Reading Reflection | Critical Making 

 

 

 

 

 

The data set I am using is the amount of time women and men spend on unpaid care and domestic work. One of the significance of this dataset lies in its implication on gender gap. On the other hand, there exists a stereotype that housework is women’s responsibility. The society expects women to shoulder these mundane, minute, yet tiring unpaid work. By implementing the data into the drip hanger, the disparity between time spent on domestic work can be physicalized. The length of each stick represents the time women/ men of each continent spend on domestic work. The radius of each stick is the female – make time ratio. In other words, the sicker the stick is, the less time male spend on domestic work in comparison to their female counterparts. The hanger, ideally, will tilt towards women’s side. Together with the thickness, I wish to provide insight into how imbalance the domestic work distribution is. 

In my proposal, I hope this project can be interactive in the way that the audience can choose which continent they are interested in by opening the specific stick, and drawing in other sticks. In this way they can contrast the female-male data of a specific continent. However, the center hinge structure is a bit difficult to model as the cap is always too big for the ball. I am still working on this part. 

The material I chose to use is the transparent material, just for the aesthetics. I bought the metal hook, however, if it doesn’t fit my model, I might as well 3D print one. I also want to incorporate cotton string to try the Macrame, in substitute for the clips, to visualize the data of each country. It might make it difficult to hang clothes on this hanger, but I think it is an ideal way to present the data.

I definitely learned a lot from the proposing process. At first, the dataset I found was very general (just about the gender gap). The object I thought of didn’t convey my ideas well, because I put too much emphasis on aesthetic value. However, as I narrowed my data down to the “unpaid domestic care and housework”, the idea became much more specific and easier to understand.

(One fun fact I want to share: this work actually echoes with Wallerstein’s theory on domestic income!! I am learning this for my humanities’ class. I’m so happy and excited that what I am learning from humanities course can be applied to my IMA courses! )

Project Iterations

Notes:

• Simplify Tree: simplify a tree by removing the overlap shared amongst all branches
• Tree Branch: Retrieve a specific branch from a data tree
• Param Viewer: a viewer for data structures — help you to understand data tree
• Line SDL: create a line segment defined by start point, tangent and length
• Merge: Merge a bunch of data streams
• Entwine: flatten and combine a collection of data streams
  • Q: What is the difference between merge & entwine? | reference link
    • Merge: when you “don’t really care about the individual lists” within the master list (or they’ve already been setup proper into their own branches). You just want to combine the lists together so you can perform an operation on only that list without having to repeat that operation for the individual lists, so it’s for clarity and speed. 
    • Entwine: keep the individual lists separate, and in their own branch
      
• Graft Tree: graft a data tree by adding an extra branch for every item
• Flip matrix: flip a matrix like data tree by swapping rows and columns

• Relative item: retrieve a relative item combo from a data tree
  • Wrap paths/ Wrap Items: wrap paths/ items when the shift is out of value
    • this can be used in the construction of the roof part in my project 2. Instead of using list, I can use this
  • Offset
• 
  • Reference Link —  The Sets-Tree-Relative Item enables you to extract 2 lists from a single list. The output of the component is dictated by the Relative Offset input. The offset has two components . The branch offset and the item offset. 
• Tree Statistics + Text Tag 3D: display the path
• Populate Geometry: to produce random points on the surface — when you connect a population to a plane, it is a XY Plane
• Surface Closet Point: project these points on the base surface
• (CP surface tool: to convert the XYZ data to UV data)

Homework Exercise

 

• My major take-away from this exercise is how to construct new surfaces on the poly surface. I also become more familiar with the Populate Geometry. Not so sure if I will use them in my final project, but it’s nice to explore more functions in the grasshopper. 

Final Project Proposal

Data: 2023 Gender Social Norms Index (GSNI) | link

Gender bias is a pervasive problem worldwide. The Gender Social Norms Index (GSNI) quantifies biases against women, capturing people’s attitudes on women’s roles along four key dimensions: political, educational, economic and physical integrity. The index, covering 85 percent of the global population, reveals that close to 9 out of 10 men and women hold fundamental biases against women. 

Data: Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The gender snapshot 2023｜enlace

• • At the current rate of progress, the next generation of women will still spend on average 2.3 MORE HOURS per day on unpaid care and domestic work than men.
  • For each DOLLAR men earned in labour income globally, women earned only 51 CENTS.
  • Each year around the world, 245 million and older are victims of physical and/or sexual violence perpetrated by an intimate partner.

Sketch & Concept Proposal

Sketch 1:Chinese Hair Pin

Hairpins have a longstanding association with cultural traditions and customs in China. In ancient times, the hairpin symbolized the rite of passage for marriage. 

• For me, although I don’t know how to use a Traditional Chinese Hairpin, I always think it is a very attractive accessory with immense cultural characteristics. Despite its original meaning, I am not using this object to criticize the marriage tradition in ancient China. I think it represent the feminine beauty. ✨
• (the quote above comes from this webpage

Sketch 2:Pasta Spoon

Why Pasta Spoon? 

• My inspiration comes from this video I watched from last semester’s class: Martha Rosler – Semiotics of the Kitchen 1975. When I talked about gender stereotypes with my friend, she told me she once saw online that some people would prepare those cleaning robots for their mums as birthday present while prepare tea pots for their dads. 

“Women belong to household work.” …? 

• This heartbreaking reality reminded me of the gender gap. Yes, in nowadays’ society, despite all the work done, there still exit many gender stereotypes, either conscious or unconscious. So I though about the video I watched last semester. I want to relate my data to some household object to better present the gender gap. 

Sketch 3: lamp 

A lamp with the pattern of Traditional Chinese Embroidery pattern – butterfly

Why Butterfly Pattern？

• I sourced my inspiration from patterns in the traditional Chinese embroidery among the ethnic minorities in China. The embroideries are mainly made by women. I’ve seen in documentaries that women of the ethnic minority groups gather together to finish a piece together. I am really impressed by this kind of human connection. These pieces are always embedded with love and best wishes. I also think they represent the tenderness and wisdom of women. (I read about it somewhere that most of the patterns were designed by women. I am really amazed by all these intrinsic designs!!)
• Embroidery is a signature of Chinese culture, and different minority groups have their own way of embroidery and own design of patterns. However, due to poor protection, these techniques are severely endangered.

I want to present the concept of gender inequality, especially biases against women. They say women can not undertake leadership position. They say women belong to household work. They say the major responsibility of women is to take care of her family. But I say, WE CAN DO ANYTHING. I want to celebrate feminine beauty while revealing the harsh gender gap.

 

DESIGN PROCESS:

Buildings/ architectures in Shanghai have always been a very important part of my life. When going on city walks or taking pictures of streets in Shanghai (and other cities as well), I am always attracted to these exquisitely designed architecture. And these architectures are usually perfect for sketching considering my poor sketching skills :0

Having the idea in mind, I decided to dig my phone album for photos of Shikumen buildings I took. Growing up I. Shanghai, Shikumen buildings played a very important role in my grandparents and parents’ childhood. However, I have never lived in one before. It is really such a pity that the Shikumen my dad used to live in for 10ish years were taken down by the government. The good news is he took me there before the deconstruction; but the sad thing is it didn’t leave me with deep impression.

Anyways, I really want to use this project to show/ present a part of my identity as a Shanghainese. ✨ I want to present one of the prettiest sides of this city. 📸

TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT

• I did encountered much struggling during the design process. So actually for the three iterations, they are more like my experiments with different ways of construction.
  • Experiment with the pipes: I wanted to construct the patterns on those Shikumen buildings, so I used pipes/ multi pipes. But the pipes I made are not thick enough to be printed. So I gave up😭. But it laid foundation for my idea of creating rectangles for the arch shape.
    • 
  • Another experiment for making the column patterns | reference link
    • 
• Iterations  

 

• What I could have done better is definitely how to make the thingy more printable. I constructed so many surfaces that after baking everything to Rhino, I realized they were not the printable surfaces. So I tried cap holes/ connect Breps … (basically what ever I could, as long as they could work) The code was really messy
• As for the construction of the shape, I would like to know more about how to construct the very detailed column patterns and the tiles. One concern is that my computer couldn’t handle these amount of code 🙁
• Lists: I think I am getting more familiar with the list functions, but to get my ideal result more quickly, I might have chosen a more complicated way to do the list.
• Graphs: I’m not sure how things will turn out to be if I used the default graph settings. I think maybe I don’t need the RICHED GRAPH MAPPER. However, this extension did give me more space to play with the graphs.

Notes on LIST: (reference video )

• Reverse List: reverse the sequence 
• List length: how many data in the list
• Subset: create a domain and take the items in the domain out
• Dispatch: Use boolean to create pattern and select items
• Split List: Split the list into anything below the item number & anything above (can be combined with list length and math operations) 
  • I tended to mix the three a lot. Dispatch is more about the BOOLEAN values  
• List Item: take out very specific items in the list; can use panel to take out multiple ones
• Weave: weave 2 lists of items together (use boolean as well)
• Partition list: choose the size of the items you want to break the original list into
• Sort: sort a list into another list (rearrange the items in the list)
• Pick and choose: take a bunch of list and sort them into a  new list according to a pattern (true/false)

Notes on Grasshopper Masks (reference website)

Reflection & Future Development

• I love this project a lot because the Shikumen buildings are really an important part of me. I feel like right now these three little magnets are very similar to those sold at the souvenir stores: poorly made but full of good memories. I also love the choices of color! The grey/ brown colors are the color of the Shikumen buildings! 🙂
• I really would love to make the Shikumen more exquisitely designed. Professor Lena Scheen from Global China Studies department told me that she has been looking for these kind of models of Shanghai, but they were all so poorly made. I would love to contribute more to the education of my city 🙂 And I wonder how to better make those arches and details. Maybe I need to make one lager model, and rescale the model according to the door. 
• As for the function of this little magnet, it is true that I can add a transparent layer so that it could function better as a frame. Right now, it is easy to put Polaroid pictures inside using tac it. But it would be better if it could hold more kinds of pictures. 
• I’d also make those ones that can hold horizontal pictures to make it more inclusive. 

References: 

These are the designs for the Shikumen. Pic 1 taken by me near 张园；pic 2 found on Baidu, it’s Xin tian di 新天地；pic 3 is actually a small village in a Hongkong island called Tai’o, which I love VERY MUCH!!

• How to construct the bricks | reference 
• Other references can be found in previous documentation 

💐 Vase Iterations 🏺

Iteration #1 ✨

• In this iteration, I used Gene Pool to control the spiral directly, instead of letting it go through a math process. In this way, the spirals are more random, because the circles aren’t divided evenly. I also used dispatch & scale to generate the patterns on the surface. After baking the grasshopper thingy, I offset the surfaces and unioned the solids. 
• Parameters: height of the circles, radius of the circles, rotation angles, number of curve divisions, dispatch patterns, scale of the dispatch segments. 

Iteration #2 ⛓️

• This time, instead of using circle, I tried using polygons, but I don’t think it made much difference. I wanted to make everything shaper instead of this smooth. For the rotation angle, I tried math calculation. I wanted to make the polygons thicker in the model so that there will be patterns on the vase, but the shape of the polygons didn’t actually fit the surface. 
• Parameters: height of the polygons, radius of the polygons, polygon segments, rotation angles, number of curve divisions. (I realize I could have used gene pool to control each polygon segment as well heheheh)

Iteration #3 ⚜️

• This iteration is a bit similar to the first one, but I added more circles and more spirals to it. The height of each circle is not arranged according to the order. Instead, I made the circle 0 a bit lower than circle 1. The dispatch pattern might not be a good idea because I don’t think the vase can stand on its own if printed, but I do like the patterns :P. I feel like adding more circles is very similar to adding more control points: you can shape the vase more
• Parameters: height of the circles, radius of the circles, rotation angles, number of curve divisions, dispatch patterns, scale of the dispatch segments. 

Tutorials:

Dispatch | List Item/ Cull

Notes taken when watching the tutorials: 

 

Reflection on the TED talk & Guest Speaker’s talk 🤔️

• In this TED talk, the speaker gives insight of designing the process that generates the form, instead of the form. There are a few benefits of designing the process:
  • It enables the embedment of data that can’t be perceived directly by human eyes
  • It enables the designer to replicate the process: as long as the designer has a process, they can always embed different data and generate different forms. In this way a family of forms can be created
• Another inspiring idea he shares is about how to bring the computer modelings into physical forms. In the example he gives, the columns are almost unprintable because of the intricate modeling. However, the team sliced the modeling and used laser cutter, and afterwards stacked all of the boards together to make one model. They also used mirrors in another set of physicalization so that they only need to print a half of the modeling.
• I think I experience the similar thing when making printing choices for my project 1: the materials, the patterns of printing matters. The speaker also suggests that we can source inspirations from the nature world
• As for the take-aways from our guest speakers talk, what left me with the deepest impression is that be critical about your data. The data you use might be incomplete because of the dates included. When you have doubts about your data, try to research more and dig deep, so as to ensure the understanding and application of the data are correct.

Reflection on Readings 📖

• thoughts while reading:
• Working with parameters gives you infinite possibilities of different designs. It reminds me of coding in p5.js (umm, probably the arrays and the random variables)
• About RANDOMNESS:
  • The readings shed light on my understanding of randomness: sometime I like the randomness because I want to see unexpected things. However, in my previous experiences, I could never explain the randomness. The embedment of randomness should be a combination of conscious choices made by artists/ designers themselves and choices out of their control. It is essential to make sense of the design. (On the other hand, I do think nothing is absolute. Maybe sometimes the explanation of the randomness is simple: I just want to experiment with the randomness. :DDD)
  • Interesting insight: “Sequences of random numbers can be generated in such a way that each number in the sequence differs only slightly from the last”. When speaking of randomness or permutations of the original model/ design, I am always seeking after big, very conspicuous changes. But slight changes matter as well!

DEFINITIONs

• Parameter: a value that has an effect on the output of a process; it describes, encodes, and quantifies the options and constraints at play in a system (I’ve never really thought abt the constraints before!)
• Parameterization: Identify and describe the variable elements in a process  
  • decide what can change and the range of possible values for each parameter
  • it creates connections between the intention of the designer and the system he or she is describing
  • repetition (explore possible variations) and transformation (parameters’ effect on form); visualization and stimulation (describe how data or other inputs will influence the behavior of the system)
• Variable: The changeable parameters
  • Sometimes variables make sense only in a certain range, a range can be refined to produce a narrower, but more pleasing field of variations.

PARAMETER TECHNIQUEs

• • One-of-One: works as a singlar piece but provide a window into the complexity of the system (generate variations while preserving family resemblances)
  • Variable Fonts
  • Console: a set of controls for electronic or mechanical equipment
    • Values controlled through a software console are linked to variables within the program; allow the state of the program to change without rewriting the code
    • Can make the project more interactive by allowing users to change the parameters