Articulate Objects
hard processes and soft effects

Clay Odom1
1The University of Texas School of Architecture
[email protected]

If the design of environments and experiences has become a key concern for many contemporary designers and artists, then what is the medium that becomes most prevalent? Light. Although elusive (one might even say ‘withdrawn’) and transitory, light can be seen as both objective and subjective content that is being explored by contemporary artists, designers, and architects.

In addition, the very ephemeral quality of human experience means that light (although it is a condition which is made visible, objectified and transformed through its interactions with form and surface) is often, and strangely, disassociated from objective criteria.

This paper by Clay Odom uses two recently completed projects to outline an approach to overcoming tendency to separate the objective and subjective. It describes an approach which is positioned within contemporary theory and explored through processes, methods and outcomes.

The work outlined explores how effects are theorized and instrumentalized through design processes not only as subjective or ‘soft’, effective, atmospheric conditions, but as affective drivers of objective or ‘hard’ processes.