Leader: Julian Bleecker
Year: 2008
Method: Prototyping
The object itself is a speculative near-future talisman. It derives from the tradition found in many religious cultures of the prayer bead, or worry bead, also known in Greek culture as a Kombolói.
The speculation designed into the object is that the form of such things can be based upon the act of touch and the calming influences of color. The object changes in response to the degree to which the handler has completed a sequence of prayers, or the degree to which the handler has managed to calm their nerves.
What I show here in this photo gallery is precisely this process of moving from an idea to its materialization over a period of approximately 10 days. Crucial to my preferred process is moving quickly from an idea to its materialization. This is an 10 day extended sketching exercise, but one that moves beyond paper and pen into a more complex materialization. I use digital design tools for 3D modeling to create physical objects with plastic printers, electronics design tools to create circuit boards that can be quickly manufactured in Asia, and the craftwork of constructing functioning electrical prototypes. The objective of this process, and revealing the process, is a strong commitment I have to craftwork, and understanding design, technology and art not reified, obscure social practices, but one’s that involve hands working with material.
These are human social practices that describe a possibility space of other kinds of human social practices. In the design of the Worry Wand is embedded a specific people-practice. The design of new kinds of objects, once the process is revealed, makes it possible to imagine other people turning their ideas into material form, perhaps just once, for themselves, as a kind of individuated self-expression, or more practical way of expressing one’s own ideas.