IAT Spring 2011 Round-up

I find myself still weary from the last term. It was good, but throughly exhausted. My last day at school was last Friday, the 15th, to finish and hand in my IAT222 project. That day itself was extremely long not being able to sleep Thursday night in order to finish the presentation booklet... which ran into problems once our team realized that we couldn't print because Document Solutions' colour printer was broken, Staples wouldn't print it out in time, and we also spent 2 hours driving around Surrey to find an alternate printer and failing.
Short of 1 day, I was at school every day from January 31st. So.... 74 out of 75 days. Wow. Now that the term is over, I feel a very weird sensation of not being in Studio A or B everyday.

I'm pretty happy overall with my courses, though I think my 233 team's final project wasn't up to our standards. We had to prioritize other courses for the last week of classes for other final projects, so we only got about 2 days of solid work in. We were unhappy with the final presentation and knew we had problems but we didn't really have any choice and we were still pushing our time getting our slides done about 5 minutes before crit.

IAT 233 - Spatial Design
I'm still most proud of my team's work on the Sarphatistraat finish model just for the sheer amount of effort and time we put in. This is including our work on the 3d model. Also, I felt like my team really pushed the boundaries on our presentation on Urban Space regarding Piazza Navona/New York City (pdf).

Props goes out to the core team of Glue Wizards and Reconstructicons of Peter Zhao, Ramy Gorgis, Jason Procyk, and Andrew Wong. Also, thanks goes to our professor, Russell Taylor, for pushing us to the brink of madness. This course has really helped me to define who I am as a designer and in understanding the idea of 'process'.


IAT 235 - Information Design
I had a few assignments from this course resulting in results I was truly happy with.
The first assignment of creating a 'time management' schedule aided my organization immensely giving me a reference I could check back on a few times every week to double check dates using a very easy-to-read table (png).

Another design I was happy with was the icon design assignment. In order to create a 'time management' icon, I decided with using the blueprint analogy and have 'blueprint for time' (jpg).

Our final project (again thanks goes out to people from my IAT 233 team, Jason Procyk and Andrew Wong, for being awesome team members), was to do a wayfinding app for skaters, called skateNinja. We were relatively effortless in operating as a team in refining down to our final design and we each played a significant role in the development of the end product. (swf | pdf | mp4).

IAT 222 - Interactive Art
The final project was very hectic and stressful as we had to alter our idea three times. Starting from a nuclear shadow, talking about nuclear explosions and technology, shadows and light, and eventually ending up at an interactive art piece on beauty. We decided to go with 3d renders in Cinema 4d for our physical space model and it turned out relatively well. I stayed up for a whopping 34 hours on the last day to finish the booklet though there were some technical difficulties and we had to print with a simplified version of our final PDF (simplified pdf | booklet pdf).

Overall, I'm extremely happy with the projects I've done this term. I've poured my heart and soul into every one of my courses. Now, I'm going to try and get some R&R and hopefully de-stress all the built-up tension in my mind, body, and soul. (Time to go to Disneyland!)

IAT 222 Art Field Trip

Our TA for IAT 222 (Interactive Art) took us, a group of students, to a variety of different art galleries around Vancouver: Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver Centre for Contemporary Asian Art (Centre A), Artspeak, Audain Gallery, and Or Gallery.

We also went to hang out afterwards at the Railway Club.

My review for my favourite stop of the day, Centre A:

The current exhibit at Centre A is "I can see your underwear" by Natalie Purschwitz and Kelly Lycan.

The pieces on display are all created with plastic materials. Most of which are from everyday objects that we throw away such as plastic bags, wrappers and styrofoam. The title of the exhibit is meant to start a dialogue of how we as a society should be ashamed of "being caught" and to realize how much plastic we use. I think it's meant to provoke thought as to the overuse of plastics and how it pervades every part of our life.

I liked all of the installations. There was a sense of fun and whimsical nature such as the exhibit titled "i can see your underwear" which was a swing. I got to swing on it and was intrigued by the different use of plastic ribbons and wigs to support the wooden plush seat.

My favourite installation was "NO NAME 1298", a variety of different packets of freezies hanging on a frame of metal pipes. For me, the variety of colors and odd juxtaposition creates a sense of fun architecture.

I'm not really sure how the installations are related to contemporary Asian art, but the exhibit itself definitely provokes a reflective experience and critical thought on the use of plastics in our society.

Here are some shots from the Centre A exhibit.