1. Introduction

The thesis project explores an integration of different disciplines and blend seamlessly blend them together. The design innovations are used to amplify and cultivate the spirit to the whole act, form an identity and communicate a visual statement. The designs are all combined on one stage for a musical performance. In the performance there is a character who plays an instrument a new kind of musical instrument which is tailored for the performers body and plating style which is a percussive string instrument, the performer is wearing an outfit with abstract silicone expressions, an avant-garde eyewear that utilize a shape remembering Nicke Titanium metal alloy and a personalized foot wear with moulded parts to snuck fit the foot enhance dance moves and amplify the steps of the performer and finally the musical instrument and the shoes are connected to a sound reactive sculptural humidifier and the sounds are translated in the steam effects with a scented vapor. The show stimulates audience through visual, auditory, intellectual, olfactory(smell), tactile way using design innovations. Maybe I should design a gum or a drink to complete the complete sensory experience.

2. The Origin of Practices

1.1 Author’s Background

I was born and raised in Alanya, Turkey by a single parent, a father who was eager to find passion for me. Encouraging activities such as sports, acting, music, dancing, arts and crafts, cooking etc. I tend to believe my interest towards multidisciplinary practices can be seen as a result of events and life conditions which are deeply engraved inside the story of a rather comedic child. Cultivating resilience by holding on to different branches and cope with the absence of a single thing that is priceless by appreciating versatility as a form of subsistence. My father was a political activist in 1968. The left party who were against war, I like to call them Turkish Hippies, the Flower Youth. How ever in Turkey at the time this was highly punishable. Dad as a result had to experience, torture, loss of close friends and I remember stories on solitary confinement. I always thought he was such a strong person. We lost my mom when I was 5. Dad was known to be the coolest dad by some of my class mates, never bought me any toy guns and he wouldn’t take a knife from anyones hands directly. I tend to believe that he has a “miracle coping mechanism” for trauma. You could confuse him for a chimney back in the days, 2 packs of Marlboro's a day and survivor of a hearth attack during my child hood. After a 8 year long strict diet and no smoking, I remember one day dad entering my room one evening. While I was trying to learn a tricky guitar solo from the song called “Dark Eternal Night” by Dream Theatre. He told me that some of the veins that goes to his hearth were 90 blocked. He had to get a bypass surgery where doctors will replace 4 veins of his heart from his arms and legs to and he survived, that surgery. Gifted me two wonderful sisters from two different countries and still behaves as if he is a chimney. I can say that he is resilient. This feller all in all, with all that he carries is an enormous value that fueled my practices and created an emotional cycle that allowed me to come to the current state. Many of my creations that are inspired by him are quite outrageous and cantered around a cognitive phenomena that boils ones blood wirelessly. Well I am a huge believer that if a thing makes one feel anything at all it is likely that it has power to make you feel other things as well. Therefore I can’t help but wonder what would wisdom call for?

I have been Performing live, starting off from the elementary school with traditional dances, to theatrical events, valse and thriller, a constant exposure to the audience brings us to one of the fundamental elements of this project - music and sound art, which was seeded in the early childhood. By late adolescence a day without an interaction with a guitar was a rare occasion for me. As a guitarist I was excited to be in front of an audience and compete with other bands. From middle school until end of high school, live shows in public events and music competitions was constantly fueling the wish to become a musician. By the end of high school I was an award wining instrumentalist, who played the fast guitar solos.

It was about time to go to university, however, even though being a musician filled my sense of identity, going to music school was never an option. The catch phrase at the time was “Nobody can teach how to be a rockstar’’. Whether it was accurate statement or not, that mindset led me to enroll in the art school instead.

Among entry to the art and design field, I started to craft artistic musical instruments and, approximately a decade later, I am writing this master’s thesis in design studies. By refining the items I've been developing over the years and producing items that give further depth to the story and the flow, I am researching on how a product design can be used to elevate the authenticity in performative arts.

1.2 The General Overview the Vision and Influences from Arts Field

Music and Sound Art

One of of the most important drive in initiating in such project comes from the sense of belonging that cultivated through following performers and musicians.

Firstly and fore most bands such as Deep Purple, System of a Down, Dream Theater (the list may go on), electric guitar players such as Guthrie Govan (December 27, 1971), Greg Howe (December 8, 1963), Tosin Abbasi (January 7, 1983) are some of the guitar heroes who ignited the idea that designing lutes can be a fulfilling direction. Last but not the least, the pioneers in Progressive Percussive Acoustic Guitar genre, such as Jon Gomm (July 11, 1977) and Andy McKee (April 4, 1979) are the instrumentalists who were the main influencers in creating the gem of the thesis project, the drummed-lute. These guitarists popularized percussion heavy acoustic guitar techniques with alternate tunings and extending the idea of how guitars can be played, almost bringing in a new vision among the controversial ideas among wether the craft is performative or musicality of the craft. This method almost was something that is meant to be a contemporary virtuosic “audio visual” experience. Using the guitar as a whole drum-kit, with extended techniques such as tapping, harmonics, flamenco, etc. Forming a rather complex show that appeals to a very niche audience.

I have been picking up on the guitars techniques around the year 2016. My wish to learn a new style of playing can be mainly due to my excitement on the technicality which I felt confident in, the rarity of the practice as well as the potential to innovate as an artist and a designer or just an instinctive response to stay relevant. The potential to create new instruments to form something unique as an artist was priceless. Implementing melody percussive techniques to my vocabulary helped me connecting all the things I do and make sense of it as a whole piece.

In contrast to the complex nature of what I do. The main stream music with it’s very well calculated structural and the polished electronic stream of sounds that are simple, easy to understand and relate to, catchy or even addictive, with its vibrant color's and the ideas that mentally attracts massive audiences was something that was definitely hard to miss. According to a research on sound diversity in popular music the popular songs increasingly use more “homogeneous palettes”.1 This may be due to the business side of music, which means ear-worms and, hard to escape songs that pop in your favorite pizza shop, almost acts as a boosted auditory neural stimulant, triggering feelings and cultivating a sense heightened intelligence on the listener with it’s predictable patterns. Popular music as a business model also uses the image of these artists to directly influence the audience. A rather obvious representation of this can be seen in one of the sub branches of the mainstream American pop music scene. The contemporary rap and hip-hop genre. According to the documentary of DW News titled “Cheap and toxic - The dark side of mass-produced fashion jewelry from China” reveals the visual representation of these artist started a trend that caused many people want to wear jewelry pieces like oversized chains and grills. Where money, sex, drugs and status almost replace the educated view of musicality and visibly generating financial margins that are incomparable to genres that takes years of practice and a high amounts of cognitive and bodily involvement. However the energy popular music is , relatable, empathetic, danceable and a lot of fun!

The thesis project aims to combine the contrasting appearances with the vibrancy and simplicity of the mainstream media with the technical complexity and the physical resourcefulness of the melody percussive techniques.

Performative Arts

Involving performance art, contemporary and classical dances such as the Tap Dance, Japanese Butoh to the research project may serve as balancing aid between sounds, ideologies and visual representations of my craft and gather all design on one stage.

I have been dancing Butoh since 2018. Thanks to my partner at the time Kotryna Zilinskaite, introduced me to the dance form and I was privileged to dance with her in different events as a dance duo. Butoh is a form of bodily expression that comes from a limbic, psychological trance. Where the presence of an unknown or an object such as a flower, a toy car, a falling building is to be expressed through movement by mentally, physically or even spiritually being in it in a form of trance.

The state invites shame, life and death, grief and allows the shadows of our subconscious to take over the body and to expose the sense of self we choose to hide. This form of expression was familiarized by Kozuo Ohno (October 27, 1906/ June 1, 2010) Tatsumi Hijikata (March 9, 1928/January 21, 1986) in 1950s staggered by the horror that was caused by the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan.2

This rather slow form of dance induces a rather grounded point of view that can benefit the project by diversifying the idea of performative expression and broaden it’s core principles and help creating a genuine message.

All in all, a performance can reflect a state of being and for a careful audience communicate better than words can ever do. Kazuo Ohno and Tatsumi Hijikata painted figures as a revelation of individuals who had gone through different circumstances in life which formed these acts. Observing the experiences and marks that create a unique personalities, resulting in a variety of actions that communicate different messages and formulating ways of expression which can be of great value for generations to come, reflecting the essence of who we are as human beings and suggest potential patterns of behavior that otherwise remain buried deep with in us.

Visual Arts

Figurative Expressions

I paint expressive figurative, abstractions. I had been drawn towards the figurative expressions of Pablo Picasso (October 25, 1881-April 8, 1973) and Jean-Michel Basquiat (December 22, 1960- August 12, 1988). How ever figurative painting was a conflicting hustle that I couldn’t get to be completely in peace with. Because majority of my family are muslims and it was not really welcome to draw figures let alone figures that in some way resemble beasts and demons. I really never figured what draws me towards these expressions. I believe tho have some form of magnetism towards them because I think I can sell them which all in all is an awkward feeling. But in some way I know I can sell em’.

These paintings reflect what's being filtered through me at the time as an individual. Which can be seen as a spiritual reflection, or a psychological self portrait. If I am painting a portrait of another person, I express on the canvas what I see in them is filtered and executed through, the somatic sensual gestures which so far had been mainly pain leading me through and I only channel it on the canvas. The format of these paintings can be quite large, some of the pieces are two and a half meters tall and one and a half meters wide. The art works are inspired by apocalyptic mystical beasts and aims to explore reality through illusion. I see these monsters as a reality in a mental realm. That executes them selfs in a behavioral pattern. The ideas can maybe not physically cause any damage but without a healthy dose of skepticism and awareness of the current worldly circumstances believed stories can make impact. Examples of these stories may be Conspiracy Theories, Fairy Tails and curses or religious writings that a person won’t have any earthly, perceivable way to battle against apart their psychology.

Silicone Expressions

I started Studying visual arts foundation in NSCAD University in Halifax, NS, Canada. During one of our classes, with Professor Anna Sprague, I had the chance to try making some expressions with sanitary silicone. Our task was to create an uncanny mask and attend to an event at a ferris wheel at the Halifax Citadel Hill, and hop on the ferris wheel with people. There are luckily some remaining footage from the making of the sphere. The mask fell apart not long after the event, although I held on to some pieces of the blue silicone and I used them on my set designs, abstractions etc. The medium was super versatile and allowed me to have many creative applications. For example the Industrialization Plant Sound Sculpture had a layer of Silicone. After the sculpture broken down the silicone was used in making the blooming of Industrialization plant sculpture, for the silicone roses and bouquets that I used in performances, and on to a silicone jacket. The medium and it’s versatility, the allowance to get a variety of hues including transparency and textures by adding colors and trapping particles together allowed me to run many different modules over the years. On sculptures, wearables, paintings and light installations.

2. Design Innovations and Research and Development Stages

The development stages of the design innovations can be reviewed in three branches: the musical instruments, sound reactors, costumes and accessories. In this chapter there will be a general overview on the organic growth of each items, focusing on the development stages from the earliest to the latest and forming a timeline.

Musical Instruments

A sculptural instrument marks the very beginning of the practices which was made in Halifax NS in Canada. The item is inspired by a xylophone and in theory the combined visual and sound art, design and performance together. During the same era I have started learning melody percussive finger style and started to imagining music differently and held on to the idea of making instruments. In 2018 the first functional prototype of the Drummed lute along with a several other new instruments such as the the Drummed-Didgeridoo and a tiny bronze lute with a grooved finger board which was played by controlling the string tension which was mainly used in experimentation in performance. The drummed-lute was made of a ceramic body, a brass bridge, and a carved oak wood neck with a thinner grade goat leather, guitar and bass strings and and store bought tuning pegs. Considering the neck profile its fair to say that the item leaned more towards a sculpture than a utilitarian concept instrument. However the final result was a playable instrument, which can be categorized as an electronic string instrument, a plosive aerophone, a drum kit with membranes, and vibration whole surfaces such as bells. The drummed-lute at that stage combined all elements of sound generation in musical instrumentation according to Hornbostel-Sachs Universal Classification of Instruments.1

Over the course of 3 years during an academic gap there a limited amount of experimentation and prototyping took place, the experimental modules usually were created for live performances, in gallery openings and sound art events and the existing models were being modified by adding frets,

The materials used during this era were quite unconventional. There had been instruments made with ceramics, styrofoam, papier-mâché, plastic pipes and found objects like cans and balloons. This was due to the limitation of technical and material resources at the time, and can be seen as a way of persisting, and holding on to the craft.

The beginning of the Masters studies marks a new era the creating the Drummed-Lute with integrated digital design and computer aided manufacturing tools. The series of prototypes made by using digital design tools had detailed parts that enhanced the practical capabilities of the instrument as well as 3D Printed prototypes have proved the potential for the Drummed-Lute to merge and control a range of sounds through the air ways. The first model to effectively channel the sounds of the strings and the membranes to an air chamber than to the Aeroponic Drum Holes plosive where the pitch and tonalities can be controlled to achieve a unique acoustic property, upbringing, new instrumental movements and techniques along side it.

However, the design of the particular model was inspired from the earlier models. Which resulted in a problematic placement of the drum set, obstructing the arms of the player as well as minor acoustic errors in the inner chamber that disrupts the effectiveness of the air flow.

The next model was designed with moving drum heads where the drums can be dragged above the finger board and uses a Manufactured travel sized electric guitar. The final model seems quite forgiving to handle. The whammy bar allows to ram the strings by hitting the tremolo handle, as a part of the drum kit, and the drums can stay close to each other that makes it easier to do the percussions.

Addressing Problems on Posture: Here in the image I am playing a standard acoustic guitar. The posture puts a lot of pressure on my ankle and playing in this posture for extended amount of time is known to cause Carpal tunnel syndrome. Sadly some guitar players learn it the hard way. The instrument I am creating is precisely angled to naturally put the neck in a natural position for hands that allow blood flow. A part of the research was to adapt my playing posture in acoustic guitar and fix my posture and find better Ergonomic settlements on the body of my instruments by creating armrests adjusted relieve tension on both hands.

Sonic Reactors: The sound reactors are created to translate sound vibrations to visual effects by allowing sound to move the matter. The phenomenon is called Cymatics. The research on these objects started in 2017 and to be used as scenographic installations that amplify the pre recorded sounds in galleries or at home, as well as in live shows.

The earliest prototypes of the reactors were made out of ceramics. The research was mainly centered around finding an effective settlement for the holes where the vortex rings are generated. mostly using glycerin based smoke like the smoke machines or electronic cigarettes. There were several multiple failed attempts on implementing sound to trigger reactions. The earliest prototype where electronics was introduced using a heated coil and cotton to evaporate glycerin and the smoke was moved using a fan and the movement of a solenoid glued to a piece of rubber was used to trigger the kick to achieve vortex rings, as well as LED lights and an Arduino board to trigger the sequence. However the prototype was catching fire and discontinued. Following variations would directly use a smoke machine and a speaker to trigger reactions.

The most recent variations are centered around evaporated water and essential oils. The devices use an ultrasonic diffuser and involves a unique vibrational distribution system to convert the cymatics patterns to light effects and vortex rings. The newest versions also allow users to connect to the devices through bluetooth or mini jag and can be used in the bedrooms to control the air humidity.

Costumes and accessories: Costume and mask making had been a persistent part of the practices since 2014. The signature look is centered around the use of abstractions that are made using colored sanitary silicone. To give another cycle to old clothes. The is medium combined with different starches can have a clay like consistency and is used to create accessories like necklaces, head and wrist bands, and spectacles.

Eyewear: The research on spectacles is centered around the idea of a hingeless, expressive series. Over the years there were multiple experiments done. Starting off by c that uses a metal alloy called Nitinol, which is a combination of nickel and titanium. The alloy is known to have a form of shape memory. The wires can be set in a shape by exposing the metal to 500 degrees celsius and should be cooled instantly in water. Once she shape is set and wire is exposed to 70 degrees celsius Nitinol goes back to the previously set shape even if it was previously bent. The metal is covered with an elastic silicone and can be a versatile item that can be worn in many different ways in different occasions.

The Recycled Garments:

Over the years there were limited amount of repurposed garments mostly created and used in live shows. Mainly due to lack of resources and the worrisome characteristics of uncured sanitary silicone as well as health concerns due to lack of understanding of the properties of the material. However according to data silicone is skin safe and non reactive with biological mass, once cured, and seems to be a safer alternative than it’s natural counter part Latex. Which is a material that is known to cause allergic reactions. And since the history, the artistic over all development stages as well as the technical properties. Seems to be a fantastic medium to complement the performance.

The practices of using old garments and make something original and brand new out of them as well as the fact that the clothes that are already made and sold for cheap really allows the research to have gap for trial and makes it possible to create a whole clothing line without having a proper training on sewing.

Research Questions

“Is it important as a designer to be present on the social media knowing the ethical concerns about the economy of attention can there be alternative ways to exist in an effective way, to reach the right audience base. If ideally a designer is integrated in to the social media platforms how to protect attention and adjust so that creators spend more time creating.”

“How can the development interdisciplinary design innovations be used to shape and communicate an artistic identity and form a commercially a viable business model?”

“Can virtuoso flow be formulated effectively through transdisciplinary design practices that are concerning the creation of strategic, systematic and material solutions that meet the requisites of personalized ecosystems?

Our team

Our strength lies in our individuality. Set up by Esther Bryce, the team strives to bring in the best talent in various fields, from architecture to interior design and sales.

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