Hi Folks. Sorry I missed studio today, but I am feeling much better!

For tonight, our homework is a writing assignment. Each student should complete this. It will help you develop a clear idea of what your project is about and how to communicate it. Please read and follow the instructions below!

See you tomorrow!

Title the post “Brief” and post in the “Writing” tab of your project. Each student should write a Brief.

The Brief should have a strong narrative that ties together the Why, How and What of your project through clear, cogent writing. Tell the story of how your idea was born, developed, and manifest.

Create 1 post titled “The Brief” (v1 or v2 or final?) with text that includes the following 2 items, numbered:

1. A 1-2 sentence project description for your transcript. This will serve as the basis of the Project Description that appears in your transcript. This description should not include the name of the project and should be written in the third person. On Thursday you and your teammates will add this under project settings.
   examples:
   Night Light Blankie: A child's sensory blanket that provides comfort and privacy in the high stress environment of the hospital using weight, textures, and light. The blanket transforms into a mini light up fort over a child’s head.
   Cocoon: a shroud that explores human spirituality and the concept of life after death through the use of repetitive religious iconography. Composed of over 300 pieces of laser cut balsa wood lined with space tape, the icons are arranged using a mathematical strange attractor.

2. A 1-2 paragraph brief for your project based on the description below. This text will be edited by the NuVu writing coach. You will have the opportunity to revise this text before the final presentation. The primary purpose of The Brief is to explain, entice, and convince the reader that your project is amazing and important. Imagine your project on display in the Museum of Modern Art. The Brief is hanging on the wall next to your work. In 1-2 paragraphs, a viewer should understand what your project is, why it exists, and how you made it. More importantly, the viewer should be interested and care. You will draw them into your project through a compelling narrative. Y
   
   Things to think about:
   • The what is a clear statement of the thesis or problem+solution. Your project description for your transcript (#1 above) can be adapted for this purpose.
   • The why explains how your project changes the world. It is the reason your project exists – what social issue is it engaging, who is your project helping, how does the project change the world, and what important social, intellectual, or technical questions does it raise? The scope of the why can vary widely.
   • The how briefly explains what technical prowess, innovative methods, or cool materials you used in your solution.
   • Think of the reader - it is good to imagine that a college admissions officer AND a potential employer in the field of your design should both be able to understand and be excited by the project based on your writing.

Write in the Third person in an explanatory fashion. Resist using I, WE, OUR, or YOU and focus on describing the work.

Here is an example from Penelope the Pain-O-Monster:

Pediatricians and other doctors find it challenging to collect accurate self reported information from children about their level of pain due to lack of communication skills, fear, anxiety, and discomfort. Traditional 1-10 pain scales do not fully address these issues, often leading to uncomfortable children and inaccurate symptom information. Penelope the Pain-O-Monster is a cute plush toy that uses integrated pressure sensors to allow children to express their source and level of pain through play.

A previous project, The EmoOwl, helped children with autism to express themselves by translating motion into color. Penelope the Pain-O-Monster grew out of the desire to expand children’s health menagerie with a different stuffed animal, one that makes the pain charts patients use to express their pain more interactive and easier for a child to use. Because research has shown that playing with stuffed animals can take children’s mind off pain, an additional “Fun” mode was added to distract from pain and anxiety. The handcrafted stuffed animal uses force sensors in different body parts that light up from blue to red depending on how hard they are pushed to show the child’s pain level. The hope is that, as one of many future healthcare friends, Penelope can help sick children feel safer while providing more useful information to care providers.

The primary purpose of your Presentations  at NuVu is to describe the creative and technical journey you undertook in developing your project. In this post you will write what you are going to say, slide by slide, for your Final Post.   During your presentation you will not read from this script. It is here to help you frame your presentation and give insight to website visitors.

Feel free to organize the post by slides in the presentation. The example below if for a build studio but the concept holds for a film/animation studio.

Slide 1: Write out your title and tagline.
Slide 2: Describe your Problem/Solution or Thesis
Slide 3: SAY NOTHING!
Slide(s) 4: Discuss how each precedent inspired/informed your design.
Slide 5: Discuss your initial sketches - how they arose from your brainstorming and how they informed the start of your design process.
Slide(s) 6: Discuss each iteration - Briefly describe major design changes and how they effected the overall project arc and design.
Slide 7: Walk through the construction diagram to describe the technical aspects of the final design fabrication and underlying structure or electronics functionality.
Slide 8: Explain your functional diagram - how is your your project used or function in the world.
Slide(s) 5: Walk through each of the final images and describe the overall use/design of project.
Slide(s) 10: Discuss the final prototype, what was a success, and where your project might go from here.

Your post will:

• Introduce the general context of your project
• Present the thesis or design problem and how you approached the solution
• Using precedents, begin to tell the story of the genesis of your actual design.
• Describe the overall design concept.
• Delve deeply into the heart of the design process through a description of major design iterations.
• Thoroughly describe the final design technically and functionally through the reference to your diagrams.
• Walk through the final images, discussing how everything came together.
• Discuss the conceptual and technical challenges you faced. These should be broad view issues, not hyper-specific technical issues.
• Your vision for where your project can go.

Theory

Our standpoint is that present reality is not inherently binding. In order to escape the monotony and dullness of everyday life or draw unprejudiced conclusions about society, one has to find a way to step outside reality. The feeling of reality is much like an equation, where certain conditions yield certain outcomes. As one experiences the world, they become acclimated to the results that they see every day. People come to expect certain things:

• Gravity causes things to fall down   
• Feet go on the ground   
• You see what is in front of you   
• When you move your head left you will see more of what is to your left   
• A sense of “thingness”  - the feeling of existence and control within a familiar reality

The Trippy Goggles change or wholly disrupt each of these. By seeing yourself on the ceiling or wall, you become a step outside of reality, as you contradict the rules that reality sets in place. This step outside a normalized feeling of connection between actions and results disrupts the normal experience of corporeal existence and leads to a number of interesting results.

Additionally, the goggles give the wearer a chance to take a step outside not only reality, but society. The experience of using the goggles is subjective, but it is not subject to the same terms as observation of a society from within. It is not subject to what the wearer would normally consider “normal.” This jump is necessary for an even-handed assessment of the merits of the society being observed.

While wearing the goggles, one must consciously process experiences and actions that would normally come instinctively. This can be as simple as walking up stairs, or it can be as complex as manipulating an object with your hands. This prevents anything from truly feeling “normal” or “everyday” and allows for a higher level of generalized thought while observing societal interactions.

This aspect of the goggles ties directly to psychogeographical theories about human movement. Instead of disrupting the normalized path of a human walking from point A to point B through the use of localized architectural or interaction-based interventions, the goggles use psychological and visual manipulation to change the experience of movement and existence.

The experience of viewing something through the goggles should be more captivating and thought-provoking than viewing the same area with the naked eye. It should be a profoundly introspective experience that simultaneously forces you to rethink the society surrounding you, even down to extremely simple interactions like walking past someone on the sidewalk.

By forcing the viewer to rethink their surroundings, the goggles enable them to observe present society not as a member, but as an outside, more objective observer. While the naked-eyed viewer may not give a second thought to someone avoiding eye contact or walking faster when they see someone else, the goggles force you to notice this and more. You need to notice all of it, because you’re forced to reprocess your surroundings.

Wearing the goggles also gives you a chance to escape the repetitiveness of everyday life, again allowing for a chance to rethink life as it is today. Some experiences with the goggles feel powerful or existential, while others are simply entertaining or amusing. These experiences also provide an opportunity for escape from daily routines and schedules. This allows the wearer to think about whether they truly want to be a part of these sort of organized, repetitive patterns of life.

As well as rigid patterns of time, the goggles make the wearer rethink rigid patterns of movement. As 

Thoreau says:

“Roads are made for horses and men of business. I do not travel in them much comparatively, because I am not in a hurry to get to any tavern, or grocery, or livery stable, or depot to which they lead” (Thorough, Walking Part 1, ¶19)

Most people in modern-day capitalistic society have a place of residence and at least one place of work. They go from their place of residence to place of work without pausing to stop and take in the scenery, and with as little interaction with others as possible. They never have a chance to make an educated decision about whether society in its present form is correct for them - indeed, they never get a chance to truly observe society except as a member of it.

Aesthetic

The goggles should feel like they could lift you off the ground and into the sky. They should fade away while on your face and feel like they aren’t quite there (for a greater sense of immersion and reorientation instead of disorientation or confusion).

Related Works

• 
  The situationist Manifesto, available at http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/9
• 
  Thoreau's Walking, available in three parts at http://thoreau.eserver.org/walking1.html
• 
  Segment Disorientation by Sanjit Sethi, a video of which is available at http://sanjitsethi.com/portfolio/past/experimental-ambulation/segment-disorientation/
• 
  In absence of Zero, a project by Brad Pitts available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl5HxZ0JHto