Introductions

1. Collaboration Project

On Lookout: observing the everyday

Project brief

This project is intended to encourage risk and experimentation in your creative ideas. It should enable you to test and consider your research methods, development and production of a solution as a collaborative group. It should also challenge you in how you manage contrasting forms of knowledge for your practice

Primary knowledge and inspiration is achieved through the observation and experience of things. We can gain understanding through this activity but how do we then document and communicate this knowledge? This knowledge can be technically, qualitively, quantitatively or narratively communicated. It can be textual or visually represented - metaphor, reportage, analogy, narrative etc.

Your task is to merge experience and knowledge so bridging the gap between the activities of our everyday environment and knowledge in such a way that we will be able to gain a new way of seeing the everyday.

Man has observed nature and gained knowledge, so by turning on our own urban (peri/semi/hardcore) environment, what do we see? By considering and applying rural/nature tactics of observing, tending and protecting to the activities of the urban environment we should be able to produce new knowledge of our everyday existence.

Working in groups you are required to design and construct a “hide” and a “folly” which are vehicles or devices to observe and draw attention to the everyday. These ‘structures’ should act as the focus for the observation activities and should be carefully considered in terms of function and aesthetics. Your device can be located where you choose and observe what you want but this may require negotiation (and ethics). The knowledge gained from the device should then be communicated in a method and format, which is stimulating and informative.

In your development work you should respond to the following themes:

Observation – Function – Knowledge – Emotion – Narrative – Time – Aesthetics - Materials.