Parabolic Visions

Throughout history, mankind has crafted devices that utilise form and

texture to help master and manipulate the environment, for example

the Inuit goggles used in the frozen north or the sound mirrors dotted

around the English coast.

In Groups will be challenged to develop a series of portable or wearable

forms that help augment the environment surrounding you.

In today’s modern society we are often emerged in environments that

create sensory overload or isolation from the ellements, your objects will

be a response to this context.

Participants of parabolic visions will be asked to work in a teams to

design and construct experimental devices from a range of flexible sheet

materials.

Partisipants will explore how combinations of form and material surface

quality can distort or intensify aspects of the environment around them,

and their experience of it.

Each group will receive a starter pack consisting of raw sheet materials.

Using the wood and plastic provided, groups will be encouraged to

develop designs that interplay with sound or vision. The effects of these

experimental devices can be visualised using specialist software.

A range of lightweight self-supporting forms will be achievable by using

the thermo plastic material ‘Wonderflex’. After creating a paper or digital

template, the groups will be able to cut, flux, manipulate and adhere

the plastic under heat. Participants may also design and construct a

range of wooden formers to help achieve this and explore how the

Wonderflex can be manipulated whilst in flux.

Once cooled, the plastic forms created can be cut, sanded and coated with

a variety of surfaces. These solid plastic shapes may be incorporated into

wearable forms or portable devices.