Problem

Find a moment/idea that encapsulates the idea of Wabi Sabi and create an installation that conveys this concept. This was an academic project partnering with classmate Alex Reicher.

Solution

For the installation, we had selected the Wabi Sabi of a warped record and after dissection, we believed the idea of 'Love & Destroy' was best suited to represent it. We had dissected the moment in all of its possible aspects including emotional, physical, theoretical, and experiential. We then focusing on a single ideal of the moment as a vehicle to embody the essence and convey this to the user.
If someone loves a record and constantly plays it, eventually the needle will destroy it and it will begin to skip and warp. The person loved it so much, they literally destroyed it in the process. During one of our brainstorming sessions, it was compared to the act of picking flowers. This was our eureka moment, using the flowers as a juxtaposition to the warped record, we would be able to give the user the sense of 'Love & Destroy' instantaneously rather than slowly with a literal, audio based, representation.
Then came the task of engineering a 'self-destructing flower,' which luckily rode the eureka moment's wave of ingenuity. Using a plastic tube, artificial flower pedals, and a couple strategically placed knots in elastic, we gave birth to the core engineering method behind our installations construction.

Role: Co-Designer & Lead Engineer

Deliverables: Installation