Dear Rolf and all,
Although I studied at the same institution as Will, I had a somewhat
different experience of ‘the crit’. I studied ‘Three-dimensional
Design’, which over three years saw students attack this broad subject
from a number of angles – interactive art installations, furniture
making, product design, model making, interaction design, among many
others. For the first two years of the course we had our own combined
teaching, studio and presentation space, which was essentially a
laboratory with some tables and chairs with a whiteboard at the front
that was also used to present on. This rather formaliac space often
lead to what you might consider formulaic presentations, crits and
teaching in general. The space in many respects controlled the process
of the crit. The space also brought back other memories of my youthful
schooling in that it had that wonderful ability to be either freezing
cold or on a par with a sauna.
Due to a number of factors, in the final year we were moved from this
space to a corner of the wood workshop, a space that had to be shared
with various other students from other courses creating installations
and what not. The space was never really utilised by those on our
course, mainly as it felt as if it was quite an afterthought by the
administrators who had probably never experienced what it was like to
actually be using such a space for a very different means than it was
created for (very few of us actually did any woodwork by this point).
But at the same time it inspired us to be more vocal and creative in
the use of space for the presentation and feedback of our work. We
started, through some direction from the course leaders, to plan the
locations of our crits and assessments, moving them out of the
confines of out predetermined space and taking over all manner of
places within the university. In many ways this approach to presenting
work was quite suitable to the diversity of the subject matter dealt
with by each student, and perhaps in other ways inspired it as a
circular process. It certainly made me more aware of the suitability
and unsuitability of certain environments to presenting certain types
of projects at various points of their completion. It also meant all
the students had to deal with the powers-above in regards to renting
equipment, officially getting allocated certain spaces or rooms, doing
risk and ethic assessments (although how thorough was questionable) on
a regular basis. It also expanded the voice of the students’ work,
which would quite often be restricted to the classroom with the
exception of end of year exhibitions. Other students and lecturers saw
our work at various points of progress, leading to informal comments
and analysis that would possibly never occur if the crit was completed
in the old lab-space.
In many respects this was personally infuriating at the time. I
remember often thinking how much it would be easier with we could just
be given a reasonably sized white-washed room. But, in hindsight, I
consider myself fortunate to be part of quite a dynamic way to present
my work. It was always fascinating to see the methods that other
students used, and we all learnt as a mass how to be better prepared
for the next time. In some ways the use of the space for the crit may
have overshadowed the actual content of the work itself, with the
organizational skills of the student, or lack thereof, perhaps
covering lacklustre design/research content. You could have had a
fantastic project but if it was presented in a completely
inappropriate manner in an inappropriate or poorly organized space
then you would be “punished” accordingly in your grade – and vice-
versa. I still consider it a highly beneficial time for my personal
development as a design researcher though, and is a process I would
like to repeat again in the future but from the lecturers perspective.
All the best,
John.
-----
John Vines
Transtechnology Research at the University of Plymouth.
www.trans-techresearch.net
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