Materiality and Meaning: Novel Forms of Communication is a design curriculum that explores how materiality shapes communication, by examining the functional value of materials in past, present, and future objects.
This curriculum encompasses my research as a graduate student, exploring embodied cognition and the psychology behind object-based communication. It also is informed by my background as a designer, fabricator, and educator, in which hands-on making and material exploration is a foundation of my practice.
The studio course looks at the history of object-based communication through a material lens, in which students are asked to consider how materiality has derived the ways in which we communicate across various communities, disciplines, and cultures. Students are also asked to develop their own communication methods, or dialogue tools, through material means.
Early forms of nonverbal communication that predate written language, inform us of the capacity for materials to store information, generate meaning, and translate an experience. This is because our interaction with materials is an enactive process, in which characteristics such as material affordances, temporal changes, resistance and decay stimulate new concepts and metaphors for understanding.
Objects lend materiality to an interaction, creating a more tactile experience that engages the senses. This allows those objects to embody concepts making them easier to explain and comprehend.
The curriculum is divided into five modules- Object-Based Communication, Material Explorations, Material Semiotics, Embodied Objects, and the Final Project.
We start the semester by looking at ancient objects because these objects were born out of necessity, they are steeped in tradition and were created through simple engagement with raw materials. Contemporary artifacts are introduced to demonstrate how objects are used as tools to spark dialogue around a topic, as a means of thinking critically about the future.
Students engage in hands-on material explorations to better understand material affordances- the latent potential stored within material properties. Material explorations are then analyzed through a material semiotics lens, where students learn about basic semiotic theory as a means of understanding how to control the message they communicate through intentional material usage.
Students study the body’s sensory and motor functions to further consider the object- human-environment dynamic, because object-based communication is an embodied experience and dependent on our interaction.
Finally, students embark on an open-ended final project, in which they are asked to recreate their experience of an explored space through a set of objects.
The Book Design
Given the emphasis on materiality and communication, it was important that my curriculum assume the form of a concrete book. The curriculum book is 10”x7” and typed in Ariel and Times New Roman fonts. Font colors- black, red (R=255, G=0, B=0), yellow (R=255, G=242, B=0), and purple (R=153, G=0, B=255)- are the colors I used to originally format assignment handouts throughout the semester, and I chose to continue using these for the format of the final book, as a reflection of that process. Yellow vellum inserts are placed throughout to signify the introduction of a new module, and white vellum inserts communicate object captions and project descriptions. The layering of multiple materials throughout the book reflects the levels of information present in each artifact. This includes the forms and materials that embody an object, the historical context and time period, and the biography of the maker- which undoubtedly influences the way an object has been made, used, and interpreted. The separation of images and image information onto separate pages allows the reader to experience the objects in two ways- out of context, with a fresh perspective, or fully situated in all of the information that surrounds it and motivated its creation. The translucency of vellum allows for both the message (object image) and the meaning (object description) to exist together. My intention is that the reader eventually picks up on this layering of information as a reflection of the concepts embedded within the curriculum. Mind-mapping exercises that occurred throughout the semester were hand drawn and scanned in to connote their in-process quality. This use of material provides a subtle example throughout the curriculum book, of how materiality can inform and enhance communication.
