Dialogue Stage II

My final design for the dialogue project was well developed and of a higher level than I had been working with before. After gaining some reassurance from Tommy and Dana I decided to sit down and just draw. I began with drawing designs that I could possibly work with but when that began to go nowhere I started drawing the different materials used in the project. I manipulated paper while folding and twisting it and I also started drawing the skewers at a variety of angles and bends. To narrow down what I had to work with I selected the skewers that were subtly but noticeable bent and drew then side by side and arranging them in different ways that could create two spaces.

While arranging the skewers on the paper I came up with a simple but what seemed to be strong concept. In the way that the skewers were arranged there were two obvious spaces and by adding index cards to the sides, center, top, and bottom I could define the two spaces and see how they related to one another. My defending sketch looked very similar to the third image above.

While working with the skewers I found that the subtle bends I wanted were easily achieved and held in places without steaming. I divided my skewers into three groups and bent all the skewers with each set progressively more bent in a subtle way. I then glued three index cards together that were shorter than the skewers and then glued four skewers with equal spacing to the index cards. I decided that since the index cards were shorter I would leave only the sharp tip of the skewers poking out at the top and then a larger amount of the skewers sticking out at the bottom to allow the design to seem not so closed in but did not take away from the dialogue of two spaces. I then played with the three pieces I had made until I had an arrangement that I found suitable. I then connected the skewers to the base and added an index card with a curve to keep the curves consistent.

Dialogue Stage I

The addition of dialogue to the unity project eased my worry that I would not be able to come up with a decent concept because I then had a better idea as to where I needed to take the design. My materials were again limited to 12 bamboo skewers, 12 index cards, and a rubber glue like bonding agent. I knew at this point that I wanted to try something different and make an attempt at bending my skewers. I spent a few night playing with skewers and a steamer while i tried to vary the curvature of the skewer. When I mentioned to my father that I needed a way to hold the skewers in place while they set to a drastic bend he mentioned that I could place them inside a coffee can. That was the technique that I used to bend the skewers in my first "draft" of the dialogue project.

After steaming and bending over 20 skewers in the coffee can I began messing with them to see what kind of dialogue I could create with them. The point was to create dialogue between two spaces within the one design and I found it quite difficult to create only two spaces with the skewers being so dramatically bent. I finally came upon the design above knowing that it did have more that two spaces but it was a start and critiques from my peers would help to move the process further along.