Projcet 2 :

Spaces of Production

Making and Unmaking the World- Spaces of Production

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ⓒ M. Waller, D Fairfax 2009 - Design, Goldsmiths MACP

Making and Unmaking the World- Spaces of Production

Key Reading- Elaine Scarry The Body in Pain.

Some background thoughts

In her rather remarkable book, “The Body in Pain. The Making and Unmaking of the World,” Elaine Scarry analyses the role of our bodies, and their experiences of pain in particular, in the ways in which we produce, or “make,” both mentally and physically, materially and immaterially, the world in which we exist.

When we think of the concept of production we tend to think of it in terms of something that happens outside ourselves. Indeed we inevitably tend to think of it in terms of those archetypical images of industrial manu-facture or fabrication that immediately come to mind. Whether it be a hammer beating out a form in molten metal on a forge, or perhaps even more appropriately for our times, a robot cutting, forming, and welding an object like a car or a computer chip, or indeed maybe even the uncanny sweep of a rapid prototyper slowly building up its model layer by layer. But as Scarry points out through out her book, our body is always deeply implicated in all of these different modes of pro-duction or “making,” and those various “spaces of pro-duction” that they produce, whether we acknowledge it or not. Even in the apparently immaterial space of our imagination.

Scarry chooses to analyse the concept of pain in order to consider how we “make” our world, because, as she astutely observes, it is through our experience of the strangely inarticulable and embodied nature of pain, and those various institutions, experiences, and perhaps even more importantly for us, objects, through which it is mediated, that our world can be most devastatingly destroyed or “unmade.” A fact that then leads her to the enormously important converse realisation that it is also through our desire to empathetically alleviate or relieve the pain of other that our world is “made.” A fact that she discusses at length in the final section of her book that deals quite specifically with the question of the implications of these ideas for our understand-ings of the processes and procedures of material fabri-cation or “making” in general.

So how does this all help us with the question of the na-ture of those “spaces of production” that we are going to be investigating in this brief? Well more than anything else it should alert you to the enormous and often unac-knowledged significance of the influence of our bodies, and all of its limitations and constraints, on the design and construction of those objects that we produce and the spaces in which they are “made.”

PART 1

PART 2

Productive ProcessesThe BriefMoulding

PrintingBlocking

CastingCooking

BakingBurningHeatingFlaming

StitchingJoining

CompostingExploding

PeggingJoggling

BoilingExtruding

PullingShapingFormingCarving

LaminatingCutting

PunchingPolishing

BurnishingFoldingScoring

CreasingPressing

ExpandingTurningEtching

ScratchingKneading

RollingModelling

LayeringPleating

EmbossingSharpening

CarvingPouringDustingPeeling

RenderingSticking

The reason for introducing Scary’s ideas on production is to explore the spaces of production in their widest sense. You need to consider the body as implicated and inte-gral to these spaces of production. Production refers to 2d graphics, 3d object and 4d interaction/animation, or a combination. Your design outcome can be any or a com-bination of the forementioned 2d,3d,4d artifacts.

The rst part of the project is to select an object that has two particular properties. The rst is that you are materially at-tracted to it, and the second is that you could nd its place of its manufacture/assembly or comparable place. As an example take a cup and saucer and then nd a ceramics factory, a book and a bookbinder, a poster and a printer. It is important that you can physically visit the site- if this is not possible you must select another object.

Through drawing as a mode of enquiry and exploration you are required to produce sketches and drawings that communicate the spaces of production, spatial practices and the connections between them that create the object. These drawings need to be crafted, in colour, and of a high quality, as they form half of the assessment. Think of drawing as a mode of representation, documentation and speculation. The images you produce should have a sense of investment, care and attention. investment, care and attention. We will be having an open exhibition in the drawing.

You have explored the place and spatial practices of the production of objects now the brief asks you to design an object that produces either other objects or spaces.

As example…“Take the factory that produces objects make an object that produces factories” Drexler’s key point about nan-otechnologies in his book Engines of Creation.Small nano-machines were released into the blood stream where they in turn manufactured new compounds that were secreted into the body. You don’t need to do nano-projects! Just consider the implications of auto-manufac-ture.

Consider the modes of production you have explored and try to connect them to a new productive object. You need to consider your users as producers or your designed ob-ject as a producer space.What your PART 2 must produce is an object that is pro-ductive.

© M. Waller , D. Fairfax 2009-GoldsmitMACP

1. Point of critical practice : What is my critical practice for

“Spatiality is not only a product but also a producer and a reproducer of the relations of production and domination, an instrument of both allocative and authoritative power”

Edward Soja, p 110, 1985

Mechanics (Greek Μηχανική)

is the branch of physics concerned with the behavior of physical bodies when subjected to forces or displacements, and the subsequent effect of the bodies on their environment.

Visiting site for the project

Meterially what I am interested of is implements and tools, In many different processes people use many different shaped and functioned tools. The relation between a tool and a metal is being manipulated on balance of mechanics.

At first stage of the project, I observed a jewelry workshop which is based near Lon-don Bridge. This was the first site to observe how producers work in the space of pro-duction. My intension was to discover how the environments affect a human. From this

viewpoint I sought their behavior in limits of the space and things that they are using in the space. What they are producing is jewelry out of many kinds of metals and what they are us-ing to produce them is tools which already exist and had been developed since many century ago for their efficient usage. In this relationship, I found their sense of how to handle the metals according to different melting-point, density, abrasion, consistency and so on which they have to consider. In the workshop, new designed jewelry come out of the space where are designed and arranged by habitants.

2.Mapping the Critical Practice Terrain - working out where to act

3. Critical Practice in different contexts - Academic discipline or Professional Practice

The producer for jewelry makes his own tools for making free-shape of met-als and also he changed a little part of IKEA table for his working efficency.

The focus of the modes of production

IKEA Kitchen trolley, “BEKVÄM”

Modular Consideration 2.

Phill, the jeweller, reformed his IKEA table by adding his old tools drawer beside in it.

He also put his old 360 de-gree rotating plate for heat-ing on it, this has 3 wheel made by himself.

Modular Consideration 1.

4.Deploying appropriate research methods

The modes of productionTwo producers’ behalf between major manufacturer and end-user.

Drawings 1.

Things are being changed by necessity.Tools fitting itself

Drawings 2.

5.Type of research forms and positions;

My focus of the modular productive object was a start with re-formation for necessity, and the next step was with consideration of profit amongst producers who take a role to produce each

part of products. What I found from jewellery workshop is the maker’s bhalf that he changed a part of the tools and environmental element for his work efficiency. In between those elements that give me inspiration, I deeply thought about behalf of end-user: What do they get indeed benefit from a product after paying enough of it with equally happy in its manufacturing company? When the jewellery maker reformed his IKEA table for his working efficiency, I supposed that the table might be not matched with end user’s desire well. It still had a little gap between producing and consuming even though IKEA, in fact, provides us lower price by deducting money for assembly proc-ess. For instance, toaster appliance, its maker produce toaster by assembly produced part, including an electrical cord. The cord maker thinks to serve it with proper profit. On the other phase, there is multi-plug maker, he produces it and serves to sell to an end-user who will buy or bought the toaster. It seems alright that economical cycle is well rotating. However the major company for toaster does not even think about the cord’s efficiency, but just part of it as is. The producer of the cord also provide as is it.

This productive object aims to be inspired as well as given potential function and flexibility of the intended use of everyday products.

6.Processes of your design practice

6-1.

6-2.

6-3.

7.Representation