Inspired Speaker

Objective : Create a ceramic phone speaker that utilizes structural and / or specific design elements from a piece of ceramics found in the history of ceramics 

Reflection:

1.  The Essential Question for this project is: How can an ancient culture influence a new phone speaker?  What culture and work did you look at when you were beginning this project?  What did you do to show your inspiration in your speaker? How did you make connections; what did you keep and what did you alter? What were your reasons for changes? (The image from which you took inspiration should be inserted at the top of this page. Please be sure to list the culture that created your piece)

For my artifact, I looked at a small vessel from Pakistan. The intricate and repeating design around the rim of the vessel caught my eye, and I replicated that around the wide opening of my speaker. I also tried to use similar colors, choosing to paint my carved design a dark brown and leave the rest of the speaker its natural color with a clear glaze on top. I couldn’t find an image for the side view of the vessel, so the only pattern I replicated was the one from the top view. I think that the designs, textures, and colors used in many ancient cultures are timeless and can bring an interesting element into a more modern form such as a phone speaker.

2.  How effective is your speaker?  How does it change the way you hear the sound? Why do you think you got the results that you got?  How might you have changed it to get better results?

I think my speaker is generally effective - It does change the way I hear the sound, but not in a very noticeable way. If I had altered the shape of my speaker in some way - making the funnel part longer, making a smaller opening - it may have produced a clearer change in the sound. I also wonder if the glaze I used altered the sound; if I had used a low fire glaze instead of a high fire glaze, would the sound have changed?

3. Thoroughly describe another student's work that you admire. What do you think would have been the most challenging part of making it; why?

I admire Rory’s fish speaker because of the way the natural parts of the fish were used to make the speaker functional as well as unique (using the fish’s mouth as an opening). I also like the attention to detail in each individually carved scale. I think the most challenging part would be to keep the cylindrical shape of the fish while adding on the other details without it caving in on itself. Since my speaker was very open and relatively short, I didn’t have to deal with this issue.