Design School Confidential

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(RAY) Text

Job:05-11998/12412 Title:RP-Design School Con dential

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project brief

Students will investigate the effects of making

personal (private) messages public and explore

the way environmental typography can establish

new channels of communication.

project goal

By conducting extensive research, including a lit-

erature review of cultural and media theory and

a series of visual experiments focusing on the

interpretation of visual/typographic messages

(both private and public), students will set about

collecting fragments of overheard conversations,

with a view to assessing potential interpretations

of these messages. Drawing into question the

role of the designer in controlling the perception

of messages, this project explores the notion of

design as a mechanism for cultural change. It

examines how the recontextualization of over-

heard dialogue into new forms of media alters

the meaning of its message and affects those that

view/interact with it.

project outcome

The project was achieved through a series of pub-

lic installations in urban areas in Australia, based

on the reinterpretation and repositioning of over-

heard dialogue. A continuation of the project in

the form of a blog, www.listencarefully.net, invites

further interpretation of the messages, allows for

comment on the project, and provides an oppor-

tunity for ongoing discussion.

Class: Design Research Studio: Designer Agency

Level: Bachelor of Design Honors

Faculty: Nicki Wragg, Tony Ward, and

Keith Robertson

Duration of Project: One Semester

Swinburne University of Technology, Faculty of Design

Prahran, Victoria, Australia

Listen Carefully

37

This installation comments on existing forms of

media by taking a private message and placing

it in public. The stencil cutaway reveals layers of

texture, color, and tone, and invites you to look

closer. It refl ects the density of visual communi-

cation in our urban environment and the multi-

plicity of meaning found beneath.

Listen Carefully

Students: Daniel Peterson, Samantha Austen, and Meg Phillips

This installation focuses on an inherent conver-

sation. Handcrafted and personal, this media

and context creates a sense of voyeurism—that

you have overheard something most private.

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(RAY)

Job:05-11998/12412 Title:RP-Design School Con dential

06-AC51736 #175 Dtp:160(P) Page:165

n dential

Page:164

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(RAY) Text

Job:05-11998/12412 Title:RP-Design School Con dential

06-AC51736 #175 Dtp:160(P) Page:165

n dential

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Adjacent to a car park and

surrounded by buildings ap-

proximately six stories high,

this location receives regular

high-density traffi c. This mes-

sage is made visible to those at

ground level as well as in the

surrounding area, referencing

road markings and challeng-

ing the audience to question

the regulatory nature of our

daily commute.

The handwritten note, seem-

ingly torn from a diary and

then discarded, speaks of dis-

posable media. The transition-

al nature of this media working

in harmony with the nature of

the message, while also draw-

ing attention to the apparent

desperation of the question,

adds a degree of emotion ab-

sent from the source material.

To confound expectation in a rapidly changing media environ-

ment, where work is painted over frequently, we opted for a return

to the traditional. It’s a play on preexisting visual media in a lo-

cation often classifi ed as an artist space. The message is framed,

which offers alternate meanings and questions whether the mes-

sage is or is not art. The positioning of this statement also calls

into question the meaning of “reading,” transposing it from a liter-

ary to a visual context.

By placing this message in

a dark alleyway populated

by overfl owing rubbish bins,

this message speaks of noth-

ing, communicating a sense

of uselessness and referenc-

ing the often vacuous nature

of visual media.

Melbourne is a city of laneways

and hidden locations, so direc-

tions are often a part of over-

heard dialogue. The recontex-

tualization of commonly heard

directions in an offi cial media

draws into question whether

the message is communicat-

ing a destination or direction.

the projects 165

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