Kristin Becker's DTC Classes at WSU

Point, line and plane are concepts that people can use to help describe what they see each day. With these concepts, as well as scale and volume, we can give meaning to what we see.

Photo and notes by Kelly-anne, August 2018

Points in design are different from points in geography. In the context of writing, each point is a letter character. However if you wanted to look as a single letter, it is also made up of lines. I find it really hard to see just one part of design at a time. This is because I like to see the picture that they make together. You can also justify this image as being a plane of text as it fills an large space. But to me it is best to look at this as points and then lines because this is how we will best understand the content write. Each point has a meaning that becomes clear when put into the context of a line.

Photo by Kelly-anne, August 2018.

Here I have a Tinkerbell on a card that I have made for a friend. Within this photo, you can see how many points put next to each other can give the appearance of being a line. In this case, glitter makes up most of the image and each piece of glitter can be a point or, if you look at the piece as a whole, the glitter can make up a plane with the black and gold each making up their own plane. If you back up the perspective to the entire card, you can even argue that the faerie is a point of interest on the card.  There are so many possibilities for design and perspective to come into play. You really have to decide how you want to look at things within design.

Photo by Kelly-anne, August 2018.

When I am drawing, I focus heavily on these concepts. If you were to take away the colour making the image purely black lines, you would still be able to tell that there are trees in the foreground. However, there might be difficulty determining what is in the background. This image is made up of several planes and lines. This is where colour can give meaning to the planes.

No matter where you look, you will see these design elements. It is up to you how you want to interpret them.

This is a Xbox one Controller. One of the newest controllers available on the market. (Photo by Aidan Aumell, August 2018)

I choose a gaming controller as my Technological Artifact because of how widely used it was throughout my childhood. I still have a box in my garage at home filled with old gaming system controllers. The photo that is shown above is a picture of Microsoft Xbox One controller. I choose this artifact to represent my generation because as a child growing up in America, video game were extremely popular and was a new upcoming thing. Videos games have been a large part of my childhood and a lot of my friends as well. Through playing similar games we shared bonds that created friendships through gaming. The ability to play numerous controllers on one console opens up the gaming dynamic and lets the gamers play together, while sharing the fun experience that come along with playing the video games.  Variety of different companies such as Nintendo and Microsoft created numerous different platforms to use the controllers.   Yearly they improve controllers as new gaming systems come out. Controllers evolve each year in orders to better the style and functionality.  The controllers give the gamer the ability to explore the creative content that is offered by the video games. Playing these games within a group of people brings us closer together because we are all enjoying the creative content together. As a child grew up I played a lot of video games with my friends, a specific game in particular was Mario Cart. My friends and I used to play this game all the time together because of how it let the gamers connect 4 controllers to the console. This opened up the gaming dynamic and made it so it was more of a group activity more then just a video game. This is the bond I shared throughout my childhood with my friends playing these games, and I believe that this same bond was experienced by most millennialism growing up. Many of my friends from my childhood, we actually met online before we did in person. This is a result of gaming culture and the innovation of new aged consoles.

After reading the Media Archaeology Lab it really made me think that back to how long the gaming consoles have existed. The Media Archaeology Lab has been safekeeping a bunch of old gaming consoles and controllers in their lab. Seeing picture of these consoles just shows how far gaming controllers has come. It surprised me to see that they had old gaming consoles from 1985. For the past 30 years developers have been creating new video game console and controllers, which in turns playing into the culture and the dynamic of that generations. Characters and settings in these video games become common knowledge to that generation and becomes apart of their culture. An example of this would be Mario and Peach from the Nintendo series, most Americans know who what that is and that is because of how wildly gaming consoles were used across my generation.

Growing up as a kid, my family and I were always around sports, mainly football. As far back as I can remember I could always be seen playing, watching, or being around sports in general. At a young age of 4, most boys weren’t able to play the game of football ’till they were 6, unless they played flag football or outside with friends. At the same time, video game consoles and handheld electronics started to become more of a thing, slightly upgrading Dreamcast’s, Nintendo’s, etc. I remember my first Christmas getting a handheld device, I was stoked. The technological artifact that I chose to do was my retro handheld electronic football game.

This is the retro handheld electronic football game that I got for Christmas last year that I used to play all the time when I was younger (Photo by Kaleb Parrish, August 2018).

How this device works is that the light flashes and blinks, at the same time it ticks and players run. The bars of light show you where the offensive player is and where the defensive player is, a darker bold red for offensive and lighter red for defensive. Just like in football, the object of the game is to score as many points before the four quarters are up, whether that is scoring a touchdown or kicking a field goal. Just like any other handheld device, at some point in time I would get hooked to this game and not play outside at times. This object defines our generation because it seems like kids nowadays aren’t playing outside all the time like we used to in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. Everyone is on their phone playing a game or the latest new video game console, instead of balancing video game time and outside activity. Don’t get me wrong, I like to play my game still to this day and other game consoles as well, but I still like to get outside and get some activity with friends.

After reading the assigned reading the Media Archaeology Lab, it made me think how far we have come with electronic devices used for gaming. In the lab, it seems like they have been keeping a bunch of old gaming consoles and handheld-gaming devices for a good amount of time. For years and years, developers and been creating new consoles and devices to help adapt to the new technological advances that we keep building on and seem to find interest in. For example, who would have thought in the 1990’s that the Wii would be a thing? Being able to play all the Mario games like Mario Kart, Mario Party, or Super Smash Bro’s on a controller that calibrates with your motion, yet still can hookup Nintendo GameCube controllers to it? It is crazy to see how far the original gaming systems have come along and I imagine they will continue to keep getting better.

Point, line and plane, can all be found everywhere in daily life. From the moment we wake up to the time we go to sleep, these elements of design are everywhere; they are in just about everything we use or see.

Photo by Sean Mirts. October 17th, 2017.

The image on the left is an example of point, though it is not a simple black dot on a white sheet on paper. With the contrast between the background and the man’s illuminated face, a point is made. Similarly with the light above him, making there two distinct points in this single image. Points are tricky to classify in some cases as they can quickly become lines or objects with volume to them.

Photo by Sean Mirts. December 7th, 2017.

On the right, a vast plane of clouds is behind the skier extending to the horizon. With the mountains in the background and snow in the front, the plane is taking up a defined space. Along with the color of clouds being very similar the plane looks complete. This plane also appears to have a three-dimensional look to it as it has some transparency along the edges.

Photo by Sean Mirts. July 15th, 2017.

Lastly, a road in Glacier National Park, known as Going-to-the-Sun Road creates a line tracing the side of the mountain. This road makes a great line right through the image. There is also another less noticeable line from the side of the mountain that is created cutting the picture in half. This image has many design elements in it as well, such as volume, planes, and points. The cars on the road could be points, the  cliffs a plane and the bear grass (white flowers) appear to have some volume to them.

My personal two cup rice cooker at WSU. The significance of a rice cooker is more than just an appliance (Photo by Joni Cobarrubias, 2018).

My technological artifact is an electric rice cooker. One might think that this is a stereotypical device for an asian to choose. However, there are deep cultural and personal implications when it comes to a rice cooker. To start, a rice cooker is an essential part of my childhood and current life. Every Filipino dish is eaten with rice which shows how much I consumed rice on a daily basis. My family would not always eat filipino dishes, but no matter what, rice would be incorporated. Although this technology is an appliance, it still has had a significant impact on who I am.

This artifact can also represent how this generation overlooks their cultural roots. I did not grow up with filipino friends. None of my friends owned rice cookers, and never ate as much rice as I did. Whenever my friends would cook rice, they would either use the stove or buy a microwave packet. On the other hand, sometimes even Asian Americans can forget or do not acknowledge their culture. We can often overlook how our food represents us as a culture.

The MAL’s mission is to preserve technological devices from the past to showcase and access these resources. Through seeing the past, one could understand how present technology came to be. My artifact relates to their mission because I believe that a rice cooker can tell a story through its usage, size, and who is using it. Some families even pass on their rice cookers, which is a preservation of history in and of itself. Furthermore, like any technological device, the rice cooker has changed and developed overtime; it is interesting and relevant to see how rice cookers functioned in older models.

To summarize, I chose the rice cooker to represent my culture as well as this generation’s dismissal of the importance of a rice cooker. Even something as simple as a kitchen appliance can have a significant meaning.