Project 2 : 3D Model #2 : Observe

After the critique of our first 3D models, we had to create a second in 1 hour. This one was much easier as the idea came to me the moment we were asked to do a second. However, my first visuals of it (in my head) were red straws, more interactive, and more "crazy". Given the parameter of time and the lack of red straws at the grocery store, my model visual turned a slight corner.

MATERIALS USED: Straws, clear "monofliament" thread, Scotch tape, foam core board
TIME: 1 hour and 10 minutes (this includes the the time it took me to untangle my cats from the thread and clean up the water that spilled in the process of untangling them, a video of me making this would have been more interesting)

Photos courtesy Gretchen Rinnert, Valentina Miosuro, and Michele Wong Kung Fong.

Project 2 : 3D Model #1 : Observe

BACKGROUND: As a class, we had an interactive brainstorm via iChat, it proved to be an interesting and fun experience. We each selected a word, mine was observe (hence the written narrative on "Observe"). During the brainstorm, we did a "What if..." scenario for each word, creating quite obscure lists. We then had to chose one of our "What if's" and build a 3D model of it in 2 hours.

My chosen "What if" was: "What if OBSERVATION was seven dimensions of experience."

These cubes represent this phrase. I found that there are scientific and mathematical theories supporting the notion that we actually live in 7 dimensions rather than 3. Those dimension are (if your curious) the 3 spacial dimensions of length, height, width, the concept of time and then 3 non-physical dimensions which can be defined several ways depending on what you are reading, but I found mass-energy, knowledge, and spirituality to be the most convincing. The seven cubes represent the different dimensions, the various sizes of cubes represent the dimensions dependent on the given experience.

MATERIALS USED: Glue, String, Wax Paper, Clear packing tape
TIME: The collective time of drying, thinking and building accumulates to more than 2 hours. Building took at least 3...I guess I broke the rules.

Photos courtesy Alberto Rigau.

Project 2 : Narrative 2 : Observe

They only came out at night that summer. Once the sun had set and the neighborhood kids went inside, the sound of the garage door opening indicated their departure from the depths of the house next door. What they did inside all day was an unsolved mystery to my friend Tira and I, but at night we had an opportunity to fulfill our curiosities and watch the neighbor boy and his friends partake in a nightly ritual of basketball.

These boys were the highlight of our day, watching them seemed to enlighten some unknown insights of an unruly tribe. Of course we went to school with boys, but they were the ones we watched grow into gross beings that ate glue and made fart noises with their arm pits. The boys playing basketball in the driveway next door were nearly a year or two older and they went to the public school, these characteristics alone made us want to know more about this particular breed of boy.

We had a few almost perfect spots in my house for sneaking peeks at our subjects of interest as our house merely sat feet away from their driveway. If we arranged ourselves in a certain way, we could get a decent view out of my sister’s bedroom. After negotiating with her to go do something better, we would shut out the lights and go to the far end of the windows and peer through the mini-blinds. Being the taller of the two, I would awkwardly stand and Tira would take the lower tier, kneeling just above the edge of the windowsill. We would carefully pry open the blinds just enough to catch the boys’ shadows, if we moved further to the right we had a full view of the scene before us. Occasionally one of them would come even closer to retrieve the ball that went into the yard, we would then quietly snort and giggle at the near risk of losing our cover.

In this position we were able to accurately study the boys in their activity of play. We recognized right away that they were not the best of basketball players; they even lowered the basketball goal to get a better success rate at their slam dunk shots. This didn’t matter to us as we found this to be a humbling factor. Every once in awhile they would bring out the round single trampoline and prop it up slightly to create a perfect angle allowing them to get a better jump in on their dunks. They would call each other “Jordan” and high-five after a good 5 minutes of consistent rotations of dunks. They had this play down to a science.

After several summer nights of risking our cover to satisfy our obsessive inquiry, Tira and I began to cut back on the number of nights we viewed the boys from behind the blinds. Ironically, their nightly practice of basketball tricks came to a halt. We wondered then if this was just a clever production put on for our amusement.

Project 2 : Narrative 1 : Rules

Dots should work just fine. This thought occurred to me as I prepared the new bottle of Elmer’s glue for my first Kindergarten project. Sitting in front of me was a poem about flowers that had just been cut into a circle with my butter-knife sharp scissors. The poem was to be glued to the center of a bright red piece of construction paper that had been cut into the shape of a flower.

My classmates and I all sat patiently with our newly cut circles and glue bottles in hand, awaiting the rules for the gluing step. My past experiences with gluing projects proved to make me an expert and I required no such rules. I decided to proceed with this next task in the project. Very carefully I flipped over the piece of paper with the poem and began to put little subtle dots of glue over the surface. I didn’t want to create too much of a mess because some of my other projects ended with a gooey disaster.

“What do you think you are doing?” snapped Ms Boxterman looming high above me. She startled me so much that it caused me to squeeze a little too hard on the bottle and suddenly my paper circle had a pool of glue covering it. My classmates oooed with excitement over someone getting in trouble.

“Becky, I did not tell you to begin, you were supposed to wait for the rules. Dots are not how you use glue. You were to create lines on the red flower and then smooth them out. Now you have created a mess.” I was then told to clean up my mess and go wait in the corner while the others finished their floral masterpieces. Sitting alone in the bright red chair facing the wall, tears ran down my face having learned my first rule of design. Lines, not dots, is how glue is to be used.

Project 2 : Writing Assignment

Write a narrative, a story, about one of the terms, buzz words, etc. we've identified, i.e. Design-It-Yourself, peer production, co-creation, etc. (you've got plenty to choose from).

What will be compelling for someone to read.
What would you like to read?

Definitions of story from google:define:
• narrative: a message that tells the particulars of an act or occurrence or course of events; presented in writing or drama or cinema or as a radio ...
• a piece of fiction that narrates a chain of related events; "he writes stories for the magazines"
• history: a record or narrative description of past events; "a history of France"; "he gave an inaccurate account of the plot to kill the president"; "the story of exposure to lead"
• report: a short account of the news; "the report of his speech"; "the story was on the 11 o'clock news"; "the account of his
• speech that was given on the evening news made the governor furious"
• fib: a trivial lie; "he told a fib about eating his spinach"; "how can I stop my child from telling stories?