A Lesson in Politics

Since starting back for the second semester, I have been working on a new design project (we’ll minus the first four days). This design project is metaphorically termed “trash can” and is part of a larger carnival-esque design topic.


For our metaphoric trash can we have had to design something that stores and reintroduces ideas, namely those cast of as junk. My group in particular were required to work with second life and make our design a part of a larger Rube Goldberg machine.
My idea’s surrounding this project stemmed from our first, 3 day project concerning the grotesque in which I took a satirical and cynical view of the justice system.





This gradually resulted in this, my final product, which continues not so much with the same imagery as used in the first project, with the same themes, although less critical and more observant. The concept is that people can be represented/defined by their ideas (represented in turn my a ball when operating), and the filtering of these ideas, by swinging door, is symbolic of the way in which the justice system (is supposed to) filter out the good and the bad from society – the filtration can be temporary as any second life user with build privileges on Putahi should be able to take that idea out of its confinement.





We were also required to make a sculptie (sculpted prim) using 3dsmax – and trust me its not as easy as it looks. For mine I made fabric like bundles, reminiscent of classic imagery used in the story of the stork which brings the baby to its parents – encapsulating the ideas of (re)birth and (re)generation. It is duplicated and arranged in a way that is representative of the scales used frequently in imagery surrounding justice and court systems (usually in conjunction with Lady Justice). This arrangement ties the sculptie back to the overall theme of my design.





The hardest part of this assignment I think has been the politics. Trying to convince people that connecting/linking to my idea in the project is a good idea, and subsequently convincing people that there is a need to compromise and do things, such as move location, for the good of everyone. I’ve moved twice, had at least 1 person say they’ll link to me and then decide not to, had to accommodate 2 people either side of me not having compatible sizes of ideas (thus I, the middle man, need to find a solution) and of course numerous miss understandings. Also, I guarantee that I have lost prims along the way ...eeek...Putahi is very cluttered at the moment.


I have to be honest here and say there were probably moments where my design looked very different to what it turned up like, and those are moments I have not documented, as once I’m working I’m focused and forget the niggle little details like photographs. Hopefully I’ll get better at this as I go on and develop appropriate habits.

Furthermore, on reflection, there I could probably take better photos so i might do in the morning. Also I tried to get wegame to film my portion of the Rube Goldberg Machine, but all it did was crash secondlife and be utterly annoying. I'm tired now, a shower and bed I think. Good luck to everyone still working.