MAKING DESIGN RESEARCH

ANU School of Art & Design presents Making Design Research; an exhibition which aims to explore and illuminate the complex relationships between making, design, and research. The works combine emergent practice-based enquiry with systematic investigation; in which making is both research and production, a process that can generate and embody knowledge, and a site for cross-disciplinary engagement and collaboration.

The exhibition is a platform for the public to encounter exceptional works produced by SOA&D staff and students, to learn more about the process behind the products and how new knowledge has been generated through their production.

EXHIBITORS

Ashley J Eriksmoen

Pockets Are An Evolutionary Advantage

Found wooden furniture, milkpaint, acrylic paint, 2015

Ecru Cabriole Tree with Chair #39

Four salvaged ecru dining chairs with Cabriole legs, 2013

Ashley J. Eriksmoen

For over two decades, my practice has been centered on the gaps, tensions, and overlaps between manmade and natural environments, the domains of that which was built versus that which has grown. My conceptual concerns arise from existential questions regarding humans’ capacity and need to feel connected to their environments, be it their living room or their planet; my work looks at the connection between people and the world mediated through relationships to objects, and how objects can bridge the divide. Many of my works utilize devices such as slight asymmetry and visual tension to imply animate posture and gesture in furniture forms. My work also addresses issues of sustainability, natural resources, consumerism, and waste, and most recently the inherent violence that arises from delineation and desensitization regarding the world and others.

My current research re-presents designed objects, namely wooden furniture, that has lost its perceived value for contemporary owners. The loss of value is a complex situation, but may involve loss of function (broken), loss of need/situation (outgrown, downmarket vs. prestigious, downsized, death), loss of aesthetic appeal (out of fashion or surficially damaged), etc. The planet’s environment and natural resources are being depleted not only for consumers’ needs, but for their comfort and desire.

I design objects from abject, forgotten objects to give the timber a third life (tree to furniture to critical object) that conveys the loss and the continued relevance of the material. Making with found materials and objects requires a different approach to design process than “blue sky” thinking does. It requires what I will call a reactive approach to design. The world is, in fact, not our oyster to crack open and swallow whole. We are its stewards, and our total design freedom must be balanced against a greater good.

Causes of mammal extinction (within the weight range 35g – 5.5kg) in box-gum grassy woodlands

archival inkjet print, 2015

100 cm x 124 cm

Carolyn Young

My photograph is a work-in-progress and was made while I was artist in resident at ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society during the 2015 ANU Vice-Chancellor’s College Artists Fellows Scheme. I made the work to help think through causes of mammal extinction (within the weight range 35g – 5.5kg) in box-gum grassy woodlands, and to consider some of the issues that the Mulligans Flat-Goorooyarroo Woodland Experiment research group are grappling with in regard to re-introducing locally extinct mammals. The causes of small to medium sized mammal extinction in temperate grassy woodlands have been attributed to: predation by foxes and cats, direct eradication by humans (incentivized by bounties), competition for food from introduced herbivores, habitat modification and loss, overgrazing by native fauna (kangaroos) and altered fire regimes.

In designing this photograph I consulted with woodland ecologists, and engaged in their research through one-on-one discussions, reading scientific papers, and participating in fieldwork. I also researched the work of visual artists working on similar subject material. This methodology, when done well, provides a foundation for which to share scientific knowledge through visual art and in the words of Professor Adrian Manning, to “affect and connect with people in a way that dry science often can’t.” My photograph shows the outcome from my first iteration of research followed by making. The making of the artwork caused me to conclude that I needed to further my knowledge in this research area (for example, was I being too simplistic?). Participating in this exhibition prompted a return to the photograph and my research notes, and presents the opportunity to receive feedback for the next iteration of research and making.

Causes of mammal extinction (within the weight range 35g – 5.5kg) in box-gum grassy woodlands

Metamorphosis

single file from active stereoscopic projection installation, 2016

duration 6.45 min

Erica Seccombe

Metamorphosis is a result of my research into frontier scientific visualisation with 3D Micro-CT. Since 2006 I have been making new work for projections, stereoscopic installations and 3D printing using a custom-designed open-source software Drishti. Developed by Dr Ajay Limaye at the ANU Vizlab and National Computational Infrastructure (NCI), it enables me to visualise virtual or volumetric data acquired from 3D Micro-CT. Dr Limaye takes a collaborative approach towards enhancing the functions of Drishti to meet the unique requirements and challenges of each new project, therefore I have been closely involved with this software development and design through my own research directions.

I created Metamorphosis in response to my residency in London at the Natural History Museum in 2015, where I observed the current forensic research into fly pupa development with 3D Micro CT imaging. Maggots are more commonly associated with death and decay, but like caterpillars they undergo a period of transition before emerging as exquisite insects. The Bluebottle, a species of blowfly Calliphora vicina, is a common forensic indicator because is often the first to colonise cadavers, detecting and arriving just minutes after death. The aim of scientists is to understand the morphological changes that occur during the metamorphosis of this fly to determine post-mortem intervals. The puparium is just one stage in many in the life cycle of the fly, and it has been difficult to measure because it occurs inside the opaque carapace.

In order to capture and reveal this magical transformation of the pupa inside the larval carapace I aligned ten static 3D Micro-CT scans of pupa development to appear as if transforming in a fluid motion. Using Drishti I have been enabled to make a moving image that reveals for the very first time the subtle development of the internal and external features of the fly as a smooth time-lapse sequence. The making of Metamorphosis was purposely undertaken in my own creative interdisciplinary research, but the benefits to the scientists studying larvae development has been of equal value.

Acknowledgements
Dr Farah Ahmed, IAC & Dr Daniel Martin-Vega,DLS , NHM, London,
Dr Jill Middleton ANU Department of Applied Mathematics, Canberra,
Dr Ajay Limaye, ANU VizLab, National Computational Infrastructure, Canberra
ArtsACT Project Grant, an ACT Government initiative

Manta Ray Table

Expanded polystyrene core, plywood skinned, Pomelle Makore, Silky Oak, Figured Myrtle veneers, 2009

1100 mm x 750mm

Frank Maconochie

The Manta Ray Table was inspired by James Angus's sculpture, Manta Ray (2005, NGA). The elements I wished to capture in my formal design reflect the organic muscularity and weightlessness of this huge creature.

The construction design used a 'torsion box' technique which consists of a hollow core skinned with plywood surfaces. A variety of materials could have been used for the hollow core but because the initial design decisions were made while at the coast, the material is similar to a surfboard with its expanded polystyrene core. The use of plywood skins also dictated the form, as plywood has a planar quality which results in simple rather than complex curves. The influence of place in the design process is a tacit, internal process that needs to be acknowledged as does the influence and effect of the choice of materials.

Shape and dimensions were explored using three-dimensional models, real life table settings and 1:1 prototypes. Using the same materials in test pieces enhances the practical research outcomes.

The making process required the use of vacuum moulding techniques and the making of various templates, tools, jigs and formers in order to accurately replicate repeated components. Form follows failure. The vacuum bag failed to deliver the desired results. Using a thinner fabric would have delivered a more even compression on the applied veneers but this was not apparent in the initial small scale tests. The accumulation of errors leads to a painful but concrete acquisition of new knowledge.

According to W. McDonough & M. Braungart in Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, (2002) designer/makers should consider what their product will be in its next life. They classify materials as bio-nutrients (that are bio-dregradable) and techno-nutrients (such as metals) and argue that waste occurs when cross contamination of materials prevents them from being re-used.

Visionaries Explorer; Digital Fellowship, State Library of NSW

Custom software, 2016-17

Geoff Hinchcliffe

The primary aim of this work is to improve access to and experience of the State Library of NSW’s Visionaries collection through the design and development of a dedicated web interface. Visionaries is comprised of significant Australian artefacts curated from the library’s digital archive. It has particular pertinence to secondary students, and especially those completing the HSC.

This kind of work is challenging because our understanding of representing rich digital collections online is still so primitive, and in most instances sees us interfacing with a text search box and lists of results. There is great scope for practice-based research to generate new knowledge with regard to our technological, cultural and methodological approaches for better representing our digital collections. It requires us to ask questions such as: How can we show an audience an entire collection? How can we support serendipitous browsing and discovery? How can we represent the complex connections within a collection? How can we support individual curation and social sharing? In addressing these questions I create web-based media that is a mash-up of data visualisation, graphic design and web development. I draw from, and contribute to, all of those individual domains while also participating in the formation of a new cultural form.

While I conduct my work as research, I do not treat making as an instrumental expository process but rather as an open-ended emergent activity. It is through making that I learn about the qualities of my digital materials and probe technical and aesthetic boundaries. In conjunction, design plays a far more strategic role; it sees me reflecting on the outcomes of my making and adapting the work to fulfil specific aims and objectives.

Visionaries Explorer; Digital Fellowship, State Library of NSW

Not O teal single line

Composite Aluminium, 2016

910 x 620 x 100mm

Gilbert Riedelbauch

Research leads to design, design informs making, making becomes research and so it goes…

The research questions are: how to guide and when to arrest deforming stresses; and when does a surface turn into an object? This work combines digitally controlled and manual processes and links contemporary materials with traditional ways of making. The pattern I designed controls the CNC router’s path, engraving and cutting into the composite aluminium sheet. The machine-cut pattern guides the manual forming of the flat sheet into a 3 dimensional object.

Made in China : Remade in Canberra

Reclaimed cups and off-cuts, 2016

Joanne Searle

Made in China : Remade in Canberra offers a look at material research and process as integral to design. The work came from a project brief given to me by CraftACT to reclaim found ceramics from Tiny’s Green Shed at the rubbish tip into functional objects. I was immediately drawn to the 1970’s cups for their iconic design and personal nostalgia.

I began stacking the cups and re-discovered their inherent qualities. My challenge was going to be improving on the original design. My plan was to submit the cups to post-firing processes in the hope an interesting path would appear. I began crushing, sandblasting, re-glazing and blending with other ceramic materials. All of these led to erasing the original appeal of the cups.

In researching the origins of the stacking cup I began to consider their makers. While clearly a mass-produced item there are clues that design choices have been made as each piece was handled. The variations in the classic double dipped rim suggest an individual design choice during glaze application. Once I made that connection with the original maker I wanted to retain and emphasise those qualities in my re-design of the cup.
The outcome of this project reveals a continuation between the cup’s original maker in a ceramics factory and myself. It offers a devalued object new purpose and highlights an underlying theme of environmental awareness as I consider the juxtaposition of energy use and conservation.

Place Patterns

Knitted vests, photos, maps and knitting pattern graph paper, 2016

Produced with members of the Tuggeranong Knit’n’Knatter over 55 Club: Jan, Barnham, Liz Brown, Isabel Devlin, Maria Hall, Janette Hatch, Barbara Marassovich, Roslyn McDonald and Pat Skien.

Lucy Irvine

My research explores emergent knowledge practices that attend to the relational and epistemological repercussions of how we map, model and make in response to, and indeed as part of, a phenomenal world. I focus on how non-reductive knowledge can be realised through embodied engagement: through making.

I am asking: What kind of spatially, temporally and materially emergent strategies can I develop through sculpture making and workshops, and how could these strategies participate in design, architecture and geography discourses?

For Place Patterns, I invited a group of knitters from Tuggeranong to respond to a range of geographical and geological maps of their local area. To translate the data into something meaningful to them; through stitches, textures, patterns and colours. The group created vests, which were then worn and photographed in two of the main sites referenced in their designs. Each of the women took their own approach, demonstrating different ways of being orientated in a work, in information and in the physical world. The process and outcomes of Place Patterns have led me to consider how a sense of place could be performed or represented and how creative forms of mapping could contribute to new knowledge.

The role of art-based research is not simply one of representation or reflection. Practice-led research can potentially recalibrate larger cultural and epistemological terms of reference: redesign our thinking to be more responsive and reflexive.

As part of Making Design Research, I will run a workshop in the gallery presenting embodied research methods, through which form and spatial understanding emerge in the process of iterative making; in mapping or tracing movement in space. Things I have learnt in my own sculpture practice are translated and extended through a relational pedagogy. Facilitating a space for the body, creating the possibility for knowledge to be emergent, and to be physically perceived and conceived.

Collaborative Installation Workshop

Cellular cardboard weaving (Cardboard, tape and plinths), 2017

Workshop participants: Keith Bender, Jessie Fitzpatrick, Shagsy Shags, Kylie Spindler, Oriane Villiers

Lucy Irvine

Workshop conducted on site, 16th February 2017.

Raynal’s Histoire, Book 4: Tracking Changes

Custom software, inkjet print, 2016-17

Mitchell Whitelaw & Geoff Hinchcliffe

Data visualisation involves a kind of representational paradox. Data has no intrinsic form; its abstraction makes complex data particularly difficult to apprehend. In order to give it a form, the visualisation designer must map data structures into tangible features. But which features to map, and how? In order to create an effective visualisation we need to understand the data; but we need a visualisation in order to understand the data. Engaging in this circularity requires experimental and iterative making, rather than predefined intent.

This print is a visualisation of Guillaume Thomas Raynal’s 1770 work Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes (Philosophical and Political History of the Two Indies). Specifically, it is an attempt to visually map changes in book four of the text over its three editions (1770, 1774 and 1780). We come to Raynal via Dr Glenn Roe, in the ANU Centre for Digital Humanities Research, who leads a current research project digitising and analysing Raynal’s text. One of Roe’s key questions focuses on its contributions from French philosopher Diderot. A recently discovered 1780 edition included annotations showing Diderot’s contributions — marked in this print with ‘D’ — but how much of this material is new in 1780, and how much was added earlier?

This collaboration brings us as designers into a rich domain, with focused research questions that we can help address. Design here can do its job, taking on a well-defined task. But this focus also opens out into big questions — how should we diagram textual change and movement? — as well as rabbit-holes of technical experimentation and material investigation that feed our own practice as makers, designers and researchers.

Raynal’s Histoire, Book 4: Tracking Changes

The sound of drawing

Etched speakers, sound, electronic circuits, 2017

Nicci Haynes

As a visual artist I think my job is to give form to an idea rather than to arrive at any sort of final object. I have to think hard to separate what I do into the categories making, design and research. My activities feel like they are encompassed by the term making, or does the word research better describe my practice? Design suggests to me the overall plan of a finished object, a useful thing: all rather at odds with the contraption exhibited, which could not be said to be finished exactly, nor a useful thing, nor was there ever an overall plan that I can articulate. It is a fanciful construction of no conceivable practical use and I have to wonder why I laboured to get it to function at all when it might have been presented as an illustration in the manner of Leonardo’s unrealised flying machines. Although, having said that, there never was any schematic diagram and I feel like it is in itself a drawing of a plan for a device under construction.

Cat Food (-35.348111, 149.227134) & Milk (-35.220511, 149.102639)

Tin can, laser cut milk bottle (high-density polyethylene), silk cord, wood, brass, lighting components, LED , 2017

Tomatoes (-35.348111, 149.225503) & Milk (-35.220511, 149.102639)

Tin can, laser cut milk bottle (high-density polyethylene), silk cord, wood, brass, lighting components, LED , 2017

Tomatoes (-35.348111, 149.225503) & OJ (-35.281481, 149.121372)

Tin can, laser cut milk bottle (high-density polyethylene), silk cord, wood, brass lighting components, LED , 2017

Nik Rubenis

Tin cans and milk bottles, to name just two examples from a countless number of things, are excellent specimens of design. They are engineered to have the least amount of possible material yet yield maximum strength; manufactured using efficient technological processes; and designed to fit within a well-oiled global system of transportation. Every day we interact with these examples of human ingenuity, yet it is not the object that is of interest. Rather it is that particular design’s one affordance which holds all of the value: the safe transportation of its contents across the globe. Once consumed, that single affordance ceases to exist and the object is jettisoned to become a member of another exponentially expanding population of design specimens – waste.

My research revolves around how design is problematic and how our domestic spaces bear witness to a ubiquitous daily flow of global transient material. The finite elements that make up this material have been carefully prepared by the earth over thousands of years. Yet the many objects we use are designed to be impermanent applications manufactured from permanent materials, which we are then content to throw away.

‘Designing for sustainability’ often revolves around better ways of producing new stuff. My interests lie in strategies for reimagining that stuff we already have and the role that studio-based craft and design can play within this broader global context. These lights are one example of a simple exercise that attempts to utilise and elevate the status of wasted commodities – goods that have great potential beyond their original intent.

Design is waste is design.

Cat Food (-35.348111, 149.227134) & Milk (-35.220511, 149.102639), Tomatoes (-35.348111, 149.225503) & Milk (-35.220511, 149.102639), Tomatoes (-35.348111, 149.225503) & OJ (-35.281481, 149.121372)

Domestic Renewal; aggregated tea set

Found objects, Delrin, 2015

Rohan Nicol

Making
Aggregated tea set brings together a series of low value second-hand objects sourced through flea markets and bric-a-brac stores: a milkshake maker, a jelly mould, a hospital meal tray cover and a stove top kettle. I have used engineering plastic to produce components that build connections and a cohesive purpose between these neglected items. In this manner it has proven possible to apply craft knowledge (silversmithing) to reimagine new futures for pre-loved wares. This work establishes that it is possible remake or repair our relationships with objects through strategies that are familiar to those engaged in making. This tea set has successfully transformed once homeless objects into a service with a familiar and recognisable utilitarian purpose that you might imagine in your own home.

Design
We live in an era where almost every inch of our globe has been transformed through human action. If we accept this, we must recognise we now live in an altered world, an artificial landscape that we have realised by design; knowingly or otherwise. This tea set is the product of my ongoing research through which I have set out to identify and evaluate new strategies to design and understanding our artificial landscape. I have set out to make positive impact through ethical design action in an era of unprecedented social, cultural, economic crises, on a planet with finite resources.

Research
Innovation consultant Dr Terry Cutler has championed the role of the arts in the Australian innovation system. During a speech in 2008 he recalled a conversation with then Adelaide festival director Peter Sellers, in which he eloquently claimed that that the arts, including craft and design, provide “windows into realities under construction.” This implies that the creative disciplines are uniquely positioned to propose new approaches to complex issues that hold immense value for our collective future.

My research evidences the capacity of craft and design as a laboratory for generating scalable propositions, which provide a change script to improve the way we design, make and understand our world. The same principles employed in this work are transferable to larger objects, to architecture, to landscape architecture and city scale urban planning. I have found that studio craft and design provides a safe space and a low risk setting to evaluate new ideas. The independent studio based practitioner and researcher is largely disconnected form capital and market imperatives that can inhibit innovative thinking. For this reason studio based research plays a critically valuable role in crafting viable competitive and resilient communities culture and economies.

Weereewa / Bad Water

Inkjet print, 2017

Rowan Conroy

MAKING – In the field/car/studio

The series Weereewa / Bad Water started in 2015 through an intuitive, emotional and practical response to the phenomenon and landforms of Lake George, New South Wales. I commute past the Lake and it has become habitual for me to stop and make photographs. I came upon a location also frequented by paragliding enthusiasts and wedge-tailed eagles, and started making photographs from this elevated perspective.

Stitching multiple exposures to create a detailed and panoramic image provides a sense of the swallowing immensity of the topography, as well as subtle texture and colour, that single images lacked. I continue to revisit this location, a regular practice of making, and a growing archive of comparative scenes.

DESIGN – embodied design principals – intuitive maker knowledge

Intuitive making and emergent design are linked. As the project has evolved and grown I have modified aspects of the way I shoot and my awareness of the fluctuations of the environment has been heightened. I work with large format inkjet printing as the outcome of the majority of my projects. As such the knowledge of how particular types of lighting and exposure will translate into a pigment print is a design principle for my practice. In this sense design parameters of the project were embodied in my knowledge of this translation from location to file to print.

RESEARCH - “If you see something say something”

My primary motivation with research is a sharing of the visual and how this can be unpacked by the viewer. Operating like an art historian of my own practice, research starts with the image as a visual artefact. The printed image is of a site that contains history, geography, popular narrative and psychogeography, wrapped in a visual medium specific to our time: a digital file inkjet printed onto micro-porous ceramic coated cotton rag with pigment inks.

Lumo

Aluminium, paint, polymer membrane, led light source and low voltage electronics, 2016

30 x 30 x 7 cm

Asteroidea

Aluminium, polymer membrane, meranti, 240V AC light fittings, stainless steel, brass, 2013

130 x 130 x 60 cm

Sean Booth

Designing and making lights presents a wide variety of challenges which have held my attention for quite some time. Overcoming technical hurdles while still trying to find the best trade-off with the solutions that you consider; for me these are the main joys in the process.
Developing works where the light must function in multiple contrasting states is a driving force in my continued desire to explore this form.
My exploration considers the shadows that are generated by the structure of the framework, utilising the shadow to generate graphically strong presences within the space, while adding a texture to the ceiling that is often left blank. These works function best when a greater level of illumination is desired within the environment that is to host the works.
In contrast, I have also developed a series of works where a very minimal amount of light is emitted; the form is the host where the light becomes the visual highlight. These works are more intimate and subdued, with the forms having been stripped back and rendered more uniform and beguiling in their simplicity, drawing the viewer in.
These works work best in a darker viewing space, allowing for quiet consideration in a time when so much information and distraction is projected at us in loud vivid colour. The light is diffuse and wisp-like, with feathered edges and fractured minute details found the deeper you look.

Score No. 0013 (Emotion Ensemble)

Colour/audio video, 2015

Duration: 00:03:30

Shags

Making automatic oral responses to 100 different colours, this broadcast of an immediate emotional language coupled with squares of the instigating colours invites the viewer to ponder those conversations which happen without words.

As a person with a synaesthesiac and dyslexic processing style, my inner world often gets lost in translation and engenders some pretty confused facial expressions—which can be both hilarious and humiliating. This frustration with the limitations of words led me to design dialects that are often dismissed, such as the maddening sound of yellow.

In tandem with works of this ilk, there is a recent extension to my research; specificity of language. Experimenting with using text on found and personal photographs, I’m aiming to distil portraits and tell sharp, vulnerable stories to evoke emotions that are difficult to articulate—thus bringing the research full circle.

Fan, Fire, Recall

Mistral Gyro-Aire 12-10 Style 6, digital mains timer, ephemera, video, 2016-17

Susannah Bourke

In order to truly wrestle with the legacy of designed objects, I try to understand these objects on their own terms. Commercially manufactured objects hide their past and context. As they migrate from the shelves of shops to garages and Gumtree ads, they become even more obscured. Their past is forgotten as is the labour of the people who made them and the experiences of the people who used them. My process is one of restoration through research and remembering. This project demonstrates digital and physical approaches to archives and remembering through the traces of my research. The research informs a process of re-making the object as something within time and history.