Information as an organism has been a structural metaphor to investigate our relationship with digital information today. The project has evolved to focus on finding ways to alert guardians to the dangers both to children and themselves in our current digital lifestyles.
Presented here are organic representations of the dangers and horrors that lurk and evolve on the internet. These internet organisms have been mutated with gathered fears, curiosities and concerns of children. Having help from the nursery through a workshop has brought these internet phenomenon out of the digital and into the physical in new materialities. Using these ways of making as a key way to show the problems they produce and evoke new reaction, discussion, but most importantly action.
My hope for representing internet phenomena as organisms is to not just throw a spotlight on the prevalence of the digital in our lifestyles but also produce ways to relate to the digital. Create new understandings of the internet and ways to be safe within it. The petting zoo acts as a destination where these organisms can cohabit the physical with us whilst being a place where guardianship can truly be exercised.
WHY
The Masterclass was created to develop the organisms for the petting zoo by finding concerns, fears and curiosities through drawings and final materialised monsters. Drawings of concerns, fears and curiosities were found using a 'Guided Corpse' exercise a new interpretation based on Dada's Exquisite Corpse. This method allowed children to respond to the subtle questions through drawing enabling less predictable and uncertain results. Making these drawings real through scrap materials provided interesting insights on ways to build my organisms
AIMS
- For participants to explore, question and engage with the monster world around them and to learn together through practical making skills providing first-hand experience of monster making and monster creating processes.
- To celebrate creativity, to test and tinker with ideas, build ‘soft’ skills and confidence of participants and their parents/adult carers. These might include team work, sociability, communication, optimism and confidence for self-progression in monster making.
- Ensure there are opportunities to gather learnings and feedback gathering during and after activities presented.
Hi my name’s Tom, as a culture addict and curiosity chaser I enjoy moving around and immersing myself in ways to see different perspectives. Design for me has been a key way to engage in these different perspectives. My favourite part of moving around and design is that you meet a lot of people on your way and get to listen to their stories. I do design partly because it provides me with the same freedom I feel when I move around and meet new people. It gives me an excuse to practice and become better.
During my practice I have found myself becoming a facilitator of understanding rather than a solution provider. I enjoy employing designed research methodologies to generate sites where what may seem unremarkable or unfamiliar at first can reveal its wonder where it couldn't be seen before. I am obsessed with collaboration, sharing through storytelling and providing clarity to the murky. I am always looking for something fun to work on and trying out new tools and techniques.
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