Conditional Design :: Authorship & Interaction

Conditional Design is based upon the idea of spontaneity within a certain structured rule of play, in hopes of creating designs that each look uniquely varied each time.

"Through the influence of the media and technology on our world, our lives are increasingly characterized by speed and constant change. We live in a dynamic, data-driven society that is continually sparking new forms of human interaction and social contexts." - conditionaldesign.org

These examples are from an online conditional design website. These posters represent and show the dates of all birthdays of a person, from birth up till the present. Drawn in graphically ordered Roman numerals. "conditionaldesign.org" Offer the service for the public to order there very own personalized versions.

Exercise 1 - The Perfect Circle

Our first exercise was called 'The Perfect Circle'. It involved a group of four people having to expand a circle by drawing layers around each inner circle continuously for 60 seconds per person for a total of ten minutes with their colored marker (mine was the black marker). The outcome is a large layered circle with each layer varying in thickness. There were six groups of us and each groups outcome was unique in it's own way. Below is an online video tutorial explaining the process.

My group consisted of myself, Edward, David and Ergi. Pictured is Ergi drawing his layer with a red marker.

Exercise 2 - Hatching

The next exercise was called 'Hatching'. Like the previous it involved a group of four people having to each place a dot on the sheet at an arbitrary position that isn't further than ten centimeters from each other taking turns drawing lines remembering the dots must connect to each other. Also The angle of the lines must be within the range of 0 to 45 degrees for black lines, 45 to 90 degrees for blue lines, 90 to 135 degrees for red lines and 135 to 180 degrees for green lines. The whole process took 10 minutes. The outcome is a scattered image with it expanding out like a web. Like before the six groups outcomes were unique in their own way. Below is an online video tutorial explaining the process.

My groups outcome pictured on the left. Although unfinished it still came to be a nice image.

Exercise 3 - The Beach

The next exercise was called 'The Beach'. It was a simple task involving the controlled placement of dots on a sheet. The instructions were to with each turn find the most empty space on the paper and place a dot in the middle of it for a total of five minutes.

Everyone's Outcome..

Everyone's Final Pieces

Exercise 4 - Flux Fold

The last exercise was very confusing and called 'Flux Fold'. My group struggled to understand the task and were left with a lacking piece that was incomplete. The instructions were too as previously, have four participants with four colored marker pens and lift the corner of the paper from the table and bring it to any place on the paper so that one other corner must be lifted too. While keeping the corner at its position, press the paper flat and make a fold. Next, Unfold the paper again to its standard position and place a dot somewhere on the fold. After this we would then be able to connect the dots with our markers which would eventually create a unique design. The below video gives a clear graphic explanation.