Reaction to The Visual Representation of Time

Huaiyu Dong (Joey)

The Visual Representation of Time by Marilyn Mitchell talks about out cognitive visual representation of time, timelines, timescales and different arrangement of timelines.

Mitchell explains that time is represented in language “primarily through the metaphor time is space” (Lakoff & Johnson). I find this point particularly interesting. When people try to describe the past and the present visually to each other, they always draw a line involuntarily. The left usually indicates the very past and the right usually indicates the present. This is probably because we think the time between the past and present as a path. We imagine ourselves walking on it and facing to the future. For instance, in Egyptians’ hieroglyphic writing, all letters based on living creatures are “facing the direction in which the writing begins”. This demonstrates the way people relate time and space in language.

Mitchell also suggests four essential things that must be included in graphic representation of time: “an indicator of now; an indicator of them; some type of visual differentiation between the past and the future and for a future event, something that indicates the degree of certainty of that event. In my first time project, I documented my recent trip to Taiwan. Although I didn’t include “certainty of future events” since I focused on the trip already occurred, I tried to include other essential elements to make it more complete. I used a line getting darker from light green to dark green to indicate that time is going from then to now. I also put a lot of circles and created illustration in them. The illustrations were done through various media, such as acrylic, collage, watercolor and colored pencil; the different media and different contents in these circles differentiate them well.

Generally speaking, The Visual Representation of Time is very helpful, it provides more possibilities (such as using dotted line to shoe uncertain future events) about turning time 2D to me, and let me think about the convention that we always used but always ignored, for example, most cultures represent time from left to the right because of their writing habits.

Embodied Space: Analogous Scanning of The Body

Drawing according to photos

Frontal and side views taken by Jose

 
Frontal and side drawings

Proportions

Measurement made with a handmade tool

The tool is made of wooden skewers and cardboard

Making the cardboard skeleton

Assemble the cardboards

Making process

For this project, our final piece is a sculpture of our heads. The making process made me realized both the beauty of the muscles and bones arrangement in our body and the art of sculpture. Our bodies are actually amazing proportional and logical, but we are different from one another because of the various details that we have, such as the size of Cheekbones and the distance between our eyes.

We start with drawing practice of the Vitruvian Man. We also learnt about the golden ratio and other natural forms. Amazingly I found that our bodies are actually so logical and proportional that they can fit into these ratios.

Jose helped us to take the frontal and side photos of our heads. I then created a 1” x1” grid, and drew the photos on tracing paper on the grid. I also created a handmade tool with the wooden skewers and corrugated cardboard. With the help of Lea and Xia, I measured sizes of my head from different levels and angles, and transfer the ovals to cardboard. After cutting out these ovals, I adjusted them to make sure that they are symmetrical and their edges are smooth. I then cut out some slits from these ovals and assembled them together with a metal pipe for support.

The cardboard formed a skeleton of my head. I then inserted some Styrofoam into those empty spaces, glue them with Elmer’s glue and cut them to make sure that they fit the outline. Afterthat, I used a tool called the surefoam file to shave my head, which is basically a scraper. The surface of foam became smooth, and finaly all the hollow spaces are filled.

Finally, I put soft clay upon the foam head, and made my eyes, lips, nose and ears with the help from Professor Jose.

Memory Palace is a project that maps another individual. We were partnered in group of two, and we were allowed to make any form of memory palace for our partners. The final piece was a video that demonstrates the partner through this memory palace.

Haptic Space and Materiality/ The Nested Platonic Solids

Oct.26th, 2016

This is my first project for my Space & Materiality Class.

Octahedron, tetrahedron, hexahedron and dodecahedron; air, fire, earth and élan vital.

After learning and exploring for two months, I tried my best for this project to demonstrate the interrelated beauty of Geometry and life.

A detailed shot showing the aluminum sheet layer, wooden layer and brass pipe layer in the Nested Platonic Solid.

This is the final project for my Space & Materiality Class. The four layers are nested beautifully together.

Because I have some issues with the essay and process photos, more details will be posted later in this week.

This is made by Bristol paper, and is used as a prototype.

Tetrahedron prototype made of Bristol paper.

Hexahedron prototype made of Bristol paper.

The dodecahedron prototype made of Bristol paper. The two halves can be put together to form the complete solid.

This is the nested model made from Bristol paper.
I cut all the paper open so we can see through the structure.

The is the icosahedron Bristol model. Although I did choose to include it in my final, it is a great process to make this solid.

This is the cardboard model I created after making the Bristol model. It is made to the size of my final. The solids here are nested within each other accurately, while in the final some solids have small gaps between each other because of the different thickness of materials.

This is the first dodecahedron I made with plexi-glass. I calculated the size wrongly in AI and kade a wrong choice of using black wire. I later replaced it with silver wire in my final.

Drawing of the final octahedron. Grey and black color pencils are used.

This is the drawing of my final tetrahedron. I use colored pencils to show the texture and pattern on the wood cut by laser.

The is the drawing of my final hexahedron. The brass smooth and shiny qualities are shown by white and yellow color pencils.

This is the drawing of my final dodecahedron. I use mainly white color pencil to show the transparency of plexi-glass.

This is the drawing of the final nested platonic solid processed with photoshop.

My final project. Photo taken at the table in the leisure area.

Reflection

The nature is based on geometry. Even the most delicate and complex object in the nature can be broken down into various geometric shapes. With the Unified Field Matrix which includes emerging circles, we can draw these shapes out easily, and make all of the shapes related to each other. In my project “platonic solid”, I made an octahedron nested precisely in a tetrahedron, which nests in a hexahedron, which nests in a dodecahedron.

At the center of my final project, I constructed an octahedron with aluminum sheets and soft wire. According to Call Me Gala: The Geometry of Fragmentation or the Geometry of Life, the eight-sided polyhedron represents air. I chose aluminum sheets as the main material, because I really like its shining quality. When I first attempted to make this object, I chose a thin aluminum sheet and try to cut and bend it by hand. But soon I discovered that it was too flexible to keep its shape, and the cutting edge was so sharp that it hurt my hands. After a close examination of of other metal sheets, I finally settled down on the thick aluminum sheet. I cut them by the cutting machine in school’s workshop, drilled a hole near each vertex, and connect the eight sides with wire.

The tetrahedron symbolizing fire is nested precisely outside the octahedron. I chose 3/16 wood panels and cut them with laser cutter. The result was very pleasing to me. I love the black marks on the side created by the laser. The burnt marks on wood express the power of “fire” perfectly. There is only one side of the wood panel that has beautiful wooden textures with many thin, brown lines on it, so I make them face towards outside. However, I forget to cut the inner triangle in the AI file, so the sides of the tetrahedron were originally blocking the inner octahedron. I brought the wood triangles to the woodshop, and cut a smaller triangle out from each of them with the pattern saw. Although the cutting edge is not as smooth as the one done by laser, I think I really learnt a lot about problem solving skills and got familiar with a new machine in the workshop.

Nesting outside the two layers of polyhedral, there is a hexahedron made by brass pipes. The hexahedron represents the earth. In my opinion, the gold color of the brass pipe feels warm and strong. This is closely related to the qualities of the earth. Neverthelsss, initially I choose to use thin pipes of both gold and silver colors. The thin pipes is not strong enough to hold the cube in shape, and the silver color feels too sensitive and soft, so I later changed the materials to thick pipes in gold, so that the stately and strong qualities of the earth can be demonstrated better.

The outer layer of the platonic solid is a dodecahedron made of plexi-glass. It is the symbol of élan vital, and shows my creative force inside my heart. This is one of the most important object in my final project, because the élan vital flows in my body all the time, and it keeps my ability to create art. I chose plexi-glass for this layer because I liked its simple transparency. This allows viewers to see it through easily to see the compositions inside, and also represents the intangible identity of élan vital. At the first time I made this layer, I calculated the size wrongly. I even made one more mistake after the first cutting, because the AI file needed to be very accurate for the laser cutter while I estimate the thickness of materials wrongly. Fortunately, the size is finally fit at the third time. And this process really helped me to understand the importance of accuracy in design.

This is the final piece I made for the Prosthetic Headpiece project of Integrative Studio class.

This is the side view of my headpiece. It shows the connection horns between ears and mouth and how the mask part can fit the face.

This is the front view of my prosthetic headpiece. The wear is still able to see the surroundings while she can only hear the voices of herself.

Both photos are credit to my teacher Madeline.

Here is my memory which inspired me to create this piece:

When I was in the primary school, I played the piano in front of the public for the first time. It was an embarrassing experience. Although the piece is a virtuoso one, what scared me most is the lack of privacy, the loss of freedom. Because I was an introvert and the feeling of being stared by others or being social frightened me. When I stood on the stage, I felt every sense in my body was exaggerated. The light casting on the stage became strong as the sun, and the sight of every audience become lasers. They burnt me and tortured me, I felt my hands are frozen and my body was rigid, my energy was being robbed. I came forward and sat down on the piano bench nervously, and started to play like a robot. Every bone in my body was shouting “no”, I rushed on several notes and lost the rhythm. However, after a couple of seconds, it seemed that I entered a secret wonderland, an imaginary circle, where only I and the piano existed. So I gradually relaxed down and started to play as it was in my home. I forgot all of the audience and the strong light on the stage. The crazy chromatic runs turned into warm quivering energy, and I felt the beautiful sounds of piano were spiraling over me joyfully. I finally played to my best. I felt that having a private space where we can talk to ourselves freely, listen to ourselves and ignore every outsider is very important for introverts to focus and do their best, so I decided to create a private space attached to our head.

This piece aims to allow the wearer to talk to themselves without being listened by others. It also prevent the noises outside from entering their ears. I wish this piece can give a movable private space to introverts and help them feel relaxed and free when they are surrounded by other people.