TOOLS SERIES #3: AFTER THE BIT
RUSH POST DIGITAL DESIGN TOOLS, a workshop organized
by
Baltan
Laboratories and hosted at
MU Eindhoven in the framework
of
After the Bit Rush,
design in a post-digits age. Unfold gave the workshop together
with
Lucas Maassen,
co-curater on the show.
The assignment:
Digital tools are often based their analog
counterparts. But in their digital context they are used to perform
very different tasks. Many times they evolve into new independent
digital design tools. Is it possible to do the same thing in the
reverse? Can we create analog tools based on their digital
counterparts? During the workshop, participants explored
these possible transformations with designers Maassen and Unfold.
In the evening, the results of the day-long workshop were presented
during a public showing.
TOOLS SERIES
#3: AFTER THE BIT RUSH POST DIGITAL DESIGN TOOLS, a
workshop organized by
Baltan
Laboratories and hosted at
MU Eindhoven in the framework
of
After the Bit Rush,
design in a post-digits age. Unfold gave the workshop together
with
Lucas Maassen,
co-curater on the show.
The assignment:
Digital tools are often based their analog
counterparts. But in their digital context they are used to perform
very different tasks. Many times they evolve into new independent
digital design tools. Is it possible to do the same thing in the
reverse? Can we create analog tools based on their digital
counterparts? During the workshop, participants explored
these possible transformations with designers Maassen and Unfold.
In the evening, the results of the day-long workshop were presented
during a public showing.
The steps:
1. Translate an existing digital design tool into an analog
counterpart:
- Find a tool in a digital design application like Photoshop,
Illustrator, Rhino. Stick to tools that rely on (apparently) basic
principles or actions like copy-paste, blur, scale, undo, crop,
mirror, paintbrush, sharpen edges
- Thoroughly analyse the behaviour of the tool in the original
digital context, observe what the tool actually does as
modification to the pixels or vectors. For example a scale-down
function will remove pixels, a scale up will copy pixels and add
them to the existing pixels. What if you do this multiple times?
What if you push the tool beyond its intended use?
- Translate and appropriate the behaviour into an analog
counterpart. How can you make a physical tool that has the same
effect on real world objects?
2. Explore/use/exploit one of your colleagues design tools:
- Choose one of the tools made by a fellow participant. Start by
exploring its functions like you did with the digital tools, look
at the various ways the tool can be used and misused. Which action
leads to which reaction?
- Select one existing 3D physical object that lends itself as
subject to your tool’s action. Appropriate the object with
your tool, this can be a single action or multiple iterations of
the same process.
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