Notice the unnoticed
Yining Qi
In our daily lives, we encounter millions of things, spaces, and people. Then we cognitively label them as “valuable,” “worth seeing,” or “alternately unimportant.”
By applying, renaming and redefining previous strategies to be used by the majority, I’m providing new possibilities and connections to the overlooked. The first strategy is called “renoticing”, which proposes using new perspectives, senses and means to find new joy in someone’s surroundings; The second approach, “reconnecting”, focuses on the participatory experience: How to work with what other participants overlook is the key in this approach.
By proposing exploration and discovery to reshape the overlooked value of what we neglect in our everyday existence, I’m also addressing the urgency of our world state, as well as the joy of defamiliarization and reconnection.
The thesis also argues that rather than “transforming” the neglected or making it “reusable,” “awakening” its value is the most crucial aim. In other words, rebuilding the public connection with the forsaken is the key to discovering the overlooked.
together and parallel
Taking Chinatown, NY as an example, I prompted myself to look up, look down, and look closer to renotice the place. Through a series of joyous explorations, including sky views through the sunroof, textures of the ground tiles in different shops, surprising small objects found in corners, the pattern on the walls…I created a series of photography publications, with a systematic name——“Look”. These publications encourage the readers to explore familiar places with new perspectives, and these initial prompts can be applied as methodologies anywhere…
Renoticing-Look Into
To try out these methodologies across different senses and places I continued my exploration and created a website called “Look into”. By recording textures and objects in the corners of New York City, I also highlighted the contrast between the “unnoticed presence” and the “noticed beauty” when zooming in and zooming out.
Renoticing-Of Blue…
I developed the project “Of blue…”, where I chose the color navy blue and focused on noticing everything that I encountered in that color. Since navy blue can be found almost everywhere, including the MTA, mailboxes, and bike-sharing, it felt like a good opportunity to explore the renoticing strategy. By recording all the navy blue things I encountered in a day and presenting them in a map form, I provided a guide for general users to emulate and apply.
Reconnecting-Postcards and Stamps
How to work with what other participants document and observe in their surroundings——maybe an object around them that they never paid attention to before; a picture of a scene that they are least likely to take; a texture they never noticed… These images might seem disorganized and inconspicuous, but once working with them and manipulating them digitally they become new possibilities. I collected images from different people around me and added layouts and effects in Photoshop to transform the figurative scenes into abstract art, thus assigning new meanings.
Reconnecting-Postcards and Stamps
Reconnecting-Physical Collections
By collecting overlooked items that I found on the road in New York City or when I visited friends' homes, I gained a sense of why and how they were overlooked. Items include used bottle caps, torn-off ticket stubs, pebbles with distinctive textures, bubble wrap from boxes, expired flyers and bracelets, etc. I By assigning them new meanings, we engage in a closer relationship with them.
Reconnecting-Belief Can Be Made of…
The project “Belief can be made of...” consists of 12 omamoris made of different overlooked objects’ materials in daily life. An omamori is a medium that people use to pray for specific wishes. By replacing the ordinary brocade texture with the overlooked materials, I attempt to remix them to communicate with the audience. Not only am I assigning new meanings according to the materials themselves, but I’m also questioning what makes people believe in them.
Thesis process book-How can the overlooked shape our life
This publication is a collection of art and design examples of revealing the overlooked things’ value, while it sheds light on the relationship between neglected objects around us and how we can use design ways to discover them.
Thesis book-Notice the unnoticed
This book documents my process of finishing the project on the overlook at Pratt Institute in 2023-2023. I would be honored if you took notice of the overlooked things around you after reading this book. And you will find more joy when you look at the unnoticed things from a different perspective.