cannot recognize each other later and potentially build upon the connection? Maybe not, because just knowing that there are others in the school looking to engage (by any means) may build one’s sense of community and friendliness, regardless of whether that specific connection between those two users is deepened.
  
• It is a “big ask” from the user to have them video call with a stranger and discuss something personal- perhaps I could give something further to facilitate the experience.
  – Perhaps using silly video filters or having users engage in a game during the call would help reduce the magnitude of the ask
  – Providing users with instructions or more of a hint of what will happen in they send/accept a call might lessen the burden as well.
  
• Having a booth or a more private location for the video calls to be set up in might make users more comfortable to engage.
  – I will look into the feasibility of making private booths, perhaps inspired by traditional phone booths.
  – When choosing a location to install the iPads, I will try to choose lower-traffic areas (although I think it would be interesting to try both low-traffic and high-traffic areas and observe resulting differences in interaction).

Reflection and Future Directions

In it’s ideation stage, People Portals seemed like a fairly straightforward project. However, once I began making the prototype, I quickly realized that beyond having a fair amount of technological complexity, it was also a socially complex endeavour. Having users video call with a stranger requires the user to be quite vulnerable in many cases, and minimizing the burden on the user is something I believe I will need user research to achieve at this stage of the project. By observing how users interact with the current prototype upon its installation, and comparing it to future prototypes that may have changes such as a different interface, optional video during calls, or private call booths, I could gauge what variables are affecting users likelihood of partaking in a Portal call.

If the People Portals project is received positively by Emily Carr students and staff, a long term vision for the project would be to use it at other institutional settings, such as other schools or office buildings. It would also be interesting to use it in non-work environments, such as music festivals, where it would be purely “playful”.

The Service of Facilitating Meaning

The Meaning Making Machine (MMM) is the result of a 10 day collaboration between myself and my Interaction Design Studio I partner Asad Aftab. The MMM is an instrument, a tool, an interactive sculpture, and a mechanism for collaborative creation. The following is a summary of how we created the MMM, and a reflection on the lessons and future directions that emerged from the process.

Defining the User Needs

When two musicians with newly given access to Emily Carr’s Sound Lab are assigned the task of designing a service, the meaning of service is inevitably made into one that allows for musical experimentation.

We began by considering problems that may be faced by our colleagues in the MDes program that we could use music to help solve. We identified two main problem statements through informal conversation between ourselves and our peers:

1. For individuals who do not know how to play an instrument, the joy and connection of creating music with others is out of reach.
2. Many of our peers are new to Vancouver, and are looking for means of connection with others.

Ideation

Drawing from our problem statements, we began ideating “how might we” statements, including:

• How might we design a tool that allows for new connections to develop between people who share physical spaces?
• How might we allow non-musicians to experience the joy and connection that comes from creating music with others?

With Asad having a background in industrial design and myself having a background in psychology and philosophy, we began brainstorming what interactive “thing” we could make that would combine our backgrounds using the framework of “input”, “variable” (or, what about the input affected the output), and “output”.

We decided we wanted to tie in elements of mysticism to the project, to bring our classmates out of the feeling that they are sharing a space for the means of work and productivity, and rather that they were embarking on a magical journey together. We played with the idea of incorporating aspects of occult or astrology, such as fortune teller booths or horoscope generators. Ultimately, we decided to pursue our original musical ambitions, drawing inspiration from the sequencer at the ECUAD Sound Lab, anagrams, and images of moss covered rock sculptures.

The MMM uses ecosystems as an analogy for collective meaning-making. Each user’s existence and input within the group changed the output, and the meaning of the output was determined through the experience of the group.

The first layer of meaning making is the user’s choice of a card with a word on it. When put together, the cards result in a poem, which changes in meaning depending on the order the cards are placed. The cards are then inserted into one of the six slots on the body of the MMM. Each slot represents an instrument, and the order the card is inserted into the slot determines which of the six samples of the instrument play in the song that plays once all cards are inserted. The creation of the song is the second layer of meaning making, both through the decision making of the group as to what order the cards are inserted, and through the group’s interpretation of the song once it is played. Both the words on the cards and the instrument samples have meaning alone, but that meaning grows and transforms through the interaction of the group.

Prototyping

We began the process of making the MMM by breaking down the tasks to be completed into different categories using Notion.

The Form

Building the form was a great opportunity for me to learn from Asad’s background in industrial design, especially regarding the translation of 3D models into the building of a physical product.

I oversaw the transformation of the orb into a mystical mossy machine. With the help of some Youtube videos posted by a friendly British wargame model maker, I was able to create realistic looking moss by blending some kitchen sponges. I also decided to sprinkle some dirt collected from the Emily Carr parking entranceway gardens on top to ensure an organic-looking final product.

For the cards to be inserted into the MMM, I used Procreate to draw symbols I felt alluded to the mysterious and nature-inspired theme of the project. I then used Adobe Illustrate to place them in a playing card-type format, adding words to a poem I wrote that could be rearranged in any order. This would allow cards to create an added layer of meaning through poetry whichever way the users inserted them.

The Sound

Examples of possible song outputs:

The Guts

Asad took the lead on building and coding the Arduino used for the MMM. Having no prior experience myself, it was valuable to watch the process and learn more about the basics of Arduino.

The Arduinos were inserted inside the foam body, causing a blue light to emit through the card slots. They were coded to be light-activated, such that they would be triggered when a card was inserted and blocked the light of that Arduino. We chose blue lights as they created a glow similar to that of bioluminescent plankton, something still of this world but almost alien.

The Presentation

We decided to hold the presentation of the MMM in the Sound Lab, as we felt the room’s dark ambience and the instruments’ blinking lights would add to the experience of other-worldliness we aimed for. It also allowed us to have the songs play through the surround-sound speakers.

We began the presentation by having everyone gather in the Sound Lab, where the MMM was placed on a stool in the centre of the room. We then asked everyone to select one card from the table. This was followed by each participant inserting a card into the MMM one by one. Once all cards were inserted, the song generated played from the speakers.

Feedback and Future Directions

MMM as Performance Art

Dialogue following the presentation emphasized the ways in which the MMM was similar to a piece of performance art. Users felt the ways that they gathered in the room to interact with the mysterious object, collectively following instructions regarding the selection and placement of cards without knowing the outcome, and the final reveal of the song through surround sound speakers felt almost ritualistic, or like partaking in a Yoko-Ono style instructional art piece. Hearing this feedback gave me inspiration to lean further into the performative aspect of the MMM, perhaps developing it to be an interactive performance art piece for galleries, festivals, or public spaces.

MMM as an Ideation Tool

Another direction emphasized by users was the potential for the MMM to be an tool for idea generation for musicians. Like a traditional sequencer or sampler, musicians could load their samples to the MMM. The unpredictability of the outcome after cards have been inserted could lead to unexpected combinations, helping the musician take their ideas in new directions. The physical insertion of the cards also provides a unique physical connection to the sounds that may help the musician conceptualize and connect with their work in new ways.

Next Steps

• Revealing the Wizard: Having only two weeks to complete the project, we could not program the MMM to be triggered by inserting the cards as we initially planned. The project’s next stage would involve revising the code to ensure the Arduinos and the output are appropriately linked, so that we no longer have to “Wizard of Oz” our audience.
  
• Hiding the Magic: The Arduino we borrowed from the Wearables and Interactive Products Lab at ECUAD to make our model turned out to be broken when we began the coding process. We had to use a larger model in its place, which did not fit into the body of the MMM. In future iterations of the MMM, we would like to have the Arduino hidden from the user within the body in order to add to the ‘magical’ experience, and to clean up its look.
  
• There’s an App for That: To expand upon the idea of using the MMM as an ideation tool for musicians, we would like to develop an app or other screen-based external interface that users could use to load their own samples to the MMM.

The making of the MMM was not only a lot of fun but also incredibly fulfilling. It had always been a dream of mine to create a musical instrument, and this was a great introduction. I am looking forward to expanding upon the project, and using the new design skills I’ve gained to create similar musical projects in the future.

For the first project of my MDes Design Studio, we were assigned the task of creating a gift for a classmate that would help them along their design journey. The recipient of my gift, choosing a telescope as a symbol to encapsulate her goals, expressed her desire to design for Muslim populations and to incorporate storytelling in her practice.

I decided to create a notebook featuring illustrations of Islamic astronomers from history as my gift. My intention was for my classmate to write her story while being inspired by the stories of those who came before her.

Reflection

I immensely enjoyed the process of making this journal gift for my classmate. Upon presenting it to her, she commented on how she had always wanted an unlined notebook, which was something I had not considered as a feature until she noted it. It was rewarding to get to experiment with the risograph printer and with bookbinding for the first time, and I intend to continue to work on projects involving these new skills in the future.

The next steps for the project would include redesigning the cover so the crescent and star are filled with pigment instead of outlined, as I find the contrast on the cover to be lacking. I would also like to make a tape-bound version of the book to enhance it’s durability and to add further contrast.

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Some questions I’ve been exploring in my Studio work include…

What parallels can we draw between arts festivals and institutional spaces like hospitals?

How can we create stronger and less transactional connections between people who share institutional spaces?

How can we create a culture that values health and well-being among creatives?