Aarron Walter » Art

Inside Designer's Sketchbooks

Aarron — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 21:39:56 +0000

Moleskine, an exceptionally popular sketchbook/notebook manufacturer, recently sponsored an exhibition at the Art Directors Club in New York called Detour. The exhibition featured 70 Moleskine notebooks filled by various designers, architects, artists and writers providing a glimpse into the minds and process of many creative minds.

Video of many of the notebooks can now be found at YouTube or at the Detour site. There are so many inspiring ways to record one’s ideas illustrated in this video series, all of which drive home the importance of keeping a sketchbook.

I think a lot of people are put off by the idea of sketchbooks because they think it is a place where they are required to make beautiful renderings. If you take away the name “sketchbook” and call it an “ideabook” it mind sound a little less daunting. The purpose of having a sketchbook, notebook, ideabook (whatever you want to call it) is simply to ensure that none of your brilliant ideas slip by you. Keep them cataloged on one place for future reference. It’s also a great place to collect things you find interesting. The practice of cataloging ideas encourages the development ideas. It’s a bit like jumping jacks for your brain, keeping it top working order.

Though there are too many good ones to choose from, here are a few of my favorites in the Moleskine Detour sketchbooks.

The Captives

Aarron — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 16:08:13 +0000

I’ve just posted a new interactive sculptural piece entitled The Captives to my Creative Discovery portfolio. The piece explores the idea of imprisonment and passive observation of viewers. It’s a concept I have been working on and prototyping the technology for a few years now. Given current world events, the concept has become more salient and relevant than I had originally intended. Mice are trapped in a display case with a large lock conspicuously preventing their freedom. The mice scurry about looking for shelter or a way out, triggering a motion sensor that causes pleading messages to be written and spoken to viewers to release them from captivity. The key is in the lock. A viewer could end the piece at any time. I created the piece using an EZIO card, a motion sensor, and custom software authored in Lingo using Macromedia Director.

Long Night of Museums

Aarron — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 10:09:50 +0000

Saturday evening was Lange Nacht der Museen here in Berlin, an annual event that opens the doors to all of the cities major cultural institutions late into the night. Special performances and events take place in and around the museums including art and music performances, poetry readings, special exhibitions, guided tours, and activities for children. For 12 euros, you can get into as many museums as you like, all of which are linked together by a bus system shuttling visitors from place to place as part of their admission fare. The events outside the museums were every bit as engaging as what was inside. At the Gem?§ldegalerie, an impressive pyrotechnic display lured visitors from afar to the museum. Classical and contemporary music ignited the space while flamethrower devices atop the roof and around the museum shot streams of fire into the air in time. A large flamethrower array burst a massive fiery charge above the crowd at the crescendo of songs. At Potsdamer Platz, a building facade was transformed into a screen displaying media art works. Giant florescent bulbs in circular and linear shapes serve as massive pixels of the display. I stood mesmerized by the imagery for some time. A highlight of the evening for me was an installation by Cai Guo-Qiang entitled Head On at the Deutsche Guggenheim. A large drawing of swirling dust and silhouettes of wolves begins the piece. In front of it stands a lone, snarling wolf, poised to spring forward into a large pack of wolves running, and leaping in an arch above the ground, ultimately crashing into a glass wall. Each wolf is quite carefully crafted with what appears to be real fur. The piece captures the motion of the pack suspending dozens of wolves in mid air until their bizarre demise at the wall.