CPS folio 2 - Archival Object

By Gin Lin

Reflective video: https://youtu.be/Dn1aKcC3Cb8

For the CPS archival object, I made a gashapon machine. The gashapon machine contains eight capsule toys. Each capsule represents the weekly project through out this semester. My CPS course experience inspires me to land on the idea of a gashapon machine. Like interacting with a gashapon machine, having fun and surprises and exploring the capsule toys, I have enjoyed the weekly themes and explored different concepts of interactive design and animation.
With most of my weekly projects, I tried to make connection between digital and physical medium; which is why I felt it’s appropriate to craft a cardboard gashapon machine, a non-digital interactive object, to tie the weekly projects together.
I created eight capsule toy figures to represent the weekly projects. Each capsule comes with a pice of paper, which briefly explains the project. It also includes a QRcode that is linked to the specific project details on MAGI site. By playing with the gashapon machine, I recreate the fun interactive experience from Character, Place and Simulation and also showcase my projects in a playful way. I crafted the figures with soft clay and acrylic paint. Each figure represents the subject from each weekly exercise. By scanning the QRcode that comes with it, the viewer can learn more about the project.
The weekly themes of CPS have guided and inspired me with many different experiments through out the 12 weeks. I worked with different medium and created works with differ-ent objects, such as food and face masks, which I haven’t worked with before. It was exciting to explore the unfamiliar field through animation and interactivity. I have gotten to explore and practice different aspects of storytelling and character-building. The project I enjoyed the most was the Akabeko stop-motion animation from week two with the theme Tinkering. It was my first stop-motion animation that I have ever created. The experiment with the texture and sound of the paper was very interesting and inspiring. I also had fun with the strawberry project from week three. The concept of mimicking an object with different found objects is an interesting trigger of thinking to work with. I would like to combine these two experiences into my practice when I work on narratives and character designs.