The UX of Mould (Week 2)

Brief: Design a way to materialise the qualities of mould. Design an embodied experience that translates both the good and bad qualities of mould.

Research methods: AEIOU, The Love Letter/The Breakup Letter

Team: Kimberley Rodrigues, Romit Khurd, Marty Chen, YanXu Chen (Line)

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Our first step was considering including the environment within our experience, creating an immersive experience of the tunnel, with mould and mould representations with LED lights which slowly glow, so your experience of mould becomes more intensified.

Developing a concept idea of recreating the tunnel. Photo credits: Kimberley Rodrigeuz, by author

Playing with LED lights on a board. Video by author

We eventually dismissed this idea as the digital experience was too abstract, and the quantity of mould we would need was more than we had available.

We decided to look at the mould in more detail using bread mould on slides to under the microscope.

Looking at mould through a microscope. Photo credits: Kimberley Rodriguez

These patterns seen within the mould were similar to blot-ink art, and to fabric/garment designs. This inspired us to use a staining technique called tie-dye to create these organic patterns on fabric.

We used tea-towels as the fabric base and took scrapings of the mould to use as the dye.

Equipment ready for tie-dye process. Photo credit: YanXu Chen - Tie-dye kit ready to go!

Tie-die process. Video by author, images credit by Marty Chen, Kimberley Rodreiguez, YanXu Chen

The first test incorporated black dye along with the mould. The result was the die overwhelmed the mould, so we decided to omit this.

Tie-dye with mould was extremely dependent on the colour of the mould, and the length of time the fabric was within the solution. We ended up with a range of patterns and shapes on the fabrics.

We then scanned these fabric pieces and played with the ideas on layering them onto the tunnel image, where mould could be found in situ, digitally creating the idea that the mould was coming to get you.

Using the tie-die pieces in a digital format. Video credit: Kimberley Rodriguez

Our presentation took the form of a workshop, engaging a participant to take part in the two steps of the tie dye process: preparing a cloth for dying, and revealing one we prepared earlier.

Tie-dye results, and presentation experience in action. Photo credits: by author, Kimberley Rodriguez

The presentation of the participant doing the tie-dye was immersive for them, however we were left with an ‘and so?’ moment afterwards; we did not have a purpose to our experience decided or designed by the time we came to present.

The feedback that we received was that the workshop and engagement with a participant was well received, and:

• We could try several types of mould to see if it produced unusual colours, and try different patterns with it

• Could we compare the tie-dye creation with the actual mould seen under the microscope

• We can research current methods commercially using mould in the dye industry

• We could use UV light to enhance the areas without the mould

• We ended with a fairly logical conclusion, we could try then being more experiential and experimental

• Does our research land us at the result?

This feedback was fair, and there is much more we could expand on given we were starting anew after last week's presentation. I enjoyed the tie-dye interaction with mould, however the digital element was thrown together as a last-minute piece, and really was not well considered about what message it was saying.