Studio Brief 1: Research

The Line: Network of Public Art 

This project was interesting to look at as it showed me how the public engaged with the art work, helping them understand the importance and also how to accept that it can be considered art even if it is in a public place. I will use this research to help develop an understanding on how to publicise the system and make it work as a way finding system that people will see as reliable and official. 

Figure 1

It is important to publicise the wayfinding system on social media (Figure 1) so that users are able to engage with the idea and understand what it is about. The instagram account shows where the signs can be found and it allows other people to tag their journey and findings, making it appeal to others.

Research has shown me that one consistent design stye important to establish the identity and then from that the different colours can be used to illustrate/separate different sections of information. 

Figure 2

Figure 2 shows the sketchbook pages of research into this idea and how it can help me to develop my immersive wayfinding system. 'The Line' always people to engage with artwork, but also explore London as a city, rather than just being contained by the space of an art gallery. If I was to apply this to my idea of creating an interactive supergraphic I would use the name presentation as the supergraphic on the building and then have the QR code as the source of information for the user. 

Situationist Movement in Paris 

The situationalists were a group of avant-garde artists that came together in 1957, led by Guy Debord. It was a new way to explore a city in a non-conventional way. It is "the study of precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organised or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals". It is a way to take pedestrians off their predictable paths and jolt them into a new awareness of the urban landscape. This could help me to make my wayfinding system more interactive and engaging, as I could use the research as a tool to helping me understand what people find interesting/could find interesting. 

Figure 3

Figure 4

The most famous concept was the dérive, an unplanned walk through the urban landscape, navigating by the individual's emotional reaction to the surrounding cityscape. This is very different to my 'planned' wayfinding system, but the idea of the individual focusing solely on their emotional reaction to their surroundings is something I will want to demonstrate in my system, somehow portraying the emotions and experiences of the people at the time of The Mod scene. The Naked City (Figure 3) is a plan of Paris cut up into pieces and divided into 19 sections that are randomly placed back together. The users are told to choose their own route through the city by using a series of arrows, allowing each person to have a unique experience. 

"The point where psychology and geography collide"

Ian SinClaire: M25 Circular System
The book 'London Orbital' demonstrates how psychogeography can reveal an area in a way that most people may never have seen it before. This links well to my idea as it is about showing people the history of the particular movement within the city that they may not have ever know to have existed, or at least may not know all of the personal experiences or exact locations of it all.

Steve Simpson: Illustrations
Steve's 1 a day illustrations of Dublin show his individual interpretations of his surroundings. Another of his projects called '#onthedraw' was based in LA Palma, which involved him visiting the secret places that only the locals know. This is interesting because we are able to gain an insight into something more meaningful than the standard 'top 10' tourist attractions'. This is a similar concept to my Wayfinding system, so it will be interesting to find out the parts which he chose to focus on and why. Projects like this are about sharing the personal experiences with other people so that they to can understand what it may have been like. Steve presented the island as a whole on one poster along with 5 illustrations of the most interesting places that he found.