Lingxi Zhang

Beings is an experimental game set on Wu-Vo, a fictional planet once intended as a human habitat but mysteriously abandoned. Players explore this ecologically Earth-like world, uncovering the fate of its vanished inhabitants. The game’s core mechanic involves random transformations, where players shift between different nonhuman species, adapting to their unique abilities and perspectives. These changes are not just visual but affect gameplay, offering an immersive experience that challenges human-centered thinking. As players complete tasks and gather memory fragments, they unravel Wu-Vo’s secrets. The game uses body-tracking technology, allowing players to control characters through physical movements, deepening the sense of transformation. Beings encourages players to reconsider interspecies interconnectedness of all species through its rich narrative and unpredictable gameplay.

The Tom Fund supported my research phase by providing funding for experimental equipment, enabling me to observe and collect data on bioelectricity in organisms such as mycelia, slime molds, and mimosa. This was a crucial step in shaping the theme of my graduation project. By studying these creatures, I was able to design and simulate their visual or behavioral characteristics, which directly informed the development of my game.

lingxi.cargo.site | @lingxi_lynsee

Freya Leitao

How do dream worlds correlate to our everyday lives? My project explores the link between reality and our subconscious minds, by creatively interpreting our dreams. I fell into a dream-like rabbit hole becoming obsessed with any new knowledge I discovered about dreams. Fuelled by my daily dream journal, I wanted to be able to physicalize my dreams into fabric, adding depth and texture. The effective use of fabric and embroidery weaving in out and of each dreamworld, allowed me to formulate a method to catalogue our dreams, creating a dream calendar quilt. The embroidery creates a double-sided effect, with one side of the quilt aimed for personal viewing, the side with detailed images, and the other less detailed side for others' observation. This highlights how only the dreamer can view its content with clarity.

The Tom Fund was important for developing my project as I could purchase a sewing machine. This allowed me access to a sewing machine at any time, which was helpful as my project was heavily stitched-based. Without this, I wouldn’t be able to build a 6ft quilt in the short time frame. I’m a multidisciplinary designer with a strong passion for anything textile-based and graphic or digital creations. I’m bursting with new ideas and eager to break into the professional creative industry.

website | @freya_rt

Iseol Hwang

Sounds are deeply linked with our minds and mental health. But in fact, are we ever liberated from the constant barrage of external noises, such as the sounds of traffic, alarms, and people?
We are constantly told unwanted external audio stimuli by something/someone.

"How can we break these noises and free ourselves? How can we fill our lives with better audio experiences?"

I proposed a wearable Soundscape designed to address this issue. The main object, the Singing Plant Headpiece, is a microenvironment that offers ‘live’ experiences by reading the plant’s movements through electric strings and clips connected. By listening to real-time music from the plant while wearing the headpiece, one can own the sound of peace metaphorically whilst being the root of the microenvironment.

I used the Tom Fund grant to explore various design approaches, including knitting, graphic design, and sound engineering. I also sourced materials such as fabrics, threads, and sonic equipment to enhance the project's quality and effectively communicate its identity.

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Tom Waller

“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist”.

I first heard this quote at a time in my project where I felt like I wasn’t having much progress. My attention to detail was holding me back, I had countless fails, many samples, all the hours in my day were spent adjusting minute details, I couldn’t allow myself to move onto the next idea without perfecting the last. yet this attention to detail consumed my work and the process itself became concept behind the project.

Through the garments made in my project, I explored the tension between the process of making vs the final outcome. Each piece focused on each stage of the process highlighting the construction elements which are hidden within our everyday clothes.

The Tom fund enabled me to progress my skills of making and sewing a garment. I was able to be more experimental with the making of samples and prototypes which led to more developed and refined conceptual pieces.

@tomwallerrarchive

Caelo Dineen Vanstone

The fundamental aim of the Raw, Remembered, Waste Material Bodies collection is to develop a set of prototypes with their accompanying background in order to facilitate shared thought, knowledge, and questioning of the materials we use in the every day, in the form of a propositional material landscape. It aims to embody forms of knowing and understanding often sidelined and engage with forgotten material processes. It demonstrates an emotional materiality, advocating for a workmanship of risk and greater embodiments of sentiments of craftsmanship in the work we create as designers, making them more conscientious and sustainable.

The raw and waste-based materials collection is accompanied by a ‘Making Of’ section that documents every possible dance of hands involved in the processes of the collection. This is accompanied by a propositional educational programme which is representative of the ethos, aims and greater purpose of the collection including the sharing of the knowledge the collection embodies, to others.

The ‘Making of’ section communicates the nature of this collection as an organism in constant flux, defining the topography of its materiality in the midst of ongoing movement in interrogating the material narratives of our past and present and reimagining alternative materialities for our future.

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