Monday, February 6, 2012

Step Two - Creating a Brief

Starting out from scratch with free hands on an assignment is nice but also challenging as you have no direction to start out from. All I have to keep in mind is that the frame is "Experience Design". But that is indeed very broad. To kick off the process I wrote down the themes I found interesting and would like to develop a project from:
- Street Art - Think: Banksy, Space Invader, Blek Le Rat, Guerilla Gardening, Reverse Graffiti, Cellograff, hidden USBs, etc.  
- Life - Think: To do lists, travel, experiences, seeing, hearing, smelling and trying new things, sensing with your body, documenting, etc. 
- Biological Art - Think: Tomas Saraceno, Stelarc, Wim Delvoye and other and art installations containing solar power, wind power, collection of rainwater 
- Social/Collaborative Art - Think: helping each other create something big, sharing, collaborating with people you don't know or would not normally talk to, meeting new people, meeting friends, being social. 

I then started brainstorming on the themes to open up for ideas and inspiration - but nothing really happened. I found myself circling what I already knew and did not come up with anything that really lit my fire. I quickly realized that I had to attempt another approach because the way I was addressing the project was way too broad and I would take too long to come up with a good concept.
Therefor I took a step back and asked my self. What would you like to do?
You have four months and free hands for a project that you decide everything about. What would you like to do? Really like to do?
After some thought I derived at the following answer to my question:

I want to make a difference.

And so this has become the goal for my project in experience design - to make a project that will make a difference - in present time or in the near future.
It might sound boosted but think about it! A difference can be big or small, concern many or few, be a product, an installation, an art piece, a performance or something else. It does not necessarily have to be a radical difference - it can be minor too - I just have to make a difference.
The whole "making a difference thing" derives mainly from a to-do-list I keep and partially from one of my favorite quotations by Ghandi - saying: "you must be the change you want to see in the world."
So now let's see where this takes the project.
The next step is to prepare the first presentation and come up with a theme.

/Anne Sofie

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