The question of the prototype
Presentation by Andrin Gorgi. “A picture is worth a thousand words, a prototype is worth a thousand images” Prototypes can give the audience a clear feeling of what the product will be or what it will do. Much more than any explanation could. After a quick video of how they prototype at dyson, he went into the characteristics of prototypes. They help in filtering appearance, data, functionality, interactivity and spacial structure and in manifesting material, resoluton and scope. Of course a whole spectrum of materials can be used but the baseline would is to fail early and fail cheaply. Protos and typos come from the greek language and mean something like „first model“.
The prototype and it impacts on designers
Presentation by Daniel Holler. How does the prototype impact the designer and how can the prototype be used as an active designing tool? To answer this questions Daniel took on STEIM (Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music)which is a hub for prototypical and experimental research of electronic instruments. They have invented the Cracklebox:.
He then went on to introduce us to cybernetic serendipity & Gordon Pask and the musicolor. Which is a system that was intended to extend a musicians performance, by emitting light patterns in time with the music. Basically a microphone picks up the signal and sends it trough the system: [Link:]https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cybernetic%20serendipity.
In Both of these cases the prototype is a tool, that makes for originality and completely new kinds of music. It gives the creator a way of figuring out errors early on or can give input to go in a completely other direction.