Category: Story Telling

Nordes 2021 – Exploratory Paper

Had a wonderful time this week (virtually) attending my first Nordes conference! In addition to attending the wonderful workshop Life Stories for Collaborative Survival, I also presented the exploratory paper Scaling Bodily Fluids for Utopian Fabulations, a design collaboration with Marie Louise Juul Søndergaard and Nadia Campo Woytuk. Slide GIF below. Very much hope to attend future Nordes conferences!

Scaling Bodily Fluids for Utopian Fabulations through Collage-Making

WORKSHOP CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS – On May 18th at 14.00 CET, join Nadia Campo Woytuk, Marie Louise Juul Søndergaard, and me in an online workshop at this year’s Uroboros festival: Scaling Bodily Fluids for Utopian Fabulations through Collage-Making!!

Thesis Narrative: Final Plot & Radio Show Script

The Family Circuit Narrative

Plot
Lotta Power wants her home to be ranked highly on the energy produciton list in the weekly shag. Home brochure. When she doesn’t see the Power family listed as a top net energy producer in Newtown, she becomes irritated. The brochure highlights the energy harvesting potential of the piezoelectric shag Carpet Footprint already installed in the Power family’s central home energy system. In order to stimulate more energy production while also inhibiting consumption, she hides Max’s headphones so he cannot work on his ambient DJ album. Frustrated, as she anticipated, Max begins searching frantically, running around the house and thus generating electricity as his feet rub and pounded on the shag carpet. Though, in his fervent searching, he causes a ruckus and wakes sleeping Minnie frightfully from her nap. As Minnie begins to cry profusely, she no longer sucks on the energy harvesting Pacify Her that Robin personally uses to charge her smartphone. Right as Minnie drops the Pacify Her, Robin receives a text notification about a new submission to Suburban Dictionary, the website she founded and manages, but doesn’t have time to read it before her phone dies. As Minnie is still crying and refuses the Pacify Her, Robin begins to suck on it herself. Otto wishes to watch the morning news before heading to work, but sees the television is low on power and Lotta has disconnected it from the central home energy system. As he observes Robin awkwardly with the Pacify Her, he luckily has just enough power in his phone to seize the opportunity to take a photo and post it to Instagram. Just as Robin’s phone turns back on, charged by the pacifier, she sees the image Instagram and becomes furious. Since she doesn’t want to loose power in her phone and thus continues sucking on the pacifier and expresses her anger through violent gestures. Luckily, she is wearing the Temper Trap purchased by Otto, which harvests energy from vigorous movement and skaking. As she intensely expresses her emotions over the photo, Otto is able to wirelessly charge the TV with energy harvested from the Temper Trap. Overheated from emotion, Robin turns on the air conditioning, which is part of the central home energy production system, draining the house of all recently produced energy. The Power family is no powerless.

The Family Circuit: A New Narrative of American Domesticity

Last Friday was IxD thesis gateway presentations – more so a private discussion with tutors and reviewers to assess our thesis progress, plans, and priorities for the upcoming five weeks. As my thesis is taking a strong design fiction direction, I did not give a presentation, yet read my draft narrative. To be completed this week, but please enjoy the preview below… it’s proudly quite ‘punny’ (wink wink).

The Family Circuit: A New Narrative in American Domesticity

The Family Circuit: A New Narrative of American Domesticity

It was a cloudy morning in early May, as were most days in Newtown. Otto Power approached the front door to check the weather, only to encounter resistance. Annoyed at the door’s conduct (tivity), he countered the friction with force, and it hesitantly opened – subtly challenging his potential motive while also directly insinuating the impending consequence. Going outside before breakfast was a break in Otto’s usual morning routine, especially for a weekday, and the mental energy used by the intelligent door to evaluate the uncommon situation would cost him the required electricity for a warm cup of coffee. Otto already speculated as much, for it was rare to have a morning electrical surplus. But he had woken with a vague yet irrepressible weight growing in his body, for Otto Power was tired. And so the forthcoming electricity sacrifice failed to impede the growing hope of a different day, and as he stepped outside he thoughtfully wondered aloud, “Will it be windy today?”

Family Circuit – Project Name & Inspiration

FINALLY got around to naming my thesis project due to some much needed pressure as all graduating students were asked to submit a selection of project information for the UID’14 Design Talks upcoming webpage. After a serious brainstorm yesterday morning, I came up with ‘Family Circuit,’ a subtle play and similarity to ‘Family Circus’ as recent developments in my project have brought forward the the family dynamics, individual characters, daily energy rituals, and cohesive storyline as a central focus of both my ideation and final deliverables. Which, on that note, also brings to light that though prioritized highly in my original goals, I’ve come to the realization that working energy harvesting prototypes are not essential to communicate my concept, and thus will take a back seat if explored at all. On the fun side, I’ve very much enjoyed this week researching and watching films featuring dysfunctional families – Wes Anderson perhaps being most influential. Great Wes Anderson Montage below by Alejandro Prullansky:

Though, its quite hard to top my favorite film family of all time – the Hoover family from Little Miss Sunshine.

Little Miss Sunshine family inspiration