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LETTER no. 47

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Week no.7: Voyage into my room. Friday

Design 101 MOOC, Abadir for iversity
Greetings from Abadir!
Hello Lucia, hello Mariano!
We came back to Abadir in Catania to meet
Lucia and to talk about the new master on
Relational Design we should start on next
Valentines Day!
The real problem with Design 101 is that it gives us addiction.
Strong addiction. So, as soon as we started it,
we had to think about what to do next. One day, Design 101
will finish. What will we do next?
:o
This proposal from Abadir (to transform the cool dynamics
we are experimenting together into an interesting one-year
master), was our solution (not to get bored in 2014).
Anyway. Catania is a fantastic place. The
Etna volcano, even more. Chitchatting while
drinking some white wine in the luxuriant
orange gardens of Abadir is extremely nice.
Wish you were here
In the meanwhile, our dear friend Mariano
Dallago prepared us a nice present, he
made a camera obscura inside the school He
transformed the building into a camera.
Quite a trick! Bringing the outside in and
seeing it upside down. Very impressive...

Question of the day:

How can I transform my
room into a sky? How

can I transform my life

into a sky?
We have been representing ourselves and our room through many
different techniques. We drew plans and axos, we trapped time
in space, we displayed an ordinary object making it become
special Now its time to take the sky in!
The perfect way to reflect the sky inside
a room is by turning our rooms into a
camera obscura. Please note that we are not
talking about the so-called dark room for
developing negatives of photos...
We are talking about something different. We will turn our room
into an entirely dark environment in which we will have one
tiny hole letting light (and therefore images) from the outside
world pass through.
On this issue, you can find an endless amount of instructions
online. Heres one of them, but if you find nicer or better
ones, please share them with all of us!
And then, heres a site we like so much with many nice things
related to todays activity: The Magic Mirror of Life.

Homework no. 47
Today, you will bring the sky into your room.
First, you need to choose your room carefully. Ideally, you
would bring the sky into your bedroom, but if it has many
windows, it might make the task a little complicated. The more
windows, the more difficult it will be for you. To make things
easy, you should choose your homes darkest room (yet it has to
have an opening towards the exterior).
Then, follow some instructions you find online. The whole thing
is fairly simple. You will see! Magic.

Once your camera obscura is all set,

why dont you invite a friend over
to check it out?
And then, you could also play some nice
music to make the whole experience even
more special. As a soundtrack, this
would be our choice. A sky room being
for the benefit of mr Kite.
Share a picture of your camera with us.
Wanna be ambitious? Why not to make a stop motion out of it?
Or a video?

What will I learn today?

Knowing the tricks, knowing some little how-to, any magic
is possible. Its up to you. Be curious, explore, look around,
check, keep your eyes open. The world is filled with all kinds
of magicians happily sharing all their tricks...
Finally, it takes only a mirror to get the right-side-up!

Why do we do this?
A little hole to transform your world.
A minimal thing to reach a massive transformation.
Today it was a pin-hole. To you to find other ways
and techniques.
Sometimes the best design is reached with extremely
simple actions. This we like very much.
Also, to face and understand
the extraordinary potentials
of projection.
It is quite something to transform your
rooms walls into a cinema projection,
dont you think?

Something to remember: if you

can transform your room into
the sky, everything is possible
(as long as you know how).
Further inspiration
We suggest you to read the book (or a chapter of
it) Mr. Palomar by Italo Calvino. If you do so,
please transfer some thoughts you had about it to
your notebook. Then, if you feel like it, we would
love you to share them with us
It is only after you have come to know the surface of things
that you venture to seek what is underneath. But the surface
is inexhaustible said Mr Palomar.
When people look at my pictures I want
them to feel the way they do when they
want to read a line of a poem twice. This
was said by Robert Frank, one of the most
important figures in American photography.
Hes the man we have on todays stamp.
If you have 45 min and feel like watching
a documentary about him, here is a nice
one. If you are in a hurry, heres a quick
lecture at the Smithsonian (5 minutes)
Then, you should check out
the work of Abelardo Morell,
the camera obscura is one
of his favourite things.

Something more?
Heres a nice video of a nice project in Paris.

Design 101. A How-To.

We know we have some late-comers, here are a few instructions
on how the whole thing functions...
A typical Design 101 day:
We send you an email around 9 in the morning (Berlin time) with
the link to our daily unit + some news, updates, cool Design
101 things we found etc.etc.
Note: you can find all of our previous emails in the
Announcements section of Design 101 on iversity.
Once you land on the units page, you find our shipment (which
consists of a video-postcard + a letter). You watch the video,
read our letter, get to work and complete the assignment
(or relax if its a weekend day). For even more fun, you can
always refer to the Design 101 encyclopedia, which is updated
every week.
Dont forget to take part in the conversations of the
Discussions forum!
Now, going beyond the iversity platform, we have setup other
places for us to meet and spread things we do.
On Facebook:
the Design 101 page: to follow whats going on (in general terms)
the Design 101 Exercises page: to check out picks
(things that fascinate us the most)
the Design 101 Arena group: to post your pictures, share your
thoughts, emotions, references, lalala
(as a complement to the discussions happening on the platform).
On Twitter,
@design1o1: to follow whats going on + discuss with each other.
#design1o1: to connect us all under a same hashtag.
On YouTube:
the Design 101 channel: to view + share our video postcards
(which is not possible to do from the iversity platform)

On Instagram:
#design1o1: to connect us all under a same hashtag.
Regarding the hashtag, make sure to use #design1o1 with an o
and not a 0...
:-)

PS
Uploading your homework to the iversity platform is very
important in terms of archiving. It is the only way we can
collect all the things we do in one same place. Once the course
ends, it might turn out to be reorganized into a wonderful
book and/or exhibition

Todays postcard
Mariano Dallago Camera Obscura at Abadir

Anne Sophie

Robert Frank

Camera Obscura