INFO
anatorresa@gmail.com
Massachusetts College of Art and Design
MFA in Design: Dynamic Media
Portfolio: https://www.behance.net/anatorres
EXPERTISE
★★★★ Fabrication & Craft
★★★★ Design
★★★★ Electronics
★★★★ Programming
WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE THING YOU’VE MADE?
A poster proposal for a flowering event. With this design, I toyed with the idea of turning this printed object from its 2D surface into a 3D interactive sculpture that would dynamically transform, showing the process of a flower blooming or coming to life. The poster can be seen through my portfolio link.
The concept called for the paper-crafted flower of the poster to progressively detach from the flat surface and bloom while the exhibition start date approached. This was my starting point of thinking about adding dynamic movement and responsiveness to a media that is not usually characterized by it. Breaking from the 2D presentation into a 3D object was conceptualized with the purpose of adding meaning, volume and a strong physical presence to create a more poetic expression of an otherwise conventional element.
Some ideas that have steamed from this project is to create paper gardens that grow, “speak” and respond to the physical presence of participants with the use of proximity sensors. You can see it here
WHAT’S THE MOST FRUSTRATING OBJECT YOU’VE USED?
My HP home printer. Granted that a lot of this frustration was related to human error. But in the cases were it was not, it would behave strangely when it printed whenever it “felt like it”. The paper would get jammed for no reason and sometimes it grabbed multiple pages at a time and print on them them simultaneously. Finally, and with no warning it would run out of ink in the middle of an important final artwork for a deadline.
WHAT DO YOU PERSONALLY WANT TO GET FROM THIS CLASS?
By taking this class I want to give life to conceptual designs I have sourced on the idea of touch as a primary means to: communicate information “speak with touch”, to receive sensations “stimulate our haptic sense”, to produce and map content in visual form “map touch”, and aural “to manipulate music as a physical entity through communal and individualized touch”. Taking this class will allow me to make my ideas come to life sharing my knowledge and input across disciplines. This will be a starting point to hone other skills I need to venture on other projects of the same realm and to compliment my thesis research: What can touch bring to Dynamic Media that the discipline can not do by itself.
Since one of the struggles with dynamic media experiences is how to engage the audience I want to know if physicality and material aspects of interfaces have an effect, if any, in the involvement of participants. I question: How can I explore the materiality of interfaces in order to engage audiences in a larger scope of haptic sensibility and encourage their emotional connection and participation in new media interactions?
HOW WILL YOU CONTRIBUTE TO THIS CLASS?
With skills for ideation, fast prototyping with materials, craftsmanship, project documentation, selection, organization and presentation of information in visual form, and design software skills.