Morning Lift
From Mod Mania
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Welcome to Xisca and Simone's duel project: The Morning lift
The Left Lift in Building 87. Attractive ain't it?
We believe today's comsumers are showing an increasingly short attention span (bored yet?), not only with the products and techonology, and subsequent upgrades, that they purchase, but with the 'User Experience' as a whole.
Not only are we a part of this generation of users who demand instant & constant entertainment, as designers we are interested in exploring this concept. Where else to try this but in our very own Building 87! Unless you are brave enough to take the stairs, the lift is your primary mode of transort to and from your valuable learning experience that is know commonly as uni each day. The mundane 2 minute lift experience may not be the highlight of your morning, however, we wish to draw attention to this transitory experience, in light of modern design practices.
Two minutes is more than enough time for a modern day consumer to experience, enjoy and/or reject a design concept or form of entertainment...
Project description
Over the course of one week, we will mod one or both of the lifts. The Mods will take the form of various installations focused on entertaining the traveller/s. We will use commonly found materials and simple electronics to acheive the desired effect. So far our ideas are as follows
- Balloons
Fill the lift with helium ballons in a range of colours shapes and sizes. The idea is to mod the user experience of th lift verses physically altering the lift itself. - Cardboard holes
Intall cardboard into the lifts, in order to force the traveler to adopt a alternate posture. For example, the lift space is alterted (with cardboard) from the large rectangular prism to a smaller pyramid shape. This would ideally cause the traveler to have to stoop, and as a result less people will fit in at once. - Streamers and Fans
A colourful whirlwind inside the lift - DIY LED cosmos
A series of colourful LEDs, connected to various switches that allow travelers to light up the darkened lift - Project-A-Thought
Using Tim's disposable camera idea we want to create a forum for the projection of random phrases onto the lift walls. A selection of 3 or 4 prewritten phrases ie. "i need coffee" or "You're lookin hot today!" would be available for a user to project at their will. - Polaroid trophy wall
Assuming we can get our hands on a poloroid camera for a day, we want to create a "i was here" wall inside the lift. Once a polaroid is taken, it is attached to the wall and a line of string that connects to the camera. The effect we are hopeing to achieve is a physical representation of the social web of lift travelers.
Suggestions?
Your input would be appreciated ... any great ideas or just a way to improve of the ones here would be really helpful. We understand that our modifications will possibly create annoyance amoungst those in a hurry ... but its not our fault you didn't get out of bed early enough, and there is always the stairs right?!
Any brainwaves, let us know!!
Got a suggestion for the lighting, made this up using a method I found (http://www.tapesculpture.org/) Could use it to make other shapes too.
My foot, in tape and then with a light added
Tim
Let the Mods begin!
Ladies and Gents, prepare for a week of Lift Mods (mods to lift your spirits)starting Monday 1st October and running until Friday 5th October! The mods will be installed every morning during the week and will be there (hopefully) until the end of the day. Come down and check them out - we recommend at a time when you're not too busy as they may cause some delays when travelling in our beloved building 87.
- Monday - Party Lift
We've decided to break everyone in easy with this mod - simply filling the lift with balloons and streamers and the like. It'll be interesting to track where the balloons end up during the day. Hmm... BalloonBlog?
- Tuesday - Tape time
Thanks to Tim's experimentation, lift goers were treated to various disembodied limbs and other objects made from tape and taped to the wall. This is a favourite of ours, to make and to place, but what will the general public make of it?
- Wednesday - Break
We decided to take the day off, partly to confuse the punters, but mostly to prepare for Thursday's mod.
- Thursday - Numbered
A reformation of a cosmos idea, Thursday's mod will see the lift blacked out and occasionally illuminated by oversized floor numbers in the ceiling. This one could be interesting... will they like it, or will claustraphobia set it?
- Friday - Mod ME!
This idea spawned from the Polaroid trophy wall - the same idea of letting the travellers mod their own space (much like Tosika's blackboard wall). It will be interesting to compare the two spaces and the messages they attact...
Meanwhile...
Preperations for other mod days have begun. Here are a few pics of the progress so far:
Sim tapes her hand
Xis tapes the 'ceiling'
Xis learns to solder!
Supplies
Day One
Party Lift!!
It was very early monday morning that we wandered into the lovely building 87 to prepare for our week of lift mods. With coffee in one hand and packets of balloons and streamers in the other we set to our task of blowing up almost 100 balloons. 45 minutes later we could be seen on level 4 throwing as many of the balloons and streamers as we could into one of the lifts, while trying to force the doors to stay open!
Thats when we realised that balloons pop... maybe some warning signs would have been a good idea.
Highlight of our morning was watching from the safety of Hudson's coffee shop, while Ronnie tried to cram his bike into the balloon lift. At least 5 had already popped before the doors had shut on him and we could hear more as the lift went to level 4.
That morning we had been quite nervous of the reactions we would hear... would everyone be annoyed or frieghtened by the popping balloons? or even... would anyone notice at all?
By lunch time most of the streamers could be found in the foyer of level 1, and only a few balloons remaimed. By the looks of things Ronnie's bike had collected them as well, and levels 4 and 5 had a few spare balloons and streamers floating around the carpet and walls.
Apparently most lift-travelers assumed it was someones birthday! But then maybe we are all just immune to this idea of random things in random places. Either way it was fun to watch others as they navigated their way into the lift space trying not to step on anything and thinking... HUH?!
How was your "transitory experience" Monday morning?? We'd love to you know what you thought of or if you even NOTICED this simple lift mod!
Monday Evening as we cleared away the "mess" left over, we both wondered what it would take to captivate, inspire or simply just ammuse the minds of the industrial designers who travel in this lift throughout the day and the week.
Here are some photos from todays Lift Mod
Sim installs the mod
A look inside
Woo! Happy Monday!
Day Two
Tape Time
After a late night of wrapping room mates and loved ones in gladwrap and packaging tape, Sim and I arrived before the masses in building 87 to install the second lift mod. Walking down Elizabeth st and from the train station we were met with many a puzzeled glance, as morning commuters realised, yes, that is a leg I am carrying and yes, it is accompanied by a teapot.
Within 20min the arms, legs, hands, teapot and chair were installed and waiting to be noticed. Having performed our duties we slinked off to modelling where we surruptisciously suggested people make a trip to 87 to 'check out the scenery'.
Several hours later, I was in a staff meeting in Hudsons gazing out the window watching the comings and goings of the lift. The mod was receieved generally quite well I think, judgeing from the overheard discussions and faces of the lift goers as they entered and exited our space. While in Hudsons, Soumitri spotted me and quizzed me about the mod. Naturally I thought he was looking for our permissions slips so I launched into an explination of the course etc but really he was only after how we did it. The moral of the story? The mod seemed to attract most attention to the pieces themselves and not the idea of a modded lift. This begs the question, how to mod the lift so that it's consciously modded, not decorated. Hm...
How was your "transitory experience" Tuesday morning?? Once again, we'd love to hear what you thought, and if you'd try it at home.
Here are some photos from todays Lift Mod
Pile-o-limbs
Sim attaches the elements
A closer look
Aftermath - 5pm
Day Three
Break
Just a quick note to say we took Wednesday off, partly to keep the punters guessing, but mostly to prepare for Thrusday's mod. Sigh, got some long hours of soldering ahead...
Day Four
Numbered
Well Xisc soldered her heart out all Wednesday by the sounds of it. Nightmares about burning down building 87 with a soldering iron and these constant early mornings were more than likely making this lift mod the most difficult yet. Unfortunately my electrical knowledge extends and ends at "there’s a positive and a negative side...yeh?" so apart from cutting wires and asking the guys at Jaycar about LEDs she was on her own.
Early Thursday morning we were overcome with last minute problems...
Missing batteries!! Broken LEDs... & short-circuiting!
And to top it all off when we finally carried the cardboard "ceiling" to the lift... it wouldn't fit.
Much thanks goes out to a really helpful random guy who travelled between level 7 and level 1 on numerous occasions this morning, not only did he help us hold up the makeshift cardboard ceiling, but also gave suggestions on how to improve it! :)
Overall it seems the lift-mod was appreciated by most 87-travelers. People were surprised by the sudden darkness, and intrigued by the switches and flashing lights. In the afternoon we both walked into the lift full of other industrial designers all with their backs facing the doors and everyone’s attention on the lights on the back wall. Who would have thought eh?!
Later that afternoon I entered the lift with an older-looking woman who looked slightly unnerved by the darkness. It’s true that the cardboard and duct-tape did give a kind-of "unsafe" appearance to the lift, and Murray confirmed this when he told us he had opted to use the right lift instead to be on the safe side... whoops!! But its all about moding the "lift experience" and this power to make someone uncomfortable by the absence of one element - light - is just as interesting as entertaining them with pretty lights to play with!
Well enough discussion for now, here are some great pics from todays mod and as always we'd love to know how was your "transitory experience" Thursday morning??
Last minute prep
Some minor instillation issues
...use the other lift...
Completed mod
Lit up
Some liftgoers check it out
Can't get enough!
Day Five
Travel Web
Today's lift-mod is all about WHO travels in the lift. Not everyone is up for grafiti-ing the lift walls but we thought that today we would like to continue to encourage liftgoers to get involved in their own lift experience... its all about interaction design!! (yes we were in frank's class last semester...)
As xisc puts it, we are hopeing that you all will do our homework for us.. and descorate the lift yourselves!
Originally we were hopeing that today's mod would be centred around the use of a polaroid camera. Lift travellers would ideally take photos of themselves that would be stuck onto the wall, creating a 'web' of travelers. All plans came to a halt when we discovered that 10polariod photos cost $25....
So our travel web has now taken the form of a blank canvas on which you are all invited to write your names, leave a comment or maybe draw a picture (perspective not necessary!) Textas, crayons, and coloured stickers are provided but we hope to see a variety of mediums used on the lift walls.
...and certain members of building 87 may be quite happy to know that light will be restored to the left lift once again!!
Putting up the paper
The blank wall
We start off the process
Ginea Pig number 1
Mod in progress
Happy Travelling!! Sim & Xisc
