{"id":2636,"date":"2018-04-30T09:00:54","date_gmt":"2018-04-30T13:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ccsmfa.blog\/?p=2636"},"modified":"2021-01-18T18:59:41","modified_gmt":"2021-01-18T23:59:41","slug":"yolanda-sonnabend-remaking-colloquy-progress-update-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/2018\/04\/yolanda-sonnabend-remaking-colloquy-progress-update-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Yolanda Sonnabend \u2013 Remaking COLLOQUY \u2013 Progress Update #4"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Yolanda
Yolanda Sonnabend. Portrait \u00a9 Johnny Dewe-Mathews 1973 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"3D
3D digital model <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"TJ
TJ McLeish and female mobile <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

The\u00a0biggest challenge to remaking\u00a0Pask’s Colloquy of Mobiles<\/a>\u00a0is the fabrication of the so-called \u201cfemale mobiles.” Three large translucent forms, nearly 5 feet high, are extraordinary and other-worldly. They rotate and glow and react to other mobiles and to the humans moving among them with light and sound.<\/p>\n

Equally remarkable is the rich career of their designer, Yolanda Sonnabend, who worked at the Royal Ballet in London for over 30 years. Her stage designs for the director and choreographer of the Royal Ballet<\/a> involved “his more abstract” works<\/a>. How fitting that she would work with Gordon Pask<\/a> on the visual design of the Colloquy\u2014for choreography it surely is. Sonnabend once said, “Design is visualization of emotions.”<\/a>\u00a0Her female mobiles exude emotion, for they are voluptuous, outragious, fantastical. The male mobiles designed by Pask are complementary and equally fantastical. I wish we could overhear the conversations between Pask (world-class scientist, artist) and Sonnabend (world-class stage designer, painter).<\/p>\n

Jasia Reichardt<\/a>, who curated the ground-breaking Cybernetic Serendipity Exhibition<\/a>\u00a0in London at the ICA where Colloquy of Mobiles was exhibited in 1968, explained to me recently that Sonnabend always had contact with scientists. In addition to collaborating with Pask, Sonnabend knew Donald Michie<\/a>, Seymour Papert<\/a>, C.H. Waddington<\/a>, and\u00a0John Kendrew<\/a>. In complement to Pask’s singular contributions to cybernetics<\/a>, these individuals comprise a who’s-who of AI, education, biology, and chemistry (Kendrew shared the Nobel Prize).<\/p>\n

In their design collaboration on Colloquy 50 years ago, Sonnabend and Pask explicitly explored gender stereotypes in appearances and behaviors. The male mobiles interact to compete and sometimes cooperate for the females’ attention. A male\u2019s attention is represented by a bright light that may serendipitously hit the mirror inside a female and be reflected back to the same male\u2014at which point they halt their random rotations and focus on each other. Get it?<\/em> It is impossible not to see that\u00a0the entire work exudes satirical commentary on the clich\u00e9s of roles and behaviors. Yet Pask himself consistently interacted with all others as equals, no matter their occupation or gender. He was known for saying, “You guys\u2014meaning gentleman guys and lady guys…”, foreshadowing today’s natural gender fluidity by half a century.<\/p>\n

\"Positioning <\/a>
Positioning mirror inside the mobile <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Foam <\/a>
Foam pieces assembling into mold <\/div> <\/div>
\"three <\/a>
Molds almost ready for resin coating <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

Progress on replicating the full-scale Colloquy is moving quickly toward our goal of completion in May. TJ McLeish (see photos), our master fabricator responsible for the replication of Colloquy, created digital models from images of the original designs by Pask and Sonnabend. The other photos show a small part of the intricate fabrication process required to replicate the female mobiles, superbly executed by Building Brown Workshop<\/a>\u00a0in Chicago.<\/p>\n

Please write to colloquy2018@gmail.com<\/a>\u00a0if you wish to be on our mailing list or have questions or suggestions. Whether large or small we\u00a0gratefully welcome donations here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

(See the next update here<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0biggest challenge to remaking\u00a0Pask’s Colloquy of Mobiles\u00a0is the fabrication of the so-called \u201cfemale mobiles.” Three large translucent forms, nearly 5 feet high, are extraordinary and other-worldly. They rotate and glow and react to other mobiles and to the humans moving among them with light and sound. Equally remarkable is the rich career of their designer, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Yolanda Sonnabend \u2013 Remaking COLLOQUY \u2013 Progress Update #4”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3002,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13,6,7,9],"tags":[51,77,91],"class_list":["post-2636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybernetics","category-interaction-design","category-ixd-evolution","category-pangaro","tag-colloquy-of-mobiles","tag-gordon-pask","tag-interaction-design-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-content\/uploads\/img_3656-tj-holding-mirror-inside.jpg?fit=3264%2C2448&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paKWzH-Gw","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2636"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3198,"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2636\/revisions\/3198"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}