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LETTER no. 45

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Week no.7: Voyage into my room. Wednesday

Design 101 MOOC, Abadir for iversity
Greetings from The Warhol Museum
in Pittsburgh,
Boxes everywhere
The 3 boxes we have on our postcard are
made from pictures of Andy Warhols
Factory. By the way, along the years,
Andy made over 600 time capsules.

What you should do is get a box for a month,

and drop everything in it and at the end of the
month lock it up ... You should try to keep
track of it, but if you cant and you lose it,
thats fine, because its one less thing to
think about, another load off your mind.
Studio 54 invitations, coffee sachets, Caroline
Kennedys birthday cake, a human foot, Andy
Warhol saved it all in 600 sealed boxes:
here a nice article on the Guardian...
The collection is held at the Warhol museum
in the old steel town where he was born and
raised, Pittsburgh. The boxes are stored in aircontrolled rooms, lined up neatly like funeral
urns. Only 91 of the 611 capsules have been
opened, and only 19 have been fully analysed
and recorded.
The Warhol: Time Capsule, a very special exhibition for you to
check.

Question of the day:

Can we trap time
into space?

Apparently, time capsules are a way

to communicate with people from
the future. But actually,
the reason why we do one of them,
is to communicate with ourselves.
Wikipedia tells us that:
...according to time capsule
historian William Jarvis, most
intentional time capsules usually
do not provide much useful
historical information:
they are typically filled with useless junk, new and pristine
in condition, that tells little about the people of the time.
Regardless of mr Jarvis opinion, today we will make our tiny
(or big, if you feel ambitious) box. Not only. Once the box has
been made, you will have to find a place where to hide it.
To be opened on the 31st of December 2038.
Imagine how cool it will be. Statistically speaking,
some us will be in touch.
What a great excuse to get to meet once again, 25 years now.
To open up Design 101 time capsules!
Goosebumps!
You must admit that regardless of the iversity platform, this
is quite a cool idea: to give us an excuse to meet in 25 years
from now. Especially if we take in account that we never met.
Design 101s Silver Anniversary...

Homework no. 45
Today, you will make a time-capsule. It is a process in seven steps.
Step one: think about the box. It can be a ready made, it can
be something you do on purpose. Remember that the box has
to last for twenty five years.

Step two: select the meaningful objects that should be in the

time capsule. Again, you can choose existing things or things
you made for it.
Step three: write a message or a note, or something like.
Step four: close it and seal it.
Step five: hide/dig/conceal (do what you think to be best).
Step six: make a map with instructions and give them to someone
close to you (in case you die before the 25th anniversary).
Well, in the unfortunate case you die before opening the box,
at least your friends and family will receive a very special
and touching memory of you...
Step seven: make an illustration where we can see the objects,
the box, and the place where the special box is kept.
Here, eight tips on how to organize a time capsule.
And here some more.

What will I learn today?

To have death as an ingredient in your projects.
It started nice. The time capsule. Sweet.
What a lovely exercise.
Then, all sudden, it took an unexpected turn.
What if I die before? Ah.
This changes the project, doesnit?
Whos going to open the box? Is it going to be me? Or not?
Mmmmmmhhhhhhh

Why do we do this?
To introduce to you the concept of tension applied to design.
Get a mood, a state of mind. Then imagine a second mood.
Eventually quite different from the first one.
Imagine the project as a thin line between the state of mind
n. 1 and the state of mind n. 2.

Not easy. But not impossible. It takes time.

Experiments. Try and try some more.
Tension is the great integrity.
R. Buckminster Fuller
Here:
Ron Arads Concrete Stereo
Philip Johnsons Glass House
Stefan Sagmaisters Aiga Poster

Something to remember:
One day more, one day less.
Further inspiration...
If you like Andy, we found some online courses you could follow
in order to get to know more about him...
First, the Warhol course on Coursera: an
introduction to the life and work of Andy
Warhol... through exploration of five
thematic framings of his life and career:
celebrity, sex, money, death, and time.
Also, the Warhol Museum offers some nice
lessons, exercises and resources for you.

And now
Since it is our third day being secluded in our room,
here is an inspirational link for you to check, with some
special music to go along with it (Mozart, he was another
very cool chap...).

Design 101. A How-To.

We know we have some late-comers, here are a few instructions
on how the whole thing functions...
A typical Design 101 day:
We send you an email around 9 in the morning (Berlin time) with
the link to our daily unit + some news, updates, cool Design
101 things we found etc.etc.
Note: you can find all of our previous emails in the
Announcements section of Design 101 on iversity.
Once you land on the units page, you find our shipment (which
consists of a video-postcard + a letter). You watch the video,
read our letter, get to work and complete the assignment
(or relax if its a weekend day). For even more fun, you can
always refer to the Design 101 encyclopedia, which is updated
every week.
Dont forget to take part in the conversations of the
Discussions forum!
Now, going beyond the iversity platform, we have setup other
places for us to meet and spread things we do.
On Facebook:
the Design 101 page: to follow whats going on (in general terms)
the Design 101 Exercises page: to check out picks
(things that fascinate us the most)
the Design 101 Arena group: to post your pictures, share your
thoughts, emotions, references, lalala
(as a complement to the discussions happening on the platform).
On Twitter,
@design1o1: to follow whats going on + discuss with each other.
#design1o1: to connect us all under a same hashtag.
On YouTube:
the Design 101 channel: to view + share our video postcards
(which is not possible to do from the iversity platform)

On Instagram:
#design1o1: to connect us all under a same hashtag.
Regarding the hashtag, make sure to use #design1o1 with an o
and not a 0...
:-)

PS
Uploading your homework to the iversity platform is very
important in terms of archiving. It is the only way we can
collect all the things we do in one same place. Once the course
ends, it might turn out to be reorganized into a wonderful
book and/or exhibition

Todays postcard
Andy Warhol Skull

Time Capsule

Andy Warhol

Warhols Brillo Box