pronounciation: ‘tah- suh-st’
Definition: the dusty sediment that falls from burnt toast
In use: ‘I only changed my sheets yesterday and I’ve got Tarsust in them already!’
Friday Tutorial 30th November
During this tutorial we discussed the nature of our word ‘Tarsust’ which means the noun of the crumby parts that come off of burnt toast. The sound of the word or even the physical sound of scraping burnt bits off toast could be even more informative than the visual. I realized at this point that we could even try to incorporate the smell of the burnt toast. The smell of the burnt toast is so distinctive that I feel that people would understand what we were trying to communicate almost immediately with those two elements. We discussed maybe using the idea of burnt bits on a speaker to see how they move and how they jump. We feel that it would be a really strong idea because it shows the nature of the noun ‘Tarsust’ really feels. It also plays with the idea that is naturally in texture is very bitty and almost sandy. Made of small particles. We felt that the bouncing sound would be really clever because it shows this. We also made a couple of storyboards communicating our more basic and simple storyboards.
I was really unwell today but my group made a box folder with lots of tests that we made today. My group updated me and said that they went through some of the videos and tests we made and said we need to just refine them and make them nice and concise. We need to think about how to communicate each element of our work carefully and try to not make the word too obvious to guess.
Our Idea Progress & development
We want to use toast to some how communicate our idea of tarsust. We wanted to physically burn the toast to either use the tarsust dust themselves or use the toast or both to communicate. We are also planning on burning toast physically in the room on the day of the crit so people are having to use all of their senses.
Bruno Munari was an Italian artist, designer, and inventor who contributed fundamentals to many fields of visual arts (painting, sculpture, film, industrial design, graphic design) in modernism, futurism, and concrete art, and in non visual arts (literature, poetry) with his research on games, didactic method, movement, tactile learning, kinesthetic learning, and creativity. The post-World-War II period is marked as height of Munari’s creativity as he experimented with several art forms employing ingenious ideas. His early experiments altered the stereotypical graphic designing and typography. Later he developed book-objects, transforming children’s books into attractive learning instruments. His books feature textured, tactile surfaces and cut-outs to make it easier for children to learn about tactile sense and color via kinesthetic learning.
In his book Alla faccia, Bruno Munari creates countless faces through different types of 'signs’. Each is different, yet they are all recognisable, demonstrating how a single concept can be infinitely expressed. I find the way that Bruno Munari thinks of wording and language as more than just a last minute thought is very interesting as he really considers texts and communication ideas. For example, underneath I have picked an example where It is almost like a puzzle to be able to understand what all the faces mean . Each and every face is expressive and communicates in a way that is clear and concise.
Something else that Bruno Munari is Speak Italian: The Fine Art of the Gesture (UK; public library) — a charming, quirky, minimalist guide to Italians’ expressive nonverbal communication originally published in 1958 as a supplement to the Italian dictionary, inspired by The Ancients’ Mimic Through the Neapolitan Gestures, the first collection of gestures made by Canon Andrea de Jorio in 1832. Unlike the hefty and sparsely illustrated 380-page original tome, however, Munari’s pocket-sized version features frugally descriptive text and ample, elegant black-and-white photographs of hand-gestures for everything from mundane activities like reading and writing to emotive expressions of praise and criticism. He said ‘We have collected a good many gestures, leaving aside vulgar ones, in order to give an idea of their meaning to foreigners visiting Italy and as a supplement to an Italian dictionary.’
This is such a gorgeous idea and concept because it’s personal to italian hand gestures and considers communication in a way that a lot of people do naturally when they speak but without even realising it. It is very relatable to me as I know I use hand gestures a lot
Crit Friday 7th Decemeber
During todays crit, we presented our video and our pdf. In the pdf we showed our research and development and how we chose how we wanted to communicate our word paired with how we wanted to communicate the definition of our word. Some of the notable feedback was:
Some things were highlighted during the crit. For example, whether it was necessary to have all of the different elements to our piece. For example, we wanted to burn the toast in the room to create the smell as well as the sound and imagery we paired it with in the video. The reason we wanted to have the smell of burning toast was to add an almost second tier impact. This would have been effective as we felt that it would give the suggestion of the noun we were trying to communicate even before the video. In this way I would stand by the decision of having smells and textures as a part of our presentation. We also got the feedback to perhaps incorporate a tune that creates more of a narrative, if we decide to take the definition down a slightly different route.
What would you do with more time?
I think if we had more time we would try to expand our concept. Not in the sense that we don’t have enough tests for our word but rather there are elements of tarsust as a feeling and as a texture that are slightly unexplored within our project. We also feel as a group that our team would like to look into the development of a book. This would be to be able to show the really annoying places that tarsust gets, as is more about the narrative and relatable side of tarsust as compared to just the noun.
