I want to make a quilt with all the scraps of crochet we practice making w different materials!!!! what a cool artifact to hang in the palmer. it’s also serves as another example of data visualization- our time, effort and process materialized in an object.
The abstract from a Penn State Graduate School of Visual Arts dissertation written by Renée Kredell aptly summarizes performance art pedagogy which has partly informed our crochet classroom project:
“…performance art, used as a pedagogical methodology, can create an educational space that is transformative (causing reflection, both personal, and institutional. The dissertation aligns performance-art pedagogy with critical pedagogy investigating how it creates transformation and reflection for involved participants. It defines the parameters of an educational performance within a performance-art pedagogical space, clarifying the terms: unsettled space, unsettled content, liminal and performantivity, as they relate to the functioning model of performance-art pedagogy. The researcher used an Arts-based inquiry methodology entering the site as an artist/teacher/research. The philosophical frame aligns itself with radical pedagogical theory that believes education is not a place for the reinscription of knowledge but a place for individual engagement where personal narratives are in concert with ideas (past, present, future) in relation to current culture.” (Kredell 2009)
https://etda.libraries.psu.edu/files/final_submissions/5103
I decided to reverse the order for the construction of the Crochet Classroom. I was originally planning on ordering and assembling the scaffolding first. After a conversation with Courtney I realized thatI could start crocheting while I continued to develop prototypes for the structure.
we met with Lisa this morning. She was helpful in outlining some next steps, but the process is inherently messy so we are definitely going to have to work and think HARD to make all the pieces come together. we spent the rest of the afternoon in 203B brainstorming and interviewing and affinity mapping. by crit, we had developed a very low-fi prototype for visualizing and ‘streaming’ date from the voice recognition software. we ran our prototype during crit and it was successful!!! I took notes that I will post as soon as I upload more pictures from my journal. everyone was distracted by the process happening in front of them. we are thinking of ways to livestream data and/or compile it throughout a class session and then display it at the end of each period in some sort of physical sculpture thing…
this weekend, I am going to work on storyboarding/paper prototypes to present on Monday.
ill work in the problem space we’ve carved out for the voice recognition data visualization as well as my own “”””moodboard”””” for the intervention on the crit room.
After researching different types of scaffolding I found that it would better to use a system of pipes and clamps. This will make the structure more easily modified and the materials can be sourced locally. 
Source: KeyClampStore.com
Sketches for the frame of the outdoor classroom
I’ve found my point of inspiration in the crit room. Although I still want to make connections to Sanders/the experience of computer science students, I am particularly interested in how students give and receive crit/how teachers critique their students’ work. what can the crit room offer to these experiences? how can the crit room intervene on critiques to make them more productive?
I started this survey for studio art students at Vassar to start collecting feedback on their experiences. here is the link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/13y0amdbtKVwOmResgDSsDyAXQ284ZgizXpe8gTxxGwo/edit
we visited Autodesk in Boston today. I was impressed by the facility and their philosophy, but I am still very wary of start up culture and all the man-buns I saw during our tour. the education director seemed really solid. he shared with us a human-centered design project he led for a class at UNC- solar powered tents for small street businesses in India. a project on display at Autodesk gave us the idea to 3D print connectors for our scaffolding in the outdoor crochet classroom, but this might not be cost or time effective.
this being said we probably could have taken the tour ‘virtually’ and skipped out on the 7 hours of driving. poor tom 🙁 he did so good though!!
we walked through new hack, sanders physics, blodgett, rocky, and the library visiting spaces for inspiration. each room produced new questions and challenges- how does the shape of the crit room impact the way artists give and receive feedback? how could a computer science classroom look more like an art studio? how can classroom architecture destabilize hegemonic norms in education? what potential is there for a functional outdoor classroom at Vassar? what is the future of the old reserves room in the library!?.
here are the photos I took during the stroll:
i learned to use wordpress yay!
im gonna throw you this link, check it out, it’s awesome: MINICLIP SUPER FUN
and here is this picture that i also love:
look how comfy and sleepy this lil baby is!!!! yay tortilla
and this video… very excellent: