Intro: Design with movement

This lecture briefly introduces, the background, goal, target students and the teaching methods of the course.

1. Why?
2. Context
3. For whom?
4. Goal
5. This course does/doesn’t
6. Read/Watch
7. Slides
8. About the author

Why?

• Movement is a tool or a language that artists and designers can use in their practices. 
• It makes projects more adaptable, sustainable, playful, lively and affective.
• By creating the choreography of the movement in space and on a surface, they can take the project to another level.

Context

• Tiny home where collapsible and foldable structures and furniture are needed
• Facade of a building that is responsive to the sunlight and follows the light
• Furniture that is adaptable for users
• Artistic installations that trigger certain feelings and emotions with the design of the movement. 
• Toys or puppets that tell us stories and give us playful experience

For whom?

• Art/design students who want to get introduced to mechanical/robotic movement for their projects
• Teachers (from kindergarten to secondary school) who want to learn and develop playful hands-on activities across disciplines
• Anyone who is interested in designing with movement without prior knowledge

Goal

• To get familiar with basic mechanisms through hands-on making
• To be able to design and build one’s own mechanisms
• To be able to apply built mechanisms to one’s own projects

This course does… 

• Provide lectures on linkage-based simple mechanisms that can be further extended to the learning of other related mechanisms and their application in art and design
• Encourage hands-on making and peer learning

This course doesn’t…

• Explain scientific theories
• Deal with all the available mechanisms

Read/Watch

• Kinetic Design and the Animation of Products, by Ben Hopson
• ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF ROBOTIC ART by Eduardo Kac
• Secret Life of Machines by Tim Hunkin (BBC) (Sewing machine, Elevator episodes are recommended)
• More to read, watch and download.

About the author

Park, Eun Young (MA) is a multidisciplinary artist and designer whose interest is in combining art, design and technology with a playful approach. She often uses kinetic/robotic movement as a medium for her art and design projects and designed a kinetic design tool called LINKKI, with which she has taught at 10+ workshops both in Finland and abroad. She also worked as a concept designer intern at LEGO Group and is a recipient of multiple grants and awards such as LACMA Art+Technology lab grant, Finnish Cultural Foundation grant and iF Student Design Award. Currently, she is a doctoral candidate at Aalto School of Arts, Design and Architecture (New Media Design and Production).