How are you spending your summer holiday, Goldsmiths Design students? Are you just enjoying the sunshine? Here’s what BA Design student Leon Eckert is up to in summertime:
“It was with the intention of putting together my online portfolio that I first got into coding languages and programming last summer. The mixture of creativity and logical thinking required for writing an effective script drew me in. Since then I have dedicated more and more time to watching programming tutorials online as that is a field I feel will decisively change the world of design in the years to come and I hope will influence my third year project.
Combined with what I learned in the BA’s “Creative Computing” course this summer brought the exciting opportunity to put my newly acquired skills to work in an actual project. I started working for the artists Revital Cohen and Tuur Van Balen as an intern early this summer. Throughout the last three months I spent three days a week programming a sequence of thousands of LED lights for an artwork that is now exhibited in London’s Jerwood Gallery.
In the remaining two weekdays I help BA Design alumna Ilyanna Kerr with her social start-up “See What I Mean”. In a very small team I take part in the design and building of an app that works as a digital communication tool displaying the words you say as images. It is mainly targeted at patients suffering from dementia and I took great pleasure in spending time with the elderly in various London care homes seeing how they react to this technology, they could not have even dreamt of when they were my age.
The past two years of studies combined with the experiences I undergo in these placements help me to develop my personal style, define ambitions I have for my own work and get a clearer idea of what life after Goldsmiths could look like for me.
If there is any time left, I take, process and scan analogue photographs and exhibit them on a blog that I started years ago. Unlike the other work, I will continue my photography on my planned travels in September. People told me proper relaxation is crucial before the third year starts – I keep that in mind.”
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