Baby’s First Experience Design Project

Up until December 2018, I had never even heard of Experience Design as a field. Since I’ve stepped into it, I’ve realized that it is a perfect synthesis of my skill sets: envisioning and executing the bigger picture, and making slide decks. A LOT of slide decks.

This semester I got the chance to be the Lead Experience Designer for a collaboration with the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh. Our team designed an interactive experience for children to practice kindness. The final prototype was a mixed reality experience in which children control a physical umbrella prop, mapped to a digital umbrella in a virtual world. Children work together or independently to shelter characters from the rain and bring them back to their homes.

This project gave me the opportunity to flex my design skills. But this wouldn’t have been possible without an amazing team to provide me with the bandwidth to try something new. I was incredibly lucky to have amazing artists that created characters that invoked empathy, a programmer who provided valuable design feedback, and a fearless producer who was able to emotionally and physically guide us through our first project course at the ETC. Their trust in me helped me to become a more confident designer, and I can’t thank them enough.

I learned so much from this experience:

• Kids are way smarter than you think

• The difference between designing for an experience vs. a game

• Telling stories and building interest curves without definite entry and exit points

• Balancing diverse client needs with faculty needs

• Converting a human emotional experience into a digital experience

• How to make a killer slide deck

You can find all the gruesome details on our blog.

Mattress Factory: "Would You Bring Your Parents Here?"

The first time I visited Pittsburgh in 2017, I was told that I absolutely had to go to the Mattress Factory. I wasn’t really sure why. I already had a mattress, and what would be fascinating about a factory of mattresses?

Well, I was definitely wrong. The Mattress Factory is a contemporary art museum located in the North Side of Pittsburgh. Their slogan reads “Art You Can Get Into.” And it is definitely art you can get into.

Unlike most museums, where you casually stroll through walls lined with canvases and the occasional sculpture, most exhibits here are full room, floor, or building-size installations by artists.

On the 4th floor of the main building, after walking through a bedroom, we walked into a collage-like space covered by wall graffiti, lit-up plastic heads popping out of the ground, and an assortment of colorful objects attached to the wall. Lyrical by OSGEMEOS is a trip through a surreal, mythical world. It felt like walking through someone’s (in this case, twin brothers from Brazil) dreamscape.

Lyrical by OSGEMEOS

On the 3rd floor, we entered the famous Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Dots Mirrored Room, which was absolutely delightful. The use of mirrors and simple floor decals to create a seemingly infinite space was playful, simple, and fun. It brought an immediate smile to my face.

Infinity Dots Mirrored Room by Yayoi Kusama

In the next room was Yayoi Kusama’s Repetitive Visions. As soon as I walked in, I felt my heart leap into my throat. I questioned for a moment if the mannequins were real. It felt like at any moment, they would all turn and look at me (great idea for a haunted house if anyone needs one). While in the previous room, I felt delight, in this room, I felt immediate anxiety. I’m not sure if that was the purpose, or if I’m bringing my own biases into the space (I guess I have a fear of mannequins?). The drastic change in lighting and the introduction of human-like figures changed my perception of the space. While in the first space, I was obscured, in the second space, I became very aware of my own presence and the presence of these mannequins.

Repetitive Visions by Yayoi Kusama

On the 2nd floor, we entered the darkness of James Turrell’s artwork, and I don’t mean in the metaphorical sense, I mean in the sense that there were no lights on, which was both terrifying and exciting. I had no idea what to expect around every corner. On my right, I followed a dim light down a dark hallway that then turned into a room with a glowing red cube in the corner. But on closer inspection, I was delighted to find that it wasn’t a cube at all! Just a red rectangle projection mapped into the corner.

Catso, Red by James Turrell

Returning back to the center, I then followed another dark hallway into the exhibit and walked into a room with a glowing purplish rectangle at the end. The rectangle appeared to have more depth that it let on, seemingly extending further into the wall. But how could that be possible? We had just seen how the previous room had been a trick of light to make the cube appear three-dimensional jutting into space. Could this cube also be a trick of light, but the inverse of a cube inside the wall? After a couple of brave tries, we pressed our hands slowly through the “wall,” and found that it was not a wall at all! But that there was an entire other room filled with purple lights and fog!

Danaë by James Turrell

The last exhibit on the floor, we had to ascend a ramp in the dark, and sit in chair facing a dark empty, hollow room. We only sat for a minute, before I got totally freaked out and had to leave (apparently we needed to sit for 15 minutes in order to see anything). For me, being in the darkness, unsure if my eyes were open or not, listening to the echoing of my breathing was quite enough of an experience.

After finishing up at the main building, we journeyed over to A Second Home by Dennis Maher. It was literally a second home of the Mattress Factory. Taking over three stories of this building, Maher with friends, built a dollhouse of Rube-Goldberg like contraptions combined with projections, construction materials, toys, etc. On the first floor, you feel like you’ve walked into an intricate child’s playroom gone wild, with so much attention to detail put into every interlaced piece of the experience. As you journey higher into the building, you begin to hear this eerie music playing in the background and cranking of mechanical gears. At the top, the music and mechanical cranking become the main focus, as projection mapping onto the surfaces heightens the eeriness of the whole experience. It felt as if I was entering the set of American Horror Story: Mattress Factory Edition.

A Second Home by Dennis Maher

After quickly descending the stairs to escape the building, I noticed that on the first floor, the music that was so predominant on the top floor had been playing all along. I had just never noticed that it was in the background alluding to what was coming up next.

In the last building that we visited, we were delighted to find a giant helium filled charcoal ball! As you pushed/kicked/shoved the ball, the charcoal pieces drew upon the walls and floors. This was by far my favorite piece in the whole museum. Simple, fun, and involving play! (And if you’ve read my previous posts, you’ll know that I am trying to incorporate more play into my work)

ADA by Karina Smigla-Bobinski

After our visit, we grabbed some coffee. While having some light conversation about our day, the barista asked us, “Would you ever take your parents to the Mattress Factory?” Which is a great question.

Yes, I definitely would. But I would perhaps prepare them a little better than I was.

I had fully expected to step into a traditional contemporary art museum when I entered. One in which I strolled slowly and thoughtfully through each hall, pondering how people make their living off of this and pretending like I truly understand the layered meaning behind the pieces.

At the Mattress Factory, I didn’t have to pretend like I understood the pieces (and I still don’t), because I could feel the pieces. The benefit of installing room-size installations is that the artist can control the atmosphere in which they want the piece to be viewed, which then allows the artist to evoke certain emotions. While I traveled through rooms, I felt delight, joy, confusion, anxiety, fear, and then more fear. Maybe I wasn’t intended to feel fear, but my heart rate definitely spiked.

As somebody who has taken two art history classes, gone to art camp, and participated in numerous art classes, I should probably understand contemporary art better. But I don’t. And sometimes that gives me anxiety to walk into these institutions. I can’t possibly imagine how someone who has no experience in art feels.

But what I appreciated about the Mattress Factory was that I saw all different types of people visiting the institution (besides just the beanie wearing, skinny black jeans type - not like there’s anything wrong with that, I’m just butthurt that I can’t pull off a beanie). People laughed, people asked questions, and people played. And there weren’t any stoic looking guards in the corner with walkie-talkies furtively sneaking glances at you.

The whole experience felt like you were walking into somebody’s weird and funky mind, as they said “Hey, come on in! And see what I see.” As I am reflecting upon my visit, I’m thinking about how we can create more entry points for people to come in and experience something new, something different, and something outside of their comfort zone.

SXSW Day 5: Imagination as a Revolutionary Act and Thinking Like You're Drunk with SFMOMA

So you might be wondering, “what happened to Day 4????” Well anyone who has been to SXSW will tell you that pacing yourself is key to surviving the week. So on Day 4, while I got up early to check out the trade show (which was crazy - there was 3D printed sushi, sloth robots, and real sloths), I couldn’t make it to afternoon sessions due to pure exhaustion. But that’s okay, because then I was very well rested for Day 5!

In the morning, I started early with a panel hosted by Kim Cook, the Director of Civic Engagement and Art at Burning Man Project. Prior to this panel, I had absolutely no interest in ever attending Burning Man. Funnily enough, a friend had just asked me the day before if I would be interested in going to Burning Man with her, and was met with a resounding no from me. I deeply dislike being dirty. However, after this panel, I’ve become determined to one day have my own installation at Burning Man complete with a built-in shower.

The panel, named “High Impact in Public Space: Art, Spectacle, Tech” featured Noeline Kavanagh from Macnas and Ed Purver from Cocolab. I had only recently become familiar with Cocolab, when I heard a strange noise emanating from a random room in the Austin Convention Center. When I walked in there was an incredibly mesmerizing installation piece called “Weaving,” a beautiful light and sound installation inspired by loom textiles produced by Mexican artists.

Weaving by Cocolab. Image courtesy of myself.

Cocolab is a multidisciplinary design studio based in Mexico City that focuses on activations of public spaces. In Purver’s work, he is curious about:

• Changing our relationship to place

• Questioning our assumptions

• Changing our role in context

• Changing the rules of engagement

In his early work, he explored these topics through performance art. As young artist, he engaged in a passion project with his friend. They would board the London Tube separately during rush hour, and then he would ask his friend (who pretended to be a stranger) if he could sit on his lap. His friend would then reluctantly agree, and then after several stops, Purver would get up thank him and then leave. Their goal was the disrupt the rules of engagement. If people could witness acts of generosity they wouldn’t expect, would people become more generous?

Purver also worked on projects to open the windows of possibility to redefine the environment in which we live. He stated that most of us don’t think about the context of our environment, but when we become more present, we become alive, and from there we can be happy.

Kavanagh shared her work with Macnas. She stated that imagination is a revolutionary act and a universal sensibility. Her work is dedicated to making the invisible into visible, making the unfathomable into fathomable, and making thoughts into words. Macnas is a spectacle theater in Galway, think Cirque du Soleil but in parades with Giants. They create giant moving installation of fantastical creatures, exploring strange themes, like a hermetic Giant that has a bluetooth beacon in its beard that can transmit its inner thoughts.

When it came to Cook, she questioned how Burning Man can be used to disrupt the norm and how cultural knowledge can be transmitted. She asked: What is the invitation that we want to give to people? What’s the connection? She stated that context is everything, that Burning Man is an act of joy and imagination.

Slide from Kim Cook’s talk on Burning Man. Image courtesy of myself.

These creators all seek to create moments of imagination in public spaces. I can’t help to think how incredible it is that everyday they nourish their inner child with the work that they do. How can I sustain and foster my own inner child with my work?

In the afternoon, I joined a talk with Suhair Khan from Google Arts and Culture. She discussed Google’s initiatives to use the power of technology to preserve culture. Working with major institutions, Google has been digitally scanning artwork and providing public domain access to high res versions. They’ve also embarked on the digital preservation of cultural landmarks with #OpenHeritage with CyArk, open source 3D renderings of cultural treasured. In addition, they’ve started Once Upon a Try, a journey of invention and discovery, using VR/AR/videos to highlight discoveries. Campaigns like #ArtSelfie and #ArtPalette, use machine learning in combination with these new archives to help guests find their famous portrait lookalike and artists to find color palettes that have been used through the centuries. All of this derived from a 20% project inspired by how Google’s technology can be used to preserve culture. I had absolutely no idea that these resources were available online for free. What a beautiful use of technology to enhance cultural preservation.

Ending my trip on a high note, my last session that I attended was titled, “Art Museums as Space of Digital Play.” Speakers Sarah Brin from Meow Wolf, Chad Coerver from SFMOMA, and Charles Yust from frog design discussed how play can be used to open up new experiences.

Coerver opened up discussing SFMOMA’s new initiatives to change the way that they bring in new audiences. We all know that emotions and creating moments can help people learn. So how can the museum tap into that?

Coerver discussed creating an emotional pathway for guests from curiosity to welcome to delight to belonging. The institution challenged itself to think like it was drunk (and to actually get drunk to think). They asked how play could change their relationship with the audience?

SFMOMA’s newest philosophy. Image courtesy of myself.

They worked with Adobe to create a self-composing piece of artwork that exposes your face in a selfie the more you added to the installation. They created Send Me SFMOMA, an SMS service that texts you a picture of a related artwork image depending on what you ask for via text. And they started PlaySFMOMA, an initiative to encourage the development of games as an art medium. With Yust at frog design, they created an AR/MR Magritte exhibit that allows guests to connect with Magritte’s artwork in a playful way.

Ultimately, their hope to create a place in which guests leave saying “This is a place for me.”

In spite of all of these well-thought out planned projects, by far my favorite project discussed was one that was not even commissioned. MoMAR was a group of eight internet artists that hijacked the Jackson Pollock room at the NYC MoMA with their own guerilla-style campaign. They released an app that added their own interpretation of the artwork as an overlay to the pieces. Their goal was to make a statement against elitism in art.

What I loved about this work, was that it took advantage of what already existed in the space, and added more meaning. It allowed guests to “play” with the artwork, and explore through another artist’s eyes. So not only were you able to enjoy a Pollock (which quite frankly I still don’t get the hype), you were also able to enjoy another artist’s artwork (which I deeply appreciated their humor). I also loved that they didn’t ask permission to do it! Why should we ever have to ask permission to bring more play, joy, or laughter into this world?

All in all, my trip to SXSW was a fantastic learning experience and I returned feeling inspired to keep doing my work. Sometimes it can be a drag to get through grad school; it’s easy to forget the big picture amongst the slog of everyday. But I guess all it takes is attending 10 amazing sessions by professionals in your field to remember why you’re doing what you’re doing: to bring more play, imagination, and spectacle into the world.

While I’ve been able to share all that I’ve learned from my sessions. I haven’t even begin to cover the amazing people that I’ve met at the conference, or share the incredible work that they’re doing. I hope that you’ve enjoyed reading about what I’ve learned, and I hope that I have the opportunity to return back to this conference next year!

Until then, wish me luck through the rest of this semester! Hopefully I have enough inspiration in the tank to help me make it through...