Embedded Files
Materials
Materials
Workshop
Workshop
Lab Report Document: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1GfqacuIUIleWxl0NR_mWbjFAJfdQXCj8?usp=drive_link
Basic Material Options:
Corn starch
Alginate
Carrageenan
Gelatine
Experiment
Experiment
Cooking Carrageenan
Cooking Carrageenan
Attempt1 - 3D orange texture
Attempt1 - 3D orange texture
Our initial idea was to utilize the transparency of the carrageenan material and build a 3D space out of 2D materials to showcase the rich textures within an orange skin and explore both sides of the material with interesting contrast. Before we try to build the 3D space, we were making different layers of carrageenan with orange skins in its own shape or manipulated shapes.
However, the challenge was that we intentionally made the carrageenan very thick so that we can look into the texture from the side (basically adding four sides to the material). However, it takes way too long to dry and become transparent so we gave up on that idea.
One lucky thing was that carrageenan can be heated and reused directly. (Not every material is able to!) So we melted our work to make them into thinner sheets.
Reflection: There was a thinner one we made together with the thick one that we gave up too but later I realized that the thickness of that one should be appropirate becasue later ones we built were too thin and they shrank and cracked so we should have been more patient with that piece and waited for it to dry.
Attempt2 - Orange texture transformation
Attempt2 - Orange texture transformation
The focus of the second attempt was to manipulate the texture of orange skin when it's very flat and thin.
Spatial Form
Spatial Form
We reflected on our understanding of 3D texture and found that we lacked spatial design in this piece. Based on our understanding of the flexibility and strength of the materials, we decided to create the spatial form with wires and focus on the curves from the material and how they respond to the wire spiral.
Since our second attempt utilized the material in a very flat form, we decided to further cut and shape the sheets, taking them as real plastic since they do feel so after fully dried.
Reflection
Reflection
Challenges
Challenges
As discussed in the weekly reading about material-driven projects, there are known materials and unknown materials. Usually, dealing with known materials saves more time and offers more control. The materials we were making were considered known materials since they had already been tested and used by Marcela and more people. However, this may be because unpredictability is still a huge quality of all material-driven projects, so we still bumped into many accidents that weren't allowed by time. It wasn't easy to achieve what we planned and pictured. We definitely need more knowledge about the ingredients, material, and the cooking process itself.
Potentials
Potentials
Orange is a very interesting material/concept that has participated in artwork a lot such as Soul City (Pyramid of Oranges) by Roelof Louw that we've discussed in class. The idea of utilizing the texture of orange skin in this assignment simply occurred when we were eating oranges and we found this organic material has huge potential in terms of its richness, flexibility, commonness and people's ideas about it.
I found that those qualities of orange skin have already been discovered and explored a lot:
Yuli Meroz
Joshua Kosker
Chinese netizen wangbariji
But instead of using orange skin itself, what we wanted to answer was how we could combine it with other materials and make new materials. In our experiments, we tried to see how different compositions of orange surface and bioplastic as something from liquid to solid can make the material different. But I won't way we successfully developed a new material that's intriguing. There are some directions that we want to try in the future inspired by some current work:
Kathleen Ryan
This piece itself isn't about material but I think it's inspirational how it embraces mold on fruits as artistic patterns.
Krill Design
This one is pretty astonishing!
Dry recycled orange skin.
Mix the powder of the dried orange skin with natural biopolymer.
3D printing.
And the lamp will have the color, texture and even smell of the orange skin.
Compared to the last one, this is a lot more functional and has been developed into merchandise.
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