Content Brainstorming
I’ve been starting to think about planning backwards from this project’s final end products. I imagine I’ll do around six or so illustrations (conservative estimate) of different new ways of using the rack protocol, and I’ve started sketching out some ideas (not necessarily the final ones I’ll use) for what those images could be like.
I might end up, I am realizing, with three different potential categories of images:
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Technical – Relatively straightforward presentations of new rack hardware like adapters between different rack systems, or a catalog of all the variants of existing racks. This category could also include more straight-facesd presentations of new spatial uses for the racks, ie. like a diagram of a rack being used as a portable or space-saving storage space within a home which focuses on its practical features over its potential absurdity as a foreign object within the home. In either case, images would be shown from a relatively neutral point of view, ie. as simulated photos of fictional hardware and/or as axonometric/overhead perspective architectural drawings.
Rough brainstorming sketches:
- A kitchen based on rack geometry which didn’t end up looking that unconventional.
- More to come… (Some of this content will also be more directly derived from some currently in-progress 3D models.)
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Humorous – Illustrating new uses of rack systems in the context of existing online meme cultures. ie. joking about a web server being used to store cat pictures, or there’s some recurring jokes within online synthesizer communities (which include the use of rack hardware) about people displaying succulents next to their synthesizers when playing them. I’ll keep my imagination open for more ideas of humorous references I can make. These will look like neutral product photo images with added inserted commentary.
Rough brainstorming sketches:
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Contradictory Vignettes – Illustrations where the physical contradictions involved in installing racks in new locations are emphasized, without having to rely on appeals to external cultural memes to provide absurdity. I seem to be going through a pattern of particularly thinking about introducing plants and plant material into the racks (ie. like house plants, maybe with accompanying grow lights, or salad in a rack used as a salad bar), suggesting there could be some kind of underlying rhetoric of a nature vs. technology contrast involved. That’s a plausible direction, but I don’t want it to be my only one. These images could include both neutral backdrop/product photo-style content and also rendering where you’re immersed in the space of the new rack-based worlds.
- Rough brainstorming sketches:
- Rack-based shelves containing both household and non-household objects.
- Rack units used to construct a restaurant salad bar. This was an especially spontaneous idea where there’s also cables being stored in an adjacent bay (an offhand brainstorm which makes no logical sense), but maybe the eventual illustration will contain some other more logical food equipment in that space.
- Rough brainstorming sketches:
Overall, I realize I should prioritize the meme-based & surreal content where I’d assume it has the potential to be particularly attention-getting, but I’ll try to do a mix of more technical content making more concrete spatial arguments alongside it. I’m planning to concurrently produce a batch of illustrations and then release them in stages during the last week of the month.