Tree 508,795
February 2010, Faculty: Sean Donahue
The project was conceived in the realm of understanding information design, when and how data transforms into information. In the Information design module together we discussed and explored various strategies of design where data is not merely visualized for comprehension but interpreted as information that is meaningful, informs and provokes a critical discourse.
The specific project brief required to communicate any chosen data into information using means of various strategic devices and provoking a thought within the community. I sought to collect the Media Design Program and the Art Center's print data. I discovered that "From Jan 1, 2009 to Jan 1, 2010 in Media Design Program, a small community of near about 30 to 45 people, we had printed approx. 508,795 Pages, which is around 38 trees worth paper". This furthered my process of exploring how to communicate the data through building a relation between printing paper and tree. I chose to communicate this information to the rest of Art Center community as a whole and through this quantitative data give them qualitative information about paper consumption about United States of America. Hence began the series of exploration that would led to the final execution of the design.
This is probably one of the first large scale installation designed and installed by me. There were many lessons learnt through the stages and production of this design piece. Some of the key design lessons learnt was with regard to abstraction of idea. How a sometime cliched ideas when appropriately abstracted and yet being obvious can effectively trigger a thought. Even though we know that paper comes from trees we are not consciously aware of the invisible process thus thereby making invisible part of the process visible evokes a deeper impression on the most apparent issue of the community.
I started by placing life size flat tree stumps on a walkway inside the Art Center premises.
Then with peer feedback I took the exploration to the next level and incorporated dimensionality into the idea. Thus, the emerging idea was to create a artificial de-forestation in an exterior space. This triggered the questions like,
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What is does a forest of tree stump looks like?
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Should they three dimensional tree stumps look like tree stumps?
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What is an appropriate space that can leverage the thought I am trying to trigger?
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Should this forest of tree stumps be placed outside among the live trees or inside with the inanimate objects associated with the tree stumps like the printing lab?
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Should the tree stump look like a tree stump?
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How can the materiality and the color be used as a tool to enhance the experience and attract attention of the passer by?
I decided that constructing tree stumps from paper is essential part of the dialog and to maintain the fineness of the installation I chose hollow paper tubes with printed tree stumps pattern on the surface. The dimensionality was enhanced by the varying the diameter size of the paper tube and height.
The final installation had 38 tree stumps with a printed stump top and message along the circumference.