Felix's Documentation of Teaching at NYUAD

Engineering Design Studio (A5, 015)
Tuesday, September 19, 2017, 11:50 am – 13:05 pm

Jim Heimann (Ed.), Future Perfect, Vintage Futuristic Graphics, Cologne, 2002.
You can read the foreword Futures That Never Arrived by Bruce McCall here.

• A future that never has arrived? Do you think the presence of futuristic machine drawings like the ones we saw in class played any role for the development of todays existing machines?
• What is todays equivalent of those futuristic graphics?
• Is there a difference between science and science fiction?
• Take a look into the mirror. Which machines control your life? What do you think about that? Are there ways to change things?

• Retrofuturism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrofuturism
• https://de.pinterest.com/shape5/vintage-retrofuturism-sci-fi-art/

Please remember that we have collectively chosen your machine-theme last Sunday. You can start conceptualising your machine for our upcoming meeting on SUN, 09-24-17.

Please start with your research by collecting images that are in some way related to your machine (e.g. material that you would like to use, interesting functions, similar interpretations of the same topic, etc.). Search also for machines that might have been produced in the past. We do not want to look like copy-cats by re-inventing something that somebody else has already done in a better matter. You will be asked to show images that inspired you during next class session. You will also be asked to present your re-shaped idea – everybody will be forced to give very critical feedback to that idea.

Over the next days and weeks you should tweak your concept over and over again. Be open for feedback. You should produce tons of scribbles, drawings, Photoshop stills or other kind of renderings, or visualisations, of every machine detail that you have in mind. From my point of view you should – from now on – spend at least 1 hour per day on your machine project .

In short:

• Select your semester theme and start to conceptualise your machine.
• Research: collect images that inspire you. Look for similar machines that have been produced before.
• Produce scribbles, drawings, Photoshop stills or other kind of renderings of what you have in mind.