First
Last
Name

Matteo
Proietti

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Gain access
Open EEE
Supra Modus
We feel design residency
Unlock
Digilox

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Gain access: bottom-up participation

Black and white photo of two people looking at a projection on the floor listing the guidelines of the project. Overhead view of two people standing on a concrete floor. A large projection on the floor lists the guidelines of the project.

One of my graduation projects. The project is an analysis of my work methodology broken down into 12 guidelines.

  1. Step out of your door and find a need to fulfill within 1 kilometre.
  2. Greet especially those who are considered of less importance.
  3. Enter a community hub where you have just gained access to. Don’t ask, just search for the task you can most easily do and do it.
  4. Pick an activity and do it the longest you can in a single day.
  5. When asked by someone for a minute of your time, offer double the amount.
  6. The next time you are obliged to do something you don't want to, don't oppose it, do it fully.
  7. When the chance arises, use your skills towards someone else's benefit. Don't expect anything in return.
  8. Once a day ask for a stranger's advice.
  9. Play with kids and let them inspire you.
  10. When in conversation with a friend, note a wish they have: try and make it happen.
  11. Ask your neighbour's favourite meal and cook it together.
  12. Go and work in a cafe’ until you become a barista.

In this instance, I have applied some of those to the context of a refugees’ centre here in Eindhoven, where I have started working as a volunteer applying some “design thinking” and my methodology, and also documented the process as well as some of the results so far. It is to show what “social design” can do by showing the actual work.

Nominated for the Rene Smeets award from Design Academy Award and the Social Design Talent Award from Eindhoven city council

2023

Open EEE

One of my graduation projects.

Electronics became inaccessible black boxes over time; I was curious about what happened in the “hidden” part of those devices and if I was able to figure out the functioning of the components.

From these attempts sprouted an interest for understanding electronic circuits and the will to translate them in a more “universal” language.

Taking as examples simple circuits, I have used scenes from well-known movies to explain the functioning.

If we understand better our electronics we’ll maybe build a different relationship with them.

2023

Supra Modus

In a stairwell, a control surface and circuit boards on a table. Behind it on the railing is a shiny panel. Hanging behind them in the stairwell are vertical tubular light fixtures. In a stairwell, a control surface and circuit boards on a table. Behind it on the railing is a shiny panel. Several people gathered around the device; two people are interacting with it.

What would you create if you couldn’t see or hear? And how a non-seeing person and a non-hearing one would communicate artistically with each other?

From this curiosity I devised an interaction which happens through sounds and vibrations: Supra Modus resulted in a performance where the two actors will make operate low-tech devices which can make experienceable what is around us everyday, but we cannot (or choose not to) see or feel, alike electromagnetic waves and frequencies below 20 hertz (human hearing threshold).

The objects and the technics used to realize Supra Modus are low-key and ready at hand, some things are borrowed, some are repurposed and so on.

The attempt is to show that having a not-so-usual starting point might deliver a “different” experience and it is also trying to highlight the relevance of economical accessibility.

All-in-all it is a metaphor of the invisibilities around us.

For We Will Design 2023 at BASE Milano, Supra Modus took the shape of a site-specific interactive installation, the sounds and the vibrations were felt in and through the environment surrounding the audience.

BASE Milano has purchased one of the devices to keep and use at their location.

2023

We feel design residency

Slide from a presentation demonstrating the modular signage system and how it maps onto the current wayfinding.

A proposal for a new and more understandable wayfinding at Base Milano.

PDF

Assignment developed in collaboration with Simon Dogger.

February 2023

Unlock: a performance to present a semester’s work

How would you create a temporary autonomous zone?

How would you make something for a community?

I wanted to understand the reasons behind the lack of (free) public toilets in Eindhoven and try to make a proposal that would temporarily tackle this topic without relying on the “bigger” system; it is one of my attempts to make things happen with a bottom-up approach.

I started to visit a permaculture garden in Eindhoven, and there I found a couple of needs that I could fulfill: building a smokeless firepit, and helping to build a geodesic structure.

The visuals are about the field work I did, and they last for roughly 2 min, the audio is recorded live while I was presenting to the audience.

2021–2022

Digilox: analog toolbox for making online meetings fun and effective

An A4-sized cardboard box with colourful digital collage graphics on the lid. A series of cards with images of people and corresponding meme-style top and bottom text. A laptop sitting on the box with one of the cards on each side.

Customized for the creative collective Envisions, it contains cards for smooth communication between the participants as well as props to set up your environment optimally. Developed during Covid-19 lockdown times.

2020