Ideating a design project
This week, I focused on different lenses and prompts to come up with ideas for my design project.
Which Research Lens (or lenses) are you most interested in? Why?
I would like to take a speculative approach to my research. As designers and creative technologists, I believe one of our most important roles is to reinvent the lens through which we look at the world, and to imagine and innovate accordingly. I would like to contribute to that in my own way.
Which Creative Focal Point (or points) are you most interested in? Why?
I would like to explore the aesthetic and tools/technologies focal points. I think conceptualisation and stylistic considerations are very important for an engaging project that people can experience and interact with. Additionally, I would like to build on my own skillset by choosing the tools or techniques that work best with my concept and exploring their potential.
Theme/Topic
I cycled through a lot of ideas while considering what I’m going to focus on for a design project. I considered continuing my work from last semester, which was a data vis model of NYC based around the theme of colour. I also considered working on a different kind of data visualisation model, or using machine learning models, but I decided I’d like to explore something else this semester.
I am an architect by training, and I’ve always liked working with space and how people interact with it. I’d like to carry this theme into my design project, so I’ll work on/with a spacial model, and/or explore how people behave in space.
I imagine my project to lie somewhere between data visualsation and generative art, grounded in people and/or space. I’m drawing inspiration from a variety of sources.
1D Shadow by Carlos J. Gomez de Llarena, which maps the physical colours people are wearing in a space and projects them onto a wall to create a colourful representative shadow.
The Living Portrait of NYC, an interactive experience that was exhibited last year representing different datasets of NYC in engaging ways.
Augmentation
I initially struggled to connect with the theme of augmentation. Although I’m still not very comfortable with the theme, I’m going to explore ways it can inspire me and give direction to my project.
Augmentation, for me, in this context, means to enhance or increase - to add perspective or experience that perhaps did not exist before, broadening people’s points of view or perspectives. I’d like to explore augmentation as a means for addition - how can I take an ordinary experience for people in the city and use it to create something that will let people view the same experience with a different lens?
Project Ideas
Some very rudimentary project ideas:
Mapping how people walk in the city and using it to create a visual representation of the speed of New Yorkers
Mapping crowd density - tourist and local - and using it to visualise where/when people like to go
Calculating the ratio of built form to flora in the city and visualising that contrast
