Team: Sebastian Ervi/ Gabrielle Bennet/ Rikkie Xiong/ Zhaolu Song
Brief: Design a way to express the skin/world interface.
Time: 29.10.2020 - 05.11.2020
What is "skin"?
Before thinking about what to design, we discussed how do we define skin and did some first-hand research. I went to a park to find some design inspirations. The first thing that came to my mind is the skin of architecture which towards bioinspired facades. Besides, I thought about the skin of nature and the function of the skin.
Beyond the layer of clothing as a “second skin”, architecture is often referred to as a “third skin” - P. Gruber & S. Gosztonyi.
Skin research. Image by me.
Inspirations
Based on our research, we discussed different kinds of skins we found, for instance, skins of fruits, architectures, earth, plants, human, food packing, etc.
There are some good inspirations we discussed:
Our inspirations. Ideas by team. Image by me.
Design Concept
After discussion, we all liked the concept that "perfectly imperfection" and "don’t judge a book from its cover". Based on this concept, we did further research and found that people’s aesthetics could be affected by different cultures, like pale skin is more desirable in Asian society, while tan skin is preferable in western countries. Besides, skin color could be related to racism in some countries and it could also be an identity of people.
Skin concept. Image by me.
“The skin is an archive of past experience, a cartography of identity, a site of vulnerable pleasures, a carapace of often uncompromising pains, and a dynamic screen onto which selves, others and societies project feelings of love, hate and everything in between.” ( Lafrance, 2018)
Design Ideas
Based on our concept, we brainstorm together to generate more ideas.
Ideas by me.
Ideas by Sebastian.
Ideas by Rikkie.
Ideas by Gabrielle.
From these ideas, we picked some good ones and discussed how to realize them and detailed materials. Due to the pandemic, we decided each one makes one initial prototype about our concept.
Ideas we picked. Image by team.
Early Prototypes
1. Sewed fruits
Sewed fruits: Bruises are beautiful. Design by Gabrielle. Photos by Sebastian.
2. Beautiful bruises
Banana tattoo: Finding beauty in bruises. Design by me. Photos by me.
Bruises art: Bruises are beautiful. Design by me. Photos by me.
3. Riggie's face experiment
Riggie's face experiment: Don't judge a person from his appearance.
Design by Sebastian. Photos by Sebastian.
*Experiment: People wear blurred glasses as well as listen to Riggie's audio telling his story and then take off glasses to see what Riggie looks like.
4. Pixel art
Pixel art: FInding the beauty in one's scar
Design by Rikkie. Photos by Rikkie.
Feedback
After the presentation, Alaistair suggested us to narrow our ideas to one and develop it further. Our group had several different prototypes and they are slightly different in the concepts, like the sewing fruits and banana tattoo mean to make the imperfections beautiful again, Riggie’s face experiment and pixel art means don’t judge one person by his appearance.
When I talked with our classmates, they all thought embracing imperfections is a lovely and meaningful idea. So, we decided to keep our concept and figure out one way to develop it.
To be continued...
References
Gruber, P. and Gosztonyi, S. (2010) ‘Skin in architecture: towards bioinspired facades’, Transactions on Ecology and the Environment, 138(1), pp. 503 – 513. doi: 10.2495/DN100451
Huda, A. (2019) Islamic Clothing Requirements. Available at: https://www.learnreligions.com/islamic-clothing-requirements-2004252 (Accessed: 31 October 2020).
Kellett, H. (2017) Skin Portraiture: Embodied Representations in Contemporary Art. Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. The University of Western Ontario. Available at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/4567 (Accessed: 31 October 2020).
Lafrance, M. (2018) ‘Skin Studies: Past, Present and Future’, Body & Society, 24(1-2), pp. 3-32. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X18763065
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