Denise Flasz

Hello! My name is Denise Flasz, I was born in Caracas, Venezuela but I currently live in NYC. I got my BFA in illustration at the Instituto de Diseño de Caracas,and then I decided to do an MFA in Multimedia design at the Centro de diseño digital. After all this college experience and some freelancing I worked for almost two years in a Visual Communication enterprise named Oruga Films, where I can say that I learned many of the things I now know and also gained a lot of experience in what professional work and team work matters. Since I was in college I new I wanted to grow bigger and achieve many goals in life, and for this I knew that if I wanted to do great I had to attend a great school, so I applied and of course choose Parsons New School of Design. For me it was really hard to pick what I wanted to do in this school, and what kind of major I wanted to get involved into, because many things seemed so valuable and incredible interesting that it was really hard to make up my mind, and that's when I saw the DT program and how wide it was, and started projecting and realizing how much I could achieve from this major and how good it was going to be for me.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Prototype refinement


1251 A Public Space 2 from niemc967 on Vimeo.

Since our last presentation we decided to improve many things, so for this one we thought we would've solved many of our problems but the fact is that new problems came out, some of them where expected and some unexpected.The good news is that we still have other iterations and prototypes to build and work on, we have a lot of information about the place , the project and the people and we are going to find Mr. perfect Trashman!

Our public space


1251 A Public Space from niemc967 on Vimeo.

This is our presentation of the place we chose , at this slide show you might see how do people interact, what kind of people come here more often, how do they triangulate, what do they do here etc..we show the problems and the good things that led us to find the three first prototypes.

Friday, October 24, 2008

List and describe 2-3 things that you experienced in your 2nd iterations that were as you expected/ predicted and 2-3 things you found unexpected.

In this second iteration I found unexpected the fact that a snowman shape will attract more people and make them decorate it, but it didn’t. The last shape (geometrical) was simpler and yet more efficient, maybe because it resembled more a trash than a sculpture that’s been trashed. I also found unexpected the fact that people didn’t interact with it or looked at it much, it was just some junk at the corner but the greatest surprised of all was that real trash man worker dumped it into his trash.

From the beginning I knew that this snowman prototype was going to be hard to build because of his three circled shapes, we decided to go with plain wire but I knew that it would take us hours to build it from scratch. Another thing I expected was a failure in the role of this snowman since we didn’t put trash inside him I knew that people wouldn’t know that it was a trash dispenser so it wasn’t much of a surprise to spend our time watching the people walking by without throwing anything inside it.
In “interaction relabeling” how is the “aesthetics of interaction” defined or explained?List one example from text, list one example life or your observations.

The aesthetics of interaction relabellings refer more to the aesthetics rather than to its use, what this means is that you can use an object to interact with, that has nothing to do with its real use, you can refer to it as if it were something else. In the text they give the toy gun example, which they use to describe and explore richness of action, they refer to the bullets and how they get expulsed and metaphorically explain how ideas can get expulsed the same way. In life people we sometimes what they have at hand to represent aesthetically something that was not meant for that use, when people want to compare grammatically the action of exploring thousand of ideas, they use the word “brainstorm” because aesthetically that’s what it is, but the functionality of a storm has nothing to do with it. When people also want to represent ferocity in an image they use a “lion” because of its connotative fierce as an aesthetic rather for what an animal or mammal.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Prototypes-TRASHMAN *look and feel*



















Materials:

-Wire mesh about 8 ft.
-Wire scissors.
-Metal wire (one roll).
-A wood base of (2ft by 2 ft).
-4 plastic wheels.
-A wood hanger stick.
-Construction paper.
-Plastic gloves.
-Purell.

The look and feel of this dummy, its going to be a wire-mesh-human-like-figure , it will consists of various kinds of meshes some of them with smaller holes and other with bigger.It's going to be standing up at the same height of an average man, so kids and families will be able to reach him. We will provide plastic gloves if someone is afraid of touching the trash and if people are paranoid it will be a great idea to provide also Purell.

The base of the sculpture is going to be simple wood, and the wheels made of plastics as the ones you can find on "Arties".The figure is going to be attached by nails and if necesary a wood Cain will hold him from the back.

Prototypes-TRASHMAN *implementation*















Since the Plaza is a private property, but the sidewalk is a public space, we can settle the installation in the north corner where 50 street crosses. It should be standing right next to the light pole, where crossing people meet, with people that are buying food and with people that are waiting for the light to change, it also stands in a way where it doesn’t bother or hurt anyone. In case the guards are not friendly with this experiment the sculpture should have wheels on the button so the movement of it would be easier, and our experiment saved. We can document different views and sides of the plaza so people from all around can interact.

The wire mesh should have medium size holes, for the little trash to fit in, but this sculpture should also have bigger holes made of normal wire for the bigger containers of trash, the idea is to reduce the big packages so we can have more empty space for many people to interact, so if they still want to participate, we think they’ll figure out a way of doing so by dividing their trash in segments.

The statue should be standing up in a really strong base, made of wood or something that weights more than the statue itself, so we could be sure that it’s always going to be standing up no matter what!.

Prototypes-TRASHMAN *roll*

















There are no garbage disposals due to terrorists attempts to put bombs inside the trash cans. Because of this, people find it very disturbing to walk for two blocks just to find a trash can to deposit their trash, for consequence they just “forget it “ right next to the fountain, inside the fountain or in the floor.

The owner of the place obviously prefers to pay a trash picking company to clean the plaza instead of risking everyone’s lives because of insecurity. But the fact is that because people come and go at a really fast pace after only few minutes everything is messy again.

After observing people behaviors and their performances with a trash bag, a cup or the remains of a sandwich, we realized this was one of our main targets if we wanted to make it a better place.

We also found out that their space lacked of artistic performance or attractions for the people that liked to sit there while having something to eat or just relax, we figured out that maybe by adding more attraction the population flow would become more stable. So was there a brilliant idea waiting to be discovered of how to interact with people and give them something to talk about or triangulate, we don’t know yet, but we came out with an idea that seems to fit this purposes and promises a lot of attention and good deed.

This idea consists of a wire-made statue that could represent any shape, in this case we decided to try a man shape to give the idea of a more familiar figure and friendly art, which will eventually have holes produced by the interlaced wires. This statue is going to be standing up in a rolling base and it will lift a sign that says: ”Make me pretty, your trash here”. So yes, it would have the role of a trashcan.

Our Hypothesis is that people would be confused by this message, because it will seem really awkward to throw garbage at what seems to be an art installation, but this confusion will lead them to curiosity which would also lead them to interact and ask questions about it. After the first brave person comes ad deposits his or her trash on the sculpture wires holes then the next one would come and do the same, hopefully by the end people will start seeing the sculpture shape and decorate it with their trash as they walk by as if they were doing a trash man instead of a snow man. Throwing their trash would seem like a fun activity.

Our research on this place and our common sense tell us that people like to stuck their garbage in little places, the smaller the better, so finding a legal hole and participating in this project we predict is going to work really good, and best of all is going to maintain the plaza clean!.
List two things you found surprising about prototypes

Well since the beginning I had a clear idea of how I wanted to make this “trash man” I knew how the role was going to be and how it would become implement. But when I tried doing the look and feel it all started to fit well together, but the surprising thing was coming with a solution on how was the wire going to hold the trash inside, and also questions started popping into my mind on how are people going to interact with it and that’s how I came to the idea of using gloves or Purell. But in general the only surprising thing was how fast I could create this wire man.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Public space prototypes





























What are the 4 types of prototypes, what are they used for and give examples.

-Role
-Look and feel
-Implementation
-Integration

A prototype is the fist approach or representation of an idea, it can be rough but it should explain the main point. There are four kinds of prototypes, each one works fine in its own way, we have Role, implementation, look and feel and the last one is actually the mix of them three.

The role prototype is the one that assumes the idea, and represents it better than the rest of them for example a good role example is the one of the 3d program explained in the lecture, this program assumed the job of interacting and creating 3d space but it lacked of look and feel and implementation, because when the user tried to do it they had to come with new ideas for it to be more friendly. A look and feel prototype is a prototype that works more and defines what the final project is going to look like, it has more fidelity to the last approach, for example the toy that they created a ball that talked back to kids, they used a walkie talkie, a ball and many things that led their prototype to feel like the final product will feel like.

The implementation prototype works more on how useful this prototype is, to see how its working and if it works, from the audio there is a great example about the design team that went to the hospital and talked with the medics that wanted to create a new machine, not much time after the doctors explained what they wanted an idea came to the young designers mind, he implemented tools that he had at hand at that precise moment just to show the main idea of the functionality and the implementation of what the machine was going to do. It wasn’t very pretty but it worked and it transmitted the point, so well that the doctors understood it and liked it. The last prototype , integration is the more balanced one and it’s a complete prototype that uses all of the above.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Can you draw any relation between the Whyte Chapter 5 and your observation?

Well from the beginning of the reading I started to feel that this chapter had a lot to do with the public space we were doing, since it started mentioning that a plaza it’s not only made by it’s structure but also by its surroundings. Our plaza worked and had life because of the sun and its position, how it moved from side to side and how people moved with it. Also people felt attracted by the green scenery that surrounded the plaza and the food vendors that sold things at the corner, made almost half of the population come and eat at the border of it.

The restaurants that surrounded it sold food to tourists and natives ,that invited them to come and relax at this plaza. The fair that opened on Sunday attracted millions of people also; this attraction seemed ideal for stopping and watching it. There weren’t any performers at all I think because of the security, but in compare to the sunken plaza that was on 49 St, the chosen plaza had more people because it was inviting, It had no differences at all from what was the sidewalk and from where the plaza started. On the reading, Whyte said that people come when they feel invited and in this plaza they were, in the other one, the one at 49 St , had less people than we did, they had a performer that attracted a large group but the plaza was hidden, it was sunken inside the building, so unless you were going to the subway you wouldn’t want to seat down there where people could see you but you couldn’t see them.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Public space-Theater by the blind

http://www.tbtb.org/index2.htm

Public space-Parsons




Public space-YMCA


Public space-Salvation army



What did you find memorable from the audio and white reading?

From the audio:
I found memorable what he said about what an anthropologist should be, I think I have some of the qualities he said about Patrice, so I related myself a little bit with her, I don’t know if I am chatty but people like to talk to me about their problems and if they need help. I remember how he explains how the anthropologist observes and discovers things that are always there but people never realize, like the monkeys evolution for example.

I found really interesting also the concept of VUJADE, it amazed me to know that concept really applied to what he was saying; it was about seeing something that you’ve already seen before but never remembered. I though it was pretty cool, I also found interesting the example he gave on the train station in France, because I’ve seen these kind of situations and I know what he means.

From the reading: I found memorable the fact that a plaza is criticized by good or bad depending on how many females occupied it. He said that woman where very picky on whether they should sit or not in that place, so if they approved it will mean that it was a good place, but if they didn’t and instead there were only men in it, something was wrong.
I also found interesting how he and his group managed the project, how they researched and filmed documents for about 3 years to get this information. One of the things I liked the most is how NY found a solution to this public spaces, and how NY city council rewarded engineers and architects if they provided a public space.