Week 8: Origination

The Laws of Simplicity

Chapter 7: Emotion

1.  When Maeda uses the “Feel, and feel for” principle, he is drawing on peoples

connection to a very personal experience: feelings. List 3 ways that would make

use of this principle to visitors of your exhibition.

“Everything starts from being sensitive to your own feelings” – so in regards to the exhibition, we need to appeal to potential visitors feelings in the following ways:

E-tiquette – when the exhibition is on, it is up to us as students and budding designers to be polite, dress/act appropriately and make guests feel welcome.

Nude Electronics – by using methods such as SHE (shrink, hide and embody) to set up the exhibition we can create a “smooth and simple” exhibition space (including using the Macs to display works). We can then “accessorise” the space and express ourselves through our design work.

Aichaku – We need to inspire respect and affection for our work - by creating emotion in our artworks we get people to engage. Also artworks that empathise with the environment around them help to make the experience more relatable for the visitor.

2. What is animism? Why do you think the “Tamagocchi” craze of the ‘90s became

such a craze? How can you apply this to your exhibition?

Animism believes that everything in our environment, including inanimate objects, has a living spirit and deserves respect. Tamagocchi’s ‘yearned’ for human attention and they also create an illusion of life – people need contact. Tamagocchi’s often took the form of a pet/baby – convenient and fashionable (at the time), but non-committal in the long term. 

The following YouTube clip challenges the assumptions of animism by comparing the feelings of that of a wall or a bicycle to a dog; or in other words, the inanimate compared to the animate.

 

3. Name 2 products that you have purchased that gave you that feeling of “Aichaku”.

What feelings did those products evoke? Was it the feeling that sold the product

to you?

Aichaku is the Japanese term for the sense of attachment one can feel for an artifact.

MacBook Pro laptop – sense of value, freedom, convenience, I would be lost with out it. The feeling of Aichaku came after I had purchased it.

My engagement ring – although this was not purchased by me, I have a huge emotional attachment to it for what it symbolizes. A very close friend also handmade it, so it has that added element of preciousness.

4. How do the references to emotion relate to the simplicity/complexity relationship

discussed in Law 5 - Differences

With emotion comes more complexity.

If something is perceived as too simple it can become emotionless and “ugly”. It can also be perceived as having less value.