Mid-term Assessment and Berg Talk

Design & Interaction pathway (which is what I'm in) had to do a 5 minute pdf presentation for our mid-term assessment. Above are my slides. 39 slides to go through in 5 minutes sounds pretty crazy (7.69 seconds per slide!) but my timing went perfect. My strategy was to say somewhat one sentence (or one concept) per slide and that way timing became easier to predict and it was easy to memorize the entire script.
This assessment was all about looking forward rather than looking back. Situating Your Practice.

That leads me back to Berg talk we had last month.

The talk was given by Matt Jones and he mentioned just like how physical materials want to become certain forms, technology also wants to be in certain form. Sometimes it's weird to explain that, because people think technology is this thing that human have the power to manipulate in whatever ways, but it also has a voice. Just like a sculptor listens to the voice of wood or metal, same goes for technology too; we can listen to its voice when working with it.

I personally don't have much desire for self-expression nor I don't come up with an idea that I'm eager to create. I'm sort of more into obtaining a dialogue with a concept, and for instance Explaining Relativity project was all about listening to a material, and giving form to an abstract concept in a way that felt natural. That process is different from self-expression, answering client briefs, or solving problem. It's not that one is better than another or they have clear separate division, but I do think they all have different processes.
Ever since we worked on the Taschen for Tablets, we've been thinking about what feels natural for digital technology. I think listening to material is as exciting as listening to people. What Berg seems to be doing well is that even though they are tech-savvy company, they are being very friendly to technology. And by being friendly to technology, they are somehow making technology friendly to people too.

Here are some notes taken at the talk:

素材の声を聞いて造形する。「形を作る」というより、「形を見つける」。彫刻家に限った話ではない。例えば、テクノロジーでも、「テクノロジーがどんな形になりたがっているか」に耳を澄ますことで生まれる作品には、優しさがある。
そういうことをしている会社が、Berg。

私も、「こういうの作りたーい！」とか「すごいアイディアひらめいたー！」というよりは、データやらコンセプトやら素材やらと向き合って、「ふむふむ、どういう形になりたいのかい」とカウンセリングを繰り返す方が向いている気がする。デジタルもアナログも、素材として捉えて、どうやったら素材を活かせるかなと、向き合いながら対話するのが楽しい。素材と向き合うのは、クライエントの要望に沿うのとも、問題を解決するのとも、また違った楽しみ。