The intended aesthetic I have chosen for my upcycle project is bibliophilia, being related to the love of books. With this I decided that making a standalone bookshelf was a good idea. This has transitioned to a sort of ‘unsupported’ floating bookshelf with books as important structural aspects of the assembly.
I decided that the opposite aesthetic would have something to do with extreme, excessive technology. My initial thoughts went straight to Ipad’s and TV’s. I think this is to do with the fact that they both tell stories and require invested attention. Describing this aesthetic could be characterized by wearable augmented reality technologies, holographic interfaces and empty space. Compactness is also an important factor as was one of the great selling factors of Kindle’s. What would once take up massive amounts of space could be reduced the handheld size of a small book, making bookshelves and storage of that sort obsolete.
If I was to transition my upcycle to its opposite aesthetic, I think I would create an empty, windowless room with a single chair in the middle with a virtual reality headset lying at the foot of the chair. With the opposite aesthetic being Fully Immersive Technology, I think it would be necessary to accentuate the stark reality shift whereas only a single device is able to fully captivate human attention span. On the other hand, a more realistic and achievable project could be to create an automated, passive sort of book billboard.
This could be achieved by finding an old monitor and programming it to passively flip through the pages of a book when it notices that you are looking at the screen. It would be sick to have the pages be flipped automatically according to a timer that considers your reading speed and the specific page word count.
It would not be able to achieve this new aesthetic with the materials I currently have, I would need to source a monitor and pc, or I would need to source a virtual reality headset, of which neither fit the upcycle aspect of the project. I think that this would still be an interesting idea and aesthetic to explore.
Sources:
https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrigXr.i81ll_QX0nWjzbkF;_ylu=c2VjA2ZwLWF0dHJpYgRzbGsDcnVybA–/RV=2/RE=1707998334/RO=11/RU=https%3a%2f%2farstechnica.com%2finformation-technology%2f2020%2f09%2ftraders-set-to-don-virtual-reality-headsets-in-their-home-offices%2f/RK=2/RS=VV7maO4YADDuCp5vFYMZx3PbhZ4-
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Hello Chris. I very much enjoyed your take on the opposite of a bibliophilia themed bookshelf. There are a lot of directions one could take in defining the opposite of your chosen aesthetic, and I really appreciate your explanation of the matter. I am wondering if involving a VR headset is something you would consider pursuing for your final project. Keep up the great work!
Hey Chris, this post was really good! I liked reading about your current project and the juxtaposition of the Immersive Technology aesthetic. An empty room with only a VR headset seems pretty dystopian, I can see why you didn’t chose that as your project to begin with. In the new monitor based bookshelf, would you consider using OpenCV with eye tracking to make the autonomous page flipping happen?