1) How do you think systems thinking relates to sustainable practices of art and design? Using the main themes of this article — interconnectedness, feedback loops and causality — post a sketch on your LP of at least 10 different systems that you were reliant on/benefited from today (what various systems support your daily life)?
For me, I sometimes simplified the complex system into linear or circle shape to let my work be more direct and understandable and reduce my workload a bit. Even though it is way more complicated for most of the time, I feel like cutting off the negative side and emphasizing the main positive point is usually what I do for my art and design work. If people really try to dig more into an idea, the idea could be endless and extended into many areas.
2) In preparation for our orientation of the Riso Printers in the Design Lab next week, read the following link about riso printing (Links to an external site.) and then conduct independent research on the effects of synthetic inks and dyes on environmental (especially water) systems. In 5-6 sentences, summarize what you discovered and found most interesting. Post 2-3 citations of sites you visited.
The riso printing is from a Japanese company called Riso. The printing pigments is soy-based, and banana fiber is used to make the stencils, which are all-natural materials. Because its printing speed is often really fast, it can cause the mis-registration sometimes. Before start printing hundreds of same pages together, double checking the test results would be good. Riso printing also has some special color pigments that we cannot find in digital printing like metallic gold and fluorescent pink. What is more, the glossy paper cannot be used for riso printing.
Reference:
https://www.rbpmw-efanyc.org/what-is-a-risograph/
3) Post documentation of your first FBNK entry. Preview the document What do you think of this process — does it feel like a practice you might enjoy doing several times this semester? Do you have any recommendations to improve the practice?
When I first heard about this homework, I feel a bit confused about what exact I should do for this homework. After I experienced it and finished this natural recording, I seem to understand this assignment more. In our modern busy society, people often do everything in a rush without paying attention to the natural environment around. This documentation let me calm down and immerse myself into the real nature in a way. I used to only focus on the data of weather app which is the degree of temperature and whether it is going to rain or not. This assignment helps me to notice for more details of nature and realize the high technology which we are used to. I feel I would like to have a try on observing the same thing over and over again. I haven’t tries that before, so I feel a bit curious about what the final results will look like. For future suggestions, I don’t really have any, but I guess maybe let us choose our own natural spot to observe. In that way, we can frequently visit the place, and we might get more details about the changes, but the reason I am not quite sure about this is because vising a place too often might ignore some tiny details by getting used to see it generally.
4) How does it feel to try and grow your own material from tea and sugar? What do you think will be the biggest challenges for this project? If needed, re-Watch the Suzanne Lee video (kombucha leather examples)
It feels pretty amazing. Using home pots and food materials to grow natural material feels a bit weird but interesting. The weird point is the food is not made to eat. The interesting point is that it’s not like the high school chemistry lab that we often have equipment to make the materials or doing scientific experiments. I do not know if I can open the box in the middle of the process. I’m curious about how it grows (because it’s too brown and full to see from outside), but at the same time I also do not want to ruin the process by accident. I guess my challenge will be how to control my curiosity. To be more serious, my challenges will be controlling the thickness of the leather I would like it to grow.
