The Dive in to Neuroaesthetic Design

The deep dive into neuroaesthetics has been quite an adventure; I honestly found myself in the land of analysis paralysis with all the opportunity for creativity and demonstration of this unique aesthetic. I started reading the book Your Brain on Art as I started this class, and that has been extremely formative in my study and exploration of neuroaesthetics, and has inspired my journey of creating to enjoy versus being so strict to engineering and distinct design principles.

Per my last post, since neuroaesthetics is so nebulous, no pun intended, in its visual form, I committed to following the aesthetic triad to justify my design decisions. As such, the form of this object has come second to its function; the function I intend to emulate is one of an object which is playful and creative. I struggled for a while deciding on going the serious route and decided that in the essence of neuroaesthetics, I would use this opportunity to allow my own curiosity to drive the process and in doing so, use it as an enjoyable, stress relieving and therapeutic activity. 

To fulfil the sensor-motor corner of the triad, I know that circles can elicit a playful affect especially when they are uncharacteristically large or found with geometries of stricter orientation (as described in the book Joyful). Therefore, I knew I wanted this object to include primary and simplistic geometries such as circles.

To fulfil the affective-emotional corner, I wanted to pull on nostalgic feelings and new I wanted some aspect of vintage included. Finally, to fulfil the cognitive-interpretative corner, I wanted to leverage something with music, as I am deeply connected to making and consuming music. 

As such, I started to form some ideas to create an object out of some old vinyls (circles and vintage) and old musical instruments I have had. I also started to play on other aspects of neuroaesthetics, such as the use of nature, and thought that maybe I could create a flower out of vinyls, and have it be a bit cheeky in nature through the use of these upcycled materials. 

As for build schedule, I have collected all of my materials and started to experiment with some manufacturing methods such as orientation of the vinyls and attachment methods. Additionally, I went to the second hand art store in boulder and found some great bottles to mold the vinyls around to create the pedals of a flower, if in fact, I decide to go that route. Next on my build schedule is to develop a prototype of the flower by tuesday so I can iterate as needed ahead of final fabrication thursday and friday. I plan to use saturday to hunt and gather any final materials and am reserving sunday for any overflow work or mishaps.

References

https://www.yourbrainonart.com/aesthetic-mindset-index

Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness by Ingrid Fetell Lee