The Process Project : NCSU

So, just thinking, dont know how final these are but just wanted to put my thoughts down to see if they follow through, work out, or completely change.Im just puttin my comments on here to see what other people are thinking before we get in our groups I was a little confused starting this project so I just tried to really understand the 3 words given as parameters. ... so automatically I think food, I dont know why but that is something temoral and lasts for a brief time when eaten. Anyways, I thought this based on the number of homeless people I saw there from my prior observations. But then I didnt want to have my limitations set on the homeless people, I wanted to think of someone else besides my first thought to share something with. Then I thought about the information guy, Vance that works in the booth. There must be something he would want to see or happen during a day that he is working, so I thought I could talk to him and ask him and try to execute a plan similar to what his desires may be. Then I thought of some kind of present sitting out in the middle of the square, and video tape peoples reactions, who would pass by it or open it. I dont know what would be in it.
So today, I am thinking more and read Maggies comments and thought about the snow and weather. I thought today was perfect because of the wind. Its temporal, fleeting, changes, very windy at times and not. So, I thought about kites, mabye I could give someone a kite, maybe it has a message in it,on it or not, but just the fact that someone can enjoy it, get something out of it, have a child like experience, and use it in a park where people could fly kites. Its almost like a sense of freedom and getting a person to have fun. Going about this project with a different approach; instead of collecting data and making observations, I can give someone something that displays a message and maybe it reflects my previous observations or not. These are just some of my thoughts.

Sarah...reading your post is comforting b/c i've gone through nearly the very same thought process. Only except for kites...I thought balloons. I too thought of the guy in the booth but then thought that he would be too easy/obvious of a decision and that several others may choose him as well. I am still very much in the brainstorming stage, and I can't wait to get together with my group to talk b/c as of right now I feel like I'm missing the key...the one little thing that will make it all fall into place.

Having a brief posted helps to clarify things b/c at first I wasn't sure if the subject was something fleeting or if it was to be the medium. I know there is a possibility for both.

I just remembered that last night I dreamt about this project and ideas for it. What I remember was focusing on the seasonal. In the dream I made a flipbook going through the seasons in the park. This isn't what i'm going with but the idea of a flipbook was interesting to me because it isn't something in the middle of the park. It is a small piece that an individual would experience privately.

hey, cool, im glad im not way out there and you felt the same way and in the same similar stages. That would be cool about the flipbook, it is def a personal experience. If you did the seasonal thing I dont know how you would get all the pix of the park and the different seasons, but it would be cool to make a flip book of your baloon idea, or thinking about a bunch of balloons with a message on them, or even how you could get messages in them and then maybe have a game where the person pops them and its like a fortune cookie. I dunno, I think sticking with the baloon idea is kewl.

I also have another question. Do we have to give this item or thing to the person before our crit on wed? or can we make it show it to the class and then give it to them?? I didnt know if our experience with the person was important to share with the class on Wednesday. Lata!

my impression was that we don't have to give it to the person...although incouraged...
she said that she isn't requiring us to interact so it would depend on your idea and how far you wanted to take it

Oh! I am so glad I've been reading these posts ... I thought giving it to the person was the point, and that the moment of them getting it was what we are really making ... so, I thought I would do sparklers. I don't know who to give one to but I was thinking of giving someone (probably random) in the square a sparkler (hopefully they would take it) and taping their reaction. I don't know if that would be enough material for a project. I guess I'll just bring the sparklers to the group meeting tonight and see what Alison and you think, Stephanie. Maybe I am on the wrong track entirely with that idea.

Hey ladies, I like the ideas for wind and how you are thinking of objects that are affected by it. Maybe something to think about is how things change when the wind is strong vs when it is slow. or maybe how other weather conditions affect the way the wind affects things. I'm not sure that might be too much, but also is something kinda interesting to think about.

My main method of collecting for this one has been by listing words that are descriptive of the place, of my subject, and some feelings.

My subject, audience, whatever is a man that Very much interested me when I was at Nash square recently. I am guessing he is homeless and he was all bundled up, had a worn tierd face, no gloves, chapped hands, and under one arm he was carrying several shuffled spiral notebooks. The notebooks make me think is a writer of sorts, and that that is his thing, outlet, etc.

He got me to thinking that homeless people probably don't see anything around them execpt from the vantage point of street level. This made me think of the man and how he would probably appriciate something of a new experience in the familier place of nash square. I though of platforms and swings. And am kinda stuck on the swing idea now.

I've been thinking about the whole swing idea and how the feeling/perspective of swinging is a fleeting/temporary/ephemeral perspective. I'm thinking of going and buying rope and a board and making a quick swing in the park, photographing it documenting the feeling. or the pleasure something like that can bring, the childhood memories it connects with the carefreeness etc.

I'm not sure where this will lead me but it is what I am investigating now. comments welcome.

ive been confused as to whether the fleeting thing had to be an experience or an object. so ive been stuck on an idea of presenting the person with an invitation... to an area event i find online, or something as mundane as the soup kitchen for dinner (which is more with keeping inside the square, but might be presumptuous, as well.)

more experience-wise: have also considered giving the guy who asked me for a cigarette, some cigarettes, which is as direct as i can be, tho not entirely helpful. or offering to watch another guys stuff, if he wanted to leave his bench for a wee bit.

implementation of any of these is entirely up to how bold i feel at time of going back to the park, and whether or not i can find these persons again.

final idea came from this article:
http://www.camnc.org/about/releases/033103.html
but i dont know if there is good time, what with the unfriendly weather, or how legal randomly placing artwork about would be, if thats a concern. to think about it...

p.s. Britt, every park needs a swing, yes!

Hi, it has been nice to read everyone's comments and also to see Maggie's written assignment brief.

I too first began to think about food. I'm not sure if this is in response to my experience and final project before or more of a natural reaction. What I was thinking about was making someone something to eat and then giving it to them. The more I analyzed the assignment, I've begun to think more about what is ephemeral as much as looking it up in the dictionary, it is a markedly short-lived thing.

Now, from the wording of that specific definition, I've gone in the direction of planting a flower in the park— a flower that would surely die in this weather. I think that I would place it in a more visible area than the designated "plant/flower divisions." I would like to plant it very close to a bench because my first interaction with anyone at the square was a man watching me the whole time from a bench. So he would be my audience and then I would document the flower over time. .

I'm continuing to think about temporariness and what this means. I've also considered writing a letter to one of the passerbys in the square. Or placing flyers on cars.

Lastly, I've considered creating a "painting" on the sidewalks in water that would quickly disappear. Maybe even a trial of my walk through the park. I think that this would make the comment on the differing engagements with the park and pose the question if any of them are lasting?

I'm really confused, and I keep rereading the question? And still for all of my ideas, I'm not sure what is to be presented? Our documentation of the experience?

Any advice would be great.

Great thoughts, my friends! The original motivation for the theme was to bring attention to something impermanent (fleeting, ephemeral, temporary...) that exists within the site.

One way to advance your ideas might be to ask yourself why you would do that? And for whom? Revisiting the site is important. Remember that we are trying to step outside of ourselves this semester and learn to think through making. Documentation is one way of making and that yielded a lot of interesting results for the last project. Try gathering material and beginning to play with it, not knowing for certain what it might lead to.

Try to get away from creating a grand concept right away and then building it. Because these assignments are short, I'm hoping you'll take more risks. Some of your projects might not work out and that is okay. Keyword: process.

What are the formal qualities, materials, or processes associated with something impermanent? What are the formal qualities that stand in contrast to it? (Names carved in stone, for example.)

What happens when you find a poetic, fleeting moment and fix it in time somehow? Will your medium reflect your message or stand in contrast to it? There are no right answers here. Just reflect upon the theme and find something you feel is significant or meaningful.

No, you don't have to have shared your piece with your audience by Wednesday. You will not be required to actually share it with anyone in the site; though I would certainly welcome you to do so.

Reading the assignment, it sounds more like we’re supposed to illuminate or draw attention to something in the squares that is fleeting or impermanent (?). I was thinking about that big acorn. It’s there and it is, in a way, a symbol of Raleigh, but no one really pays attention to it. Or maybe they do? Kind of a crazy idea but my first thought was someone needs to douse that thing with lighter fluid and set it ablaze. That’ll get people’s attention. Probably not the best idea, but it gets me thinking. Maybe my audience could be one of those cops on his little bicycle. *riiiiing riiiiiing*

The idea of using fire to illuminate things has gotten me thinking about the memorials around in Nash square (don’t worry; I’m not going to catch them on fire, I promise). Part of my first project was to draw attention to the names on those memorials that have long since been forgotten. I’ve seen candles at such memorials before where people light them, I guess, to remember someone special who is represented by these memorials. One of the questions that Maggie has asked is why would I do that? For whom would I do that? Perhaps my audience is no longer alive? Perhaps my audience itself is fleeting and temporary and has already left us?

I liked what Maggie said about resisting the urge to start with some great concept and developing it. What if instead I just made some stuff and see where it leads? I think that’s the idea here. Learning to take risks in a safe and non-threatening environment (i.e. one in which we won’t get fired if it doesn’t yield anything).

Like Britt and Sarah, I have been looking at the effects of the wind for most of this project. The wind is temporal in itself, but also creates a scene which immediately disappears. All of these things which are essentially stable begin to fly around, light patterns change, and the temperature drops. When the gust is over, everything is righted again.

I get stuck in the exploration when I try to decide who this will be for. I like the idea of capturing the chaotic mess that you see for a second before things become normal. However, I wonder who could benefit from seeing this? At this point I've decided to keep an audience in mind, and as I get into form I can guide it towards someone in response to what develops. It's easy to get stuck in the thinking stage, and forget how much things change when you make it visual for the first time.

So, I went to the square for a while tonight. I went there with the ideas of focusing on water and on plants as temporary items that can communicate a need to slow down and to call attention to otherwise ignored things.

When I got to the park, I walked around a lot. I think that I was influence a lot by the cold weather and the wind. With all the wind, I could hardly ignore it. My attention was drawn to the trees. I noticed that many business men didn't follow my views though and stayed straight looking down. This is when I got the idea to document the trees in motion with the wind. I took a lot of photos in sequence and had an idea about diagraming the exact position between the movements, etc. My audience would be the young businessman walking by, and I would like to comment to him to look up and notice the trees. In my very abstract mind, I was thinking that this could have impact on his work and decisions at work— if he looked into the trees and more into the distant, he would focus on the present more.

Once I had foiled this idea out in my head, I was led to a different idea— back to the plants. I found a bundle of leaves grouped together on one stem. As I examined the leaves, I focused on the veins running through all of them. This made me think of the visual metaphor that the leaf contained— paths through the limited space or veins through the shape of the leaf. I began to draw over the lines of the veins on the leaf. . . .

Now, I'm lost and confused. One thing that I keep thinking back to is making the leaf (actual leaf) into an invitation to hand to the business man "inviting" him to recall that we are all connected and sharing this space.

Am I in the right direction? In need of a response : )

Kerr, I think you're going in the right direction. Mainly, you have an audience, an ephemoral object (leaves, or wind patterns of them), and a possible design idea for how to connect the two (the invitation). Maybe just making a bunch of variations of invitations on this theme will help you better understand it? It sounds to me like you're nailing down the project better though. Good luck

Yesterday when we went to the square during studio I noticed right away that the mass of seagrass that had been in the center of the park the night before was now cut down and strewn about. I also recognized for the first time all the serviceable parts of the space: the water meters, electrical boxes, trash cans. Before I only thought of the guy in the booth as the single employee of the park, but in fact, there are lots of people (from the Parks and Rec dept, I found out) that have to do landscaping and trash pickup. Moore Square is probably more important to them than to us or the passersby, or even the homeless that hang out there, because it is their job to take care of it. Even if they don't pick up the trash often enough for our liking, they change the trash regularly and so forth.

There were a lot of tire tracks and footprints, fresh mulch, and other traces of their activity too. I took some photos of these things to remind myself later of what I saw. I know a person who works in this capacity at Pullen Park (a regular Starbucks customer of mine) and he told me a little about the work, who's in charge of that are (name's Jerry, and he has a team of people). Just knowing more about this job got me thinking about the square in a totally different way. I noticed, for example, that not all the trash cans in the square had bags in them, although almost all had trash in them. Have you ever tried to empty a trash can with no bag? Disgusting mess. I finally felt connected to the square because I am a service worker too and I know what it's like to come around like a fairy and clean up and make things accessible without anyone paying attention to your work. Wouldn't it be nice to thank these people? One of these workers will be my audience, even though I don't know him or her specifically.

As for highlighting something temporary in the square, I thought I could incorporate that by making a thank you note or present that would show the effects of the environment on it, OR something that would purposely avoid the effects of weather for the sake of preservation. Either way, I think my object would bring up the temporary nature of what is brought to the square for any purpose: like I said in my email to Maggie, the square seems to me a relatively permanent canvas for our temporary gatherings, passage, trash, consumption of things, even plantings and daily work tasks. Things that are left in the square, or put there (like plants or monuments) would eventually break down also because of the action of weather and time. So, my thing will be a thank you that has to be taken away from the square to remain permanent if I make it weather-permeable. Or, maybe it has to spin in the wind or get wet to reveal the message. I want to show that everything is relatively impermanent in the square because of the action of these forces.

I think, now that I feel I am getting it better, the project was confusing at first because I am making a message about one thing (a thank you message) and another message about something fleeting in the square, and connecting them. The hard part is connecting two messages, and before I didn't think to do that, I thought I needed one message to say two things (connection to an individual and something about fleeting moments in Moore square). That singular message was too elusive for me to find, so I think this is like a workaround or something.

Geez this is going to be a long post. Sorry guys!

hmm... actually I don't know about my so-called workaround. I'm having problems making that work too! argh

Ok, so I've been working on this idea involving the benches in the park and the people who sit on them/their "fleeting" time spent there...earlier this week i put little "guest books" on 4 different benches, hoping that people would fill in information about themselves while sitting there. This was, I'm afraid, a quasi-total bust. Only one book had responses, and out of the four that were there, one was Ali (thanks!) and two were from some guys I gave money to. there was one genuine, unforced response, though! and even though i was hoping for more like 20 or so, there is still something exciting about getting feedback from something you put out there. now i'm curious to see the guy who filled it out.

Anyway, I'm trying to figure out where to go from here. My original intention was to create a sort of record of the people who had sat on the bench to present to the "next" person who sat there. But seeing as how I have very little data to use, I am thinking about switching gears. I am thinking about looking more at the individual's experience of sitting there and not the past bench folk. When I was at the square this morning, I was thinking of different ways I could distort the image of the park then force the viewer to connect it back to where they are. Or at least slow them down enough to make them stop and consider where they are and what they're doing. Sooooo then I thought about creating a "You Are Here" something (like on those maps where it tells you your location)....the purpose being to make the viewer stop and actually consider where they are and why they're there instead of just passing through? (I know it's pretty late in the game to be making big decisions like this, but here I am doing it anyway...)

I'm a bit confused by this whole project. How I see my project thus far is that I designed something that "illuminates something fleeting, temporary, or ephemeral" to a specific audience of one person. For me, my design was in the environment of the square (Thanks James Smith. Have a nice day). My documentation of that design is two photographs that show what I did.

Yesteday, Maggie told us to consider "where our design lives." I was assuming that our designs live in the hands of our specific audience or somewhere in the square for our specific audience to consume. For studioI further assumedwe could either bring in an actual copy of our design (whose real context was that of the square), or some sort of documentation of the design.

From what we saw yesterday, though, people have done a lot of different things. Some people have designed something that illuminates something temporary, to a specific audience, in the square (i.e. Ali B., Kerry). Some people have designed documentation of an attempt to illuminate something temporary to someone in the square (i.e. me). Still others have illuminated something temporary but for the purpose of conveying a larger idea to an audience of studiomates, professor, etc. (i.e. Alison, Britt, Graham).

I just feel like its very confusing because everyone has interpreted this assignment to mean something different. Are we all correct? Am I overanalyzing? Do you presume me base?

I see what you mean forrest. i took this project to be just like our subject/content - something fleeting. the hardest part to me was brainstorming how i wanted to go about this concept. implementation and documentation was the easy part. because of this we all had drastically different methods of "doing" and this garned a plethora of solutions. it was great to see everyone's work yesterday. i'm just now curious what more can be done? i feel as if i squeezed everything out in the last part....so where do we go from here? how do we make it more designed? i was mentally ready to be done yesterday. this is too much for my brain

I've been thinking the most since class yesterday about where my project would/could live......and I'm having a difficult time coming up with an answer. Any thoughts or ideas?

I am feeling everyone's confusion. Today I went out for a long time in the bitterly cold park and tried to follow my process where it led me. I walked around with my invitation artifact from before and photographed it in different locations.

I'm stuck now between two directions: continuing with this "conceptual" piece and do a photography piece on where it lives. And making a more "practical" designed piece taking my initial idea and following it through to like a set of cards that could be sold in the information desk area....

ideas? I'm having a hard time because I went through a lot of stuff before Wednesday and I felt resolved... now to go further doesn't seem appropriate?

comments?

In response to kerr and Stephanie's last posts, I feel your confussion/difficulties and think that both of you had really great messages in your first projects. There is no need to rethink the concept or even the medium in which the concept was presented. I think the next step for both of you, and that goes for everyone, is to take the things we did for Wednesday and think about how they could work as a unit in some way. I think kerr's idea of making a more "practical" design is one way to go maybe making a set of cards or a collection of something, but it would also be neat to see the "unpractical" side of this where the design would not go to a specific person instead relate a message or idea that is worthwhile. Packaging is one way of making these lofty ideas into something more practical, but how cool would it be to see something that could not be used or completely understood.
Personally, my project began as an experience and turned into something where the viewer could experience one small aspect of my experience. I feel that taking it too much further might even defeat the whole purpose of what I was trying to convey. Maybe if I put these "cards" into a box it would ground them and add some importance to the work, but the small problem I am facing at this moment is there is just not enough time to explore all the possibilities this project has to offer. and as a sidenote: I can't wait to do some drawing in class tomorrow!

I agree with Kerr(y) because I also felt that I had resolved the project. I felt that I designed for a specific person and to make a unit or group of something would be defeating the purpose of the project. However, I do think creating a set of cards for different individuals that go through the park on a regular basis is a great idea, but it's not realistic to do in a day and a half.

I think the entire collection of these short projects would make a fine "portfolio" piece. They show that we can find infinite types of inspiration in one space which I think is very important.

Surprisingly, I'm pretty pumped about this project, now. Last night and this morning I think I finally figured out this whole "thinking through making" thing. I was pretty frustrated with what I had and didni't feel like it was really saying anything. So I just started making stuff using the photographs that I took from the square. After aimlessly making for awhile, I started trying to control my message a bit...whatever thoughts I had, I would try to see how I could connect that with the visuals that I had in front of me.

The end result, I think, doesn't have a great deal to do with the square but it was inspired by the square. It's not anywhere close to where I started with on this proejct, but it's where my process has lead me, I think.

Whether or not this satisfies the assignment is sort of irrelevant to me at this point. I'm just really psyched about letting my process go and seeing where it leads. I came up with stuff I never would have thought of otherwise.