Brief
Design a way to materialise the qualities of mould
Team-mates
Jumleena Bhagawati, Xiyuan Han (Cyrus), Keyi Cao, Reagan Bbengo & Anshu Agarwal
Date
20/10/22 - 27/10/22
Welcome to week 2 of UX of Mould. For this project, we designed an embodied experience that translates both the good and bad qualities of mould. We were asked to to find and identify mould to understand it. We used two distinct research methods, The Love Letter and the Breakup Letter and AEIOU for the purpose of this project.
In this blog post, I have presented my documentation of our observation, research, and the prototype-building process that we did as a team of 5 on this project. I have also discussed the feedback received on the prototype and my reflection on the week's work at the end of the post.
- Timeline -
- Re-cap -
The previous week we developed a prototype where the prototype is meant to replicate the multinucleate amoeba during their feeding stage called a plasmodium. We kept food on different parts of the floor, the volunteers are supposed to put the sheet prototype over their heads and quickly grab the food from the floor before anyone else get it and eat it. Even though it was praised for its visual appearance but concept-wise and experience wise it was agreed upon by most that it completely missed the mark. We also developed the Love letter and Breakup letter along with finishing the AEIOU activity.
- Observation -
Initially, when we were researching on moulds were really taken in by the beauty of the colors and textures that it develops on the surface where it grows. As a group we watched multiple timelapse videos on youtube on the lifecycle of different moulds and we could not help but gawk at how alien-like and unreal these mysterious unicellular beings looked. Even in our previous trip to brough market I remember us staring at the beautiful cheeses so hard that I am quite confident that a few of the holes in the cheese were made by us.
As a group, it was very evident that we all found mould to be a very attractive-looking fungus. Moulds easily grow on food and there are a plenty of food which uses variants of molds for production so talk of mould and food went hand in hand in our conversations. Also, most of our exposure to mould throughout our research happened so far through food. But how can something so beautiful indicate a sign of rot?
Most of my previous personal experience of mould comes from a mouldy pack of bread in the fridge. Most of the time if we happen to encounter mould on food it goes straight to the bin. Never have I or any one of us ever looked at it closely enough and seen it in full bloom.
Going back to the borough market when we were staring at the cheese, there were a few instances where we talked about what a dining experience except with beautiful mouldy unedible food could be like. But we used to dismiss the idea quickly as it did not seem realistic enough to ever grow 4 course of mouldy food on such short notice. But then when we got on a group call after the previous week's presentation and someone coy-ly again bought up the idea of a mouldy dining experience, everyone was immediately jumping on board! To some degree it looked like everyone was just patiently waiting for the concept to be put on the table again,
- Design Process -
Brainstorming
Our team decided to create a dining experience with mould. In order to make it feel like a real experience, we decided to create a pop up-restaurant and gave each team-member a role. We first diverged to brainstorm and roughly sketch out our concepts for the restaurant.
We gathered the mouldy food that we accumulated so far and got to work on building the prototype.
Video of us building our mouldy prototype fresh in the morning (day of the presentation)
Within 45 mins we plated the mould and set it aside to be bought out during the serving time in the presentation.
Images of all the mouldy food we managed to create.
Goal
A lot many times we throw food away before it even goes bad, hence, we could never fully experience seeing mould grow on it fully and thus, we could never experience the visually beauty of this organism. We wanted to create an experience where the guests feels a sense of juxtaposition looking at the beautifully plated mould, being served as food, the very thing we actively avoid as it can be very harmful for our health.
- Prototype & Interaction Design -
Video of our act on the day of the presentation.
- Evaluation & Feedback -
Finishing the initial development week, our prototype was tried out by the volunteers in our class. The feedback was very mixed. It was praised for its visual appearance but concept-wise and experience wise it was agreed upon by most that it completely missed the mark.
After seeing the demonstration the class came up with the following insights to help us with our concept and design further down the road:
1. It was not easy to catch on to the fact that the white membrane with the colourful string represented a uni-cellular mould and we were its hype. So the concept needs to be well translated
2. Not shying away from using a real mould for the prototype.
3. Instead of creating a concept by trying to emulate a mould, we should use inspiration from it and develop our prototype.
- Reflection -
While hearing the feedback I found myself instantly agreeing with everything that was being said. We did struggle as a group to arrive at a solid concept for our prototype during the 1st week so the feedback was well anticipated. We realized that our direction could definitely change for the better. We really honed into the responses that we got in order to come out of our idea slump and find a new direction to take our prototype. However, at the end of the week, I was really proud of how we collaborated, and even though the concept was not a huge success I enjoyed the process that brought me to the week's final prototype
Other than the pre-identified set of questions, the visualization also allows for the discovery of insights through interactions.
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