Senses: Touch

TOUCH

Statement: So in the book, "A Natural History of the Senses", I automatically turned to the section on touch first. "Touch" is such an important sense in my life, because personally many of my coping skills involve the sense of touch. When I originally heard about this project I really wanted to overwhelm the site with different textures, but then I read the section on pain in the chapter and became fascinated with the idea of pain being subjective and it changed my idea. So, essentially what I did was combine "soothing" soft textures (the feathers) with the "painful" tacs in a "safe" environment (bubble wrap). The bubble wrap to some could also prove as soothing, or overwhelming, or just fun, or perhaps even something completely unexpected, but overall it's a "safe" texture. I wanted the tacs facing point out from the wall so that the viewer could inflict pain upon themselves if they so chose. (Also just the very sight reminded some of pain.) I think overall it was a big play on pleasure and pain. Also, I tried to keep the set up all white/clear so to avoid adding as much visual stimulation as possible. 

Research:

http://andreinadavila.com/the-bubble-wrap-room/

http://www.bcbhr.org/Articles.aspx?7

(Some of my original ideas came from coping techniques, such as "grounding". But also a personal one for me to calm down to touch things. I have different textures around CONSTANTLY to keep myself calm, such as a fuzzy steering wheel, or a rubber duck on my key chain.)

http://www.mydr.com.au/pain/pain-and-how-you-sense-it

PERFECT! How you sense pain!

(it's interesting) 

"The end result is that you feel a sensation of pain in your finger, think ‘Ouch! What was that?’ or something similar, and react emotionally to the pain; e.g. you feel annoyed or irritated.

However, you will probably have reacted involuntarily even before you were consciously aware of the injury. In sudden strong pain like that generated by pricking your finger, a reflex response occurs within the spinal cord. Motor neurones are activated and the muscles of your arm contract, moving your hand away from the sharp object. This occurs in a fraction of a second — before the signal has been relayed on to the brain — so you will have pulled your arm away before even becoming conscious of the pain."

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/08/27/bloom.pleasure/

A little off topic of touch, but goes into the whole pleasure and pain deal that I was interested in.

Also I'm not going to post all of the research on BDSM here, but here is the basic Wikipedia definition of it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BDSM

(again, the pleasure and pain aspect was really interesting to me)

Peephole Installation (Luli's Cupcakes)

Luli's Cupcakes 

82 San Marco Ave

In Progress Cupcakes

The Final Product

(featured flavors of the month on top: Luck of the Irish and Minorcan Mudd)

(when you "peep" through, Breakfast in Bed and Grandma's Coconut)

Statement: 

http://youtu.be/Zt9qb_yhIGo

So my concept revolved around the business itself, Luli's Cupcakes. The actual structure is made out of Luli's own cupcake boxes (which I placed into almost a doll house type structure so that you could look into the "rooms") and the cupcakes are modeled after actual cupcakes in the shop. It was important to have the two flavors of the month: Luck of the Irish and Minorcan Mudd. I did a lot of research in the shop (of course a lot of taste testing!) and chose two other flavors as well to play off of the names and create a scene with: Breakfast in Bed and Grandma's Coconut. I chose to put the two flavors of the month "on display"so that they were easy to see. The other two flavors I created scenes around to play off of the names of the cupcakes, as you can see above in the pictures. I created a tropical, but "classy" scene to place Grandma's coconut it. I created (obviously) a bedroom scene for Breakfast in Bed, and placed the cupcake on the bed as the breakfast. As I stated above, I tried as best I could to replicate the cupcakes as close as possible to the actual cupcakes, and I tried to keep everything in a close theme to Luli's Cupcakes (while having a little fun with the scenes.)

Research:

http://www.luliscupcakes.com/

Grandma's Coconut (left)

Breakfast in Bed

Minorcan Mudd

Luck of the Irish 

(There was more research done inside of the store, taste testing, color observing, space observing etc.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datil_pepper

(The Datil Pepper is in the Minorcan Mudd)

One of my original ideas was to explore this

"The Spell of the Sensuous" Eight

"It doesn't matter if you get old-that place will keep stalking you like the one who shot you with the story. Maybe that person will die. Even so, that place will keep on stalking you. It's like that person is still alive."

When I read this passage I immediately thought of this area. It's a few different spots around where I used to live, places I would walk to on a daily basis. These places haunt me, they stalk me. The memories stalk me. Even though I have moved away and tried to move on from the memories associated with them, even just going back to take pictures I felt the weight of the place still there. All of the memories instantly come flooding back. (This also helped inspire my site specific project.)

"The Spell of the Sensuous" Nine

"Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle... The Wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same, and both are round...Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were..."

I feel like I responded pretty directly to this quote. I did try a completely different style of painting then what I'm used to. I tried to make everything in the painting a circle. The four main circles are the "seasons" and in the center is the moon and the sun. The wind is also in the painting. I was also thinking about the image of a bird's nest, and how everything really in connected and a cycle, and I tried to just let it flow out onto the painting. Also fun fact this can be displayed in any way because it's a circle.