Consumer
32–Hour Charette Exhibit
(collaboration with Parker Kuncl . Christopher Ward . Ping Tsung Li)
fall 2007 . term 1
The 32-Hour Charette was basically like a Media Design Program initiation/hazing project. The weekend started off with a day–long bus/boat/train/walking tour of Los Angeles and San Pedro. We explored parts of Los Angeles that have served as key entry points for the U.S. economy – the Port of Los Angeles, the Union Station and the cluttered smoggy highways...
We learned about the networks that connect us from China to Targets, and learned that the garments we wore, the snacks we were munching on, the bus we rode, the cameras we carried all came from elsewhere, through the ports in shipping containers, onto trucks, up the freeways, to the stores, into our hands, and into our dwellings.
It was my first taste at understanding networks and connections, about the seen and unseen linkages that make systems function. It was the first taste of what lies beneath. It was the first taste of the Media Design Program.
This tour wasn't the only way of introducing us to the graduate program. The next morning at 10:00am, we were given an assignment dubbed the "32–Hour Charette." GO! We had 32 hours to complete our first project – an mini exhibition presentation of our experience of Los Angeles.
What did we learn? What was discovered? How were we going to articulate the unspoken connections that were weaving back and forth in our minds? LA...LA...a place constructed of networks both simple and complicated, visible and invisible. A virtual web of consumption and reproduction, of supply and demand. If part of the network were to fall apart or delay, a domino effect of short circuitry would occur not just in LA, but throughout the nation - this would be the worst traffic jam LA would experience.
We decided to construct something that looked like a shipping container. Instead of it being encased in metal, it would be wrapped in strings that represented the endless networks of LA. Our shipping container was called "CONSUMER," representing the idea that what goes on outside or inside the container are acts of consumption. To consume, to be consumed...
