Life in a Box

 MADS YEAR ONE PART TIME MODE 2010

Term 3 Project:  LIFE IN A BOX

Wednesday 10 November – Wednesday 24 November

Introduction

This project invites you to employ the skills you have developed in giving dimension to your question, in order to construct an artifact-critique of your journey to date and the goals that it represents. You will be working on this project over a two-week period, in the run-up to the Academic Tutorial on 24 November.

Brief

Your question and your artifact should by now have acquired a life of their own. This life-form currently needs the protection of a box – and its own dedicated life-support system – before it can flourish independently in the outside world. “LIFE IN A BOX” invites you to give dimension to this life-form that you have created, as well as the life-support systems that support its fragile existence. Life support systems provide all of the sustainable needs required for continuance of life – and remember that these needs can go far beyond biological requirements. In time, your life-form may grow to maturity – and leave its protective box. 

Your design and making skills should be focused on clarification of the connections between the various parts as much as the parts themselves. We are much more interested in your ability to communicate ideas and knowledge than your ability as designers/artists. Please remember that if you lack the confidence to create your own artifact then it is perfectly legitimate to find someone to help you realize your needs

Presentation

Your artifact must be portable, and must be available to show to your tutor on 24 November. Technological requirements should be kept to a minimum. Your box and the representation of your project as the life-form within should address at least the following questions:

• What kind of life-form represents your project?
• What kind of box is it contained in?
• What life-support systems have you included?
• What is the connection between your goals and the decisions you have made?
• Why have you designed your box and life-support systems in this particular way?
• How exactly do your life-support systems operate?
• How will your life-form be enabled to develop?
• How will you increase your understanding of the life-form you have created?
• How, and why, might your life-form die?
• If your life-form survives, what might be its future?

Criteria

The project will be assessed against the following criterion:

• Your ability to give dimension to complex ideas through an artifact
• Your ability to critique your personal journey
• Your ability to sum up succinctly how you have progressed
• The clarity and relevance of your artifact presentation – including your life-form, the box, and life-support systems
• Your ability to focus on essential points
• The level of risk-taking your artifact presentation displays
• It is vital to appreciate that any artifact you create in response to this brief will be assessed on its potential to give dimension to your project and journey to date – NOT on your ability to produce a finished or finely-crafted “shiny object”.
• Your ability to reframe your project in the light of positive and negative feedback/experience and other sources of relevant knowledge