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Final Blog Post

For my final project, I created an experience during which the user listens to my inner monologue as I try to decide which toys to get at the toy store. The board is set up as a vertical window display, meant to evoke the different shelves at a toy store. There are four toys placed in separate windows which represent the different and very general interests I had as a kid. When a toy is picked up off of its platform within the display, the platform tilts backwards and activates an audio file of my inner monologue. Each audio file describes certain aspects of the toys that I like. However, the argument in the audio ends up going back and forth to the point where no decision is made in the end. Once the user places the toy back on its display and picks up another toy, a new audio file starts describing the new toy.

The entire game is based off of my childhood experiences at the toy store with my Grandmother. She used to love taking my brother and I to Toys-R-Us to pick out a small trinket. My brother was always the one to pick something out immediately. Unfortunately, I would spend hours and hours just roaming the halls of the toy store looking for the perfect toy. There were always way too many options for me. I have always been indecisive, but the toy store brings out the worst of my problems. Since there are basically no bad options in a toy store, it really made things difficult on me. Fortunately, my Grandmother is a patient woman and she would let me roam the store for hours at a time while my brother complained. These experiences are so memorable to me, not only because my family constantly teases me for my indecisiveness, but mainly because of the time I got to spend with my Grandmother. Those were the times where I got to talk with her and she could learn about all my interests as a child. It’s important for me to share these experiences and my feelings with people because I think that there’s a certain nostalgia that everyone feels with toy stores. There’s rarely a sad moment in a toy store and giving people the experience of picking out a toy for themselves is something that I know everyone will love.

I wanted to keep the electronics hidden within the display so people could focus on the toys and really become immersed in the experience. I used paper circuits and the Makey Makey to connect the audio files to the physical inputs of the shelves. Each shelf uses a seesaw mechanism which tilts down when a toy is lifted off of it and connects the shelf to the grounded circuit. The audio encourages the user to analyze the toy and all of its aspects. The audio is also meant to put the user in my own shoes. Often, when considering buying something, although I start off considering the pros and cons and the logic of it all, my mind goes off on these tangents that usually don’t make a lot of sense, but still go into my overall decision. The audio is supposed to reflect these thoughts and feelings towards the toys and project them on the user.

“Matt’s Toy Store Dilemma” is meant evoke the nostalgia of going to the toy store as a child as well as allowing the user to experience my own feelings about shopping for toys.

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Electric Play Assignment

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Electric Play Assignment

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Electric Play Assignment

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Electronic Artist: Theo Watson

Theo Watson is an artists that works with different companies to help them create interactive, electronic pieces of art and putting them in pubic spaces. While he has completed many projects, I decided to focus on his collaborations with Nike. One of these projects, done with YesYesNo, an interactive electronics group to create a program that tracks one’s movement and translates it into an abstract painting. By tracking the different statistics of a person’s run such as, speed, distance, pace, altitude and more, the program is able to input these numbers into a program which visualizes them. The program was created by Theo Watson and was used to advertise Nike’s new line of Free Run shoes. This concept helps people connect with the clothing they where in a new way. It juxtaposes fitness and art in a way that inspires people not only to get active, but to get creative when they exercise. Nike went even further and created custom shoe boxes with the paintings on them, making each box unique to a person’s run. By doing this, the customer feels more connected to the product and the shoe has another layer of design added to it.

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Intervention Final Blog Post

Our final intervention was a viewport meant to contextualize the statue of Ernie Davis with contemporary football players taking a stand against social injustice in America using audio and visuals.

The viewport we created had a large pyramid base, decorated with the Syracuse University logo and mascot. This was meant to represent the pride which Ernie Davis’ statue brings to the university. The actual viewport was covered in tinfoil, which, when it was touched, provided a conductive material to activate the audio we had playing from the viewport. The lens was transparent and had photos of players taking a knee and raising their arms, protesting during the national anthem at football games. It was placed at an angle so that the players in the lens seemed as if they were actually next to Ernie Davis. In addition to the visual aspect, the audio that was activated when the tinfoil was touched played the National Anthem with audio clips of players explaining why they were protesting the song. The audio ends with a quote from “The Express”, the movie which the statue was unveiled for. 

All of these elements were supposed to help the viewer contextualize and compare Ernie Davis’ achievements in sports (being the first African American to win the Heisman trophy) with efforts players of color are making now to fight for equality in America. This helps activate the statue by making it relevant in modern times. It also allows people who are even the slightest bit curious to allow themselves to view the statue from a new angle. 

The assignment was to use simple technology to intervene with an area containing public art in a way that activates it within the environment. We used our intervention to raise awareness about the social injustice that has been going on since before Ernie Davis and is still going on today. However, Ernie Davis was a beacon of hope for his time and we wanted our intervention to place contemporaries in his light.

Some improvements we could have made may have been using audio in more areas around the statue, rethinking the logos on the base, and creating a more simple way to interact with the audio.

In the end we feel as though the project was an effective and thoughtful interaction with a fairly classical, yet incredibly important statue of Ernie Davis.

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Art Walk Blog Post 2

The main issue we were trying to tackle with our project this week was making it relevant to contemporary society. The statue of Ernie Davis represents overcoming obstacles and beating the odds. Ernie Davis was a monumental figure for African Americans in sports. In order to express his relevance today, we decided to have people see him in a new light. We placed our viewing scope so it appeared as if Ernie Davis was standing right along side contemporary football players taking a stand against injustice in society. 

These players are taking a knee, holding their fists up as a sign of power and respect and locking arms in unity. They represent the message that Ernie Davis sent with his persistence and character years earlier. We also tinted the players so that they appear more like statues next to Ernie. It is in this way that they are immortalized along with the statue in their fight against oppression and unjustness. 

Additionally, we added audio of players giving interviews over the playing of the national anthem. A much more recent issue in the NFL is the conflict over players protesting the National Anthem. In these interviews, players taking a stand, such as Colin Kaepernick, offer insight as to why they feel the need to protest our national anthem. They talk about the injustice happening America and the hate that is being spread by our leaders. These players are protesting because the National Anthem represents something that is not characteristic of the country they live in right now. 

The statue of Ernie Davis important because it represents not only the pride and heritage of Syracuse, but because it means so much more for overcoming racial injustice. 

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Art Walk Blog Post 1

I am very familiar with the statue of Ernie Davis outside the physics building. This is mainly because I used to live in BBB last year and all my classes were in Shaffer. So, almost every single day I would pass by the statue. The area is an interesting crossroads. I believe, because of its placement, it is used only as a place to pass through or as a shortcut. During my observation time, I noticed pretty much only one thing. Everyone was only passing through. Many would often glance at the statue as they passed by one side of it, but they would always continue moving. 

Learning about the statue taught me more about Ernie Davis in addition to what little I already knew. All that I really knew was that he was a star Syracuse football player. What I needed up learning was he was the first African-American Heisman trophy winner and he led Syracuse to their first National Championship. Unfortunately, he also died of Leukemia at 23. The statue was unveiled by Syracuse University at the premiere of a movie about Davis’ life called, “The Express,” after his famous nickname, “The Elmira Express”. This led me to think about why no one was spending more time staring at the statue of such an amazing man. 

The statue itself is fairly simple. It’s just a depiction of Ernie Davis holding a football helmet on his left and a football on his right. Personally, I enjoy looking at the bronze statue. Ernie always has a smile on his face to brighten my day. Yet, I can understand why people may not care too much about it. There’s nothing strange or interesting about the look of the statue. It’s just a regular football player in a regular pose. So we decided to find a way to make people more curious about the statue.

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Lukin Reading Response Week 1

The text I read this week about how different people utilize and move through space was incredibly interesting and surprisingly detailed. I had never even considered a person would take the time to intricately describe how people interact in simple everyday movement. While the skateboarding article was the most exciting to read about, I found that it became slightly repetitive over time. The main point being that skateboarders see their environment and use space in a way which serves their method of transportation. I have never been a skateboarder, but reading this article also made me think of how parkour athletes traverse their environment in unique ways as well. They often find the most complicated and extravagant method of getting from point A to point B.

The Individual as a Unit made the most sense to me as I read it. The author analyzed how and why pedestrians move through space the way they do. I found the author describes many of the actions that I take in my life to avoid collision with others. The simple act of creating a left and right lane on a sidewalk in accordance with standard traffic laws is something I always found interesting. While people are not necessarily bound by traffic laws when they are walking on a sidewalk, it is easier to follow them because those are the universal rules that everyone knows. I stay to the right on the sidewalk because pedestrians traveling in the opposite direction are almost always walking on the left, if not the other side A the street. There are so many steps people take, literally and figuratively, to avoid collision with another human being it’s astounding. During my observations at Thornden Park, I found people following the same behavior methods. The park is a very open space, with designated points of interest such as a playground, a football field, and a waterfall pond. There is a main road that goes through the entire park that runners like to exercise on. The scenery is beautiful and the runners always follow the rules of the road. They run on the right side of the street and avoid parked cars and other pedestrians by veering to the right.

The authors of these texts both took the simple topic of human movement and elaborated on it in an interesting and logical manner. It is hard to disagree with the statements made in each text because there is so much evidence of the author’s statements found in our own lives. I can now see how looking so closely at a space is the first step to modifying it. By identifying common uses and actions within a space, a designer can then zero in on specific parts of the space and change them to create different experiences for the people passing through. Another thing that might be useful to a designer is determining the needs and wants of the people within the space. This is what is done, in a unique way, in the article discussing cultural probes. Using different objects, the designers could gain an inside look on how the people living in the city space live their lives. The designers then used this information to suggest ways in which to improve the space for efficiency and safety. These elements come together in a way that provides the designer with ample information to efficiently modify a space.