Went to ICA

$TRAP FUNCTION$...

UTILITY POLYE$TER WEBBING PURPOSE$ 

1. DETACHABLE / ADJU$TABLE $TRAPS
2. TIE DOWN / RATCHET $TRAPS
3. DOG LEA$H
4. LIFTING $TRAPS
5. $LACKLINING
6. $USPENDERS / BELT$ / CLOTHING STRAP$
7. $EATBELTS (in space????)
8. ANYTHING EL$E YOU CAN THINK TO USE $TRAPS FOR...

GEODE$ & SOME FRE$H PROCESS WORK

I've still been super fascinated by geodes and how they form and how different conditions result in different characteristics and so on and so forth so first look at these 

Then I have some stuff in the works for new designs not sure how far I want to take them.

Spreads

I'm personally not a fan of the scrolling text. A lot of the responses I got were really long, and I feel like spreading it out a ton makes it lose its importance. Also, I don't like how the white space is activated (or lack thereof). I feel like the first or last 3 spreads would work better.

open tabs, week 14 – slate; Vestoj; "The modern field of design doesn't exist yet;" menstruation; Feltron

as of 21 November 2019

at top
discussion of visuals (styles, clean line art, "naive" illustrations, etc., and relationship to poetry and other text; how designer can find a way for any visual to work)

spreads (for Cailee) —
the "28" cycle, as an excerpt of other experiences
relationship of text (from survey responses) to image, where images and text do not match one-to-one, and in their looser relationship suggest the variety and changeability of women's experiences; text runs through page spreads, independent of images.

lower left, the vestigial (from last week) boustrophedon image

lower right, from discussion of Steven's visual alphabet/code

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Vestoj
journal, "the platform for critical thinking on fashion."

all issues available in seminar library; earlier numbers as pdf only.

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"The modern field of design doesn't exist yet."

this thread
by Erika Hall, at Mule Design

read and think about it.

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menstruation bookmarks

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Nicholas Felton
The Feltron annual reports, etc etc information design, data visualization.
 

Revised Playing Card Key

Video **not complete, premiere stopped processing the preview, and had to stop**

Song is Gooey by Glass Animals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeo3an2M_Lo

Tiling Etching Plate

 

     Lines on Etching Plate                                         Tiled

 

Fill Map of Etching Plate                                        Tiled               


**may not actually be printed in these colors**

Process Book & Google Form Responses

I spent most of the day working on my process book, which is now almost fully set up. I'm planning to send it to Lulu late next week so it will be here in time. I'm making a 'December - Next Steps' page to fill in the gap since I can't wait too long to order it. Here's some in progress spreads though :)

I also created an anonymous google form to see what people had to say about their cycles and periods. I've gotten a few responses already! Here's some samples:

"Once I took too many of my birth control pills at once. I literally overdosed on hormones. My body tore itself apart before it was ready as an act of rebellion. I bled for a week straight in the middle of my cycle. Heavy and dark and the pain never ceasing. I spent two days in my bed not being able to move. I felt like I was dying. I thought I was. Now, I fear that I caused permanent damage and I’m too scared to go to the doctor and find out."

"My “cycle” doesn’t exist. Rather, it comes when it wants and sticks around for however long it wants. 3 months of bleeding? Sucks a lot. One week? Wow a normal time frame. 6 months? I’m dying."

"While the symptoms can be awful, I do appreciate the reset of my body. It forces me to eat better, sleep more, and let go of emotions."

"Right before it starts I get wicked emotional and exhausted. Mine usually last 32-34 days, with 6-7 days of period. First day is mild, second day has the worst cramps, the rest of the time it's pretty much symptomless and low flow."

Even though its anonymous, I'm kind of surprised at how open people are writing to me. I'm really happy about it. So I was thinking, "How do these responses fit in with the 28 prints I was going to make?" Well honestly, they really don't. I'm not sure what I expected people to write, but now that I have people telling me these experiences I feel like I want to do it justice. Slapping them on next to a print out of 28 just doesn't feel right for some reason. I'm wondering, what if I take the responses I receive and make a vulva print in response to each one? Each response deserves a unique print for each unique experience. For example, someone who responded with having awful, mind numbing period symptoms would get a much more chaotic print than a response where someone experiences very mild symptoms. It can still take form of a book, but is more individualized instead of seeming stale.

If anyone here feels they have a response they'd like to share, the link is here: https://forms.gle/UEEJcJoQ3PTkLm9YA

open tabs, week 13 – boustrophedon; mirrors, fertility, capitalism, control; process books; Alyson Provax

lower left, performative definition of boustrophedon (as the ox turns) writing, left to right, next line right to left, etc etc), plowing plowing all the livelong day...

elsewhere, two attempts to suggest how mirror + iphone/camera + tripod contraption might be understood and built, for Claire.

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I mentioned this essay, on fertility (and capitalism, environmental crises, climate change, etc etc) yesterday. I add the link here, noting that an exhibition at Harvard's Graduate School of Design (through 20 December) may relate in some ways. these links (and annotations) are also at our disegno pinboard bookmark site.

May pertain more directly to Cailee's work.

1

Opinion / The End of Babies
Something is stopping us from creating the families we claim to desire. But what?
Anna Louie Sussman, The New York Times (November 16, 2019)

2

Harvard Graduate School of Design opens new exhibition: Love in a Mist
Art Daily (November 20, 2019)

Harvard Graduate School of Design is presenting a new group exhibition curated by architect-researcher Malkit Shoshan. Love in a Mist presents political, artistic, and architectural investigations of fertility, drawing on works by Dr. Rebecca Gomperts and Women on Waves, Joep van Liehout, Yael Bartana, Tabita Rezaire, Lori Brown and Desiree Dolron. The exhibition is on view at the GSD through December 20, 2019.

3

Love in a Mist (and the Politics of Fertility)

A hothouse of questions about controlling women, fertility, nature
To control women, fertility, and nature itself
Christina Pazzavanese. Harvard Gazette (November 18, 2019)

“Love in a Mist (and the Politics of Fertility),” the fall exhibition at Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), explores difficult questions of fertility, growth, and control in humans and nature.

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process books

can be self-made, or via lulu (where you'll need to create an account).
consider book/trim sizes, and paper (including cover) stock/options.

all listed at our products

if you use Lulu, get your book delivered the week BEFORE evaluations (ideally before Tuesday 10 December, our last meeting), to be sure it's here on Monday the 16th.

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Alyson Provax

maybe of interest to Nicole (especially), for her obsessive workings of simple phrases and sentences, to where they reveal more than one might have thought possible.

What are we waiting for (2019)
on tumblr
website (opens to you felt something (2 of 3))
old

aphorisms, from Criminal Minds

We are only puppets, our strings are being pulled by unknown forces. (12)

For love is the beauty of the soul

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind (13)

It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision. (11)
Helen keller

Almost all absurdity of conduct  arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble.
Samuel Johnson

With foxes, we must play the fox.
Dr. Thomas Fuller

There are no secrets better kept than the secrets that everybody guesses. (12)
George Bernard Shaw

All secrets are deep, all secrets become dark. That is the nature of secrets. (14)
Cory Doctorow

A sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ. (12)
John Steinbeck

There’s is no hunting like the hunting of a man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it. Never really care for anything else.
Hemingway

All things truly wicked start from an innocence.p (8)
Ernest Hemingway

Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark.
George Iles.

There is no greater sorrow than to recall happiness in times of misery. (13)
Dante Alighieri

For every good reason there is to lie, there is a better reason to tell the truth. (17)

The darkness always lies.
Anthony Liccione

The line dividing good and evil comes through the heart of every human being. (14)
David Bowles

When wounds are healed by love, the scars are beautiful.

Sometimes the hardest part isn't letting go but rather learning to start over. (13)
Nicole Sobon

History never repeats itself, but it often rhymes.

Time moves in one direction, memory in another.
William Gibson

We all have a monster within; the difference is in degree, not in kind.

Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.

There can be no good without evil.
Russian proverb

If you win say nothing, if you lose say less.

Let your heart feel for the affliction and distress of everyone.
George Washington

He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.
Lao Tzu

You can gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in witch you really stop to look fear in the face.
Eleanor Roosevelt

Find the place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.
Joseph Campbell

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls. The most massive characters are seared with scars.
Khalil Gibran

How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.
Wayne Dyer

Death ends a life, not a relationship.
Mitch Albom

Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming it.
Helen Keller

Geode Process #SLICKINSPACE

Extraterrestrial mineral geodes floating in space with green and purple smoke raising through and around them #SlickInSpace

Im still gonna do the mask and the mirrors

As I was reading Wild Mind yesterday I came across a section that spoke about projection and how you cannot always view others negatively because, in reality, you are the one projecting a quality onto someone else and you are most likely oblivious to this very projection. Anything can be a mirror including the people you find the most undesirable.

The next thing that really grabbed my attention was the words "looking behind the mirror" so I figured I could use those words for inspiration, therefore, I created a mask but instead of mirrors on the outside what if they were all on the inside being representative of how we can hide ourselves so well that no one can actually know or understand your true self.

The taste of the comb

Sitting between her legs.
I was prepared for the worse
A Painful torture, awaits me
My body shifting left to right like a roller coaster
I cry under my breath to avoid punishment.
Don't move! She would say.
My body turns into a statue upon her threats.
Sitting between her legs
The pain felt everlasting pains.
Stiff neck, Trembling ankle, numb legs
I longed for an ending

—

The painful experience I endured as a child from my mother when doing my little sister and my hair. I will always go first just to get it over with, then laugh when it's Nana's turned.

Playing Cards

I was tossing around the idea of creating an abstract deck of playing cards that can only be understood if you have the key.