Thesis beginnings

Thesis R&D is in full swing. After some research in museum accessibility over the summer at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in NYC, I've decided to focus my thesis investigations on the the museum experience for blind and low vision visitors.

There are still a lot of things I need to get my brain around...

Am I more interested in improving museum experiences, or improving an experience for a blind or low vision person?

Well, neither strictly.

I think what I'm most interested in (at least today) is in how people see things differently and how one sense can be translated to another.

People who are blind because they experience the world in a different way. Museums because they are where all this stuff is collected and where people have dedicated and focussed moments.

There are a few of tools out there, like Touch Graphic's Talking Tactile Exhibit Panels that narrate an object according to where you are touching it. Pretty awesome. But, the content is all tell and no show.

Since I am still in the testing the waters phase, I think I'll spend some time exploring unexpected ways that visuals can be expressed. What does a painting feel like? What does a painting sound like? How can we translate visual art in an way that creates rich experiences for experience all of the senses?

Pizza and museums

Last week I enjoyed a delicious pizza and a great chat about museums with Cara McCarty, Cooper-Hewitt's Curatorial Director.

We shared a pizza at Gina La Fornarnia on the upper east side. The restaurant itself is pretty garish with Pepto Bismol pink awnings, chairs, and walls but once you get past the decor the pizza is fantastic. Cara and I had the fresh fig and prosciutto pizza; it was a combination of salty and sweet -- extra thinly sliced prosciutto and figs baked to the point of caramelization. The crust was tasty but the clincher was the sauce -- a delicious cream of parmigiano. Aww yesss.

Over lunch, Cara shared with me some thoughts about what it is to work in a museum and how things have changed since she started out in the 1980's. As she sees it, there have been three major changes that have shaped the industry -- blockbusters, computers, technology. 

Object of the Day

Object of the Day is a daily blog by the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum aimed to help you discover a different object from the collection every day.

I did a post as part of my summer internship, which you can see on the website here, or read below.

Collection Connections

Posted by Rachel Sakai on Friday July 05, 2013

As a new member of the Digital + Emerging Media team here at the Cooper-Hewitt, I've been spending a lot of time learning about our various projects in process. One of the most enthralling resources I've encountered so far is the collections database. Try it out, if you haven't already; you'll see why it's so satisfying to explore. Here's an example. I started browsing with the "random" link and it brought me to this collage for a textile by one Alexander Hayden Girard.

Ok, so the collections database has lots of pretty pictures...but so what? Well, the great thing about the collections database is that it exposes relationships and allows you to make connections. Rather than seeing the Girard collage as an isolated object, I can see it in a variety of contexts. For example, if I click on "Alexander Hayden Girard," I am taken to a page that gives me information not only about Girard, but also people and organizations he has collaborated with and other objects he is connected to. Here is where it gets interesting. I can see the collage in context by viewing it alongside the other objects designed by Girard within the collection, and I can start to answer questions like "is this piece typical of Girard's style and work?"

Or, instead of looking at other objects designed by Girard, I can take a broader view by clicking on the link in the Period field. In the case of Girard's "Design for Textile-Quatrefoil," the period is Postwar. Here I can begin to understand what else was going on in the world of design when Girard made this piece.

I see a lot of objects in the postwar period were designed by Tommi Parzinger, who is he? Repeat, repeat, repeat… No man is an island, and no design is created in a vacuum. The collections database has a long way to go but it is making huge steps towards revealing context and connections between the objects in our collection.

visual icons for interactivity

My co-worker, Aaron Straup Cope, reminded me about the work of Timo Arnall today. Arnall's work on graphic language for touch resonated and inspired me to sketch out some graphic language ideas of my own.

Talking / Connecting

Let's see if I can keep it up.

democratization of design

A classmate showed me The Noun Project.

I love it. You can search for any noun and find its corresponding icon, all free to use (with attribution) or under the creative commons license.

 Thesis in the field of democratization of design?? It's worth exploring.

[IxD Studio] The Water Project

The last project in IxD studio was to envision the future of water and to share that vision.

My group (Shaili Das, Ramune Rastonis, and Vida Riahi) decided to look at the future of the oceans. We wanted to create a space that would cause people to consider the way their choices impact the environment, without being judgmental or preachy.

'Oceans' is a pretty vast subject; given the scope of the project, we needed to keep a narrow our focus and create something simple. We wanted to create a sensory space where people could take a minute to sit, contemplate, relax, escape, and be mesmerized. Our inspirations were, not surprisingly, mostly aquariums.

[IxD Theory] Reflections

Reflect on how this course has affected your perspective as a designer. What has changed? What has stayed the same? In what ways are you more confident and what gaps do you still feel you have?

Hi Arna,

Thank you. Interaction theory has been one of my favorite courses this first year in the grad design program at CCA; it has been instrumental in helping me define where I want to go and why I came back to school in the first place.