The term ‘Trinidad Carnival‘ does not define the carnival’s geographic location, but instead its origin and the main elements that define it – mas’, calypso, and steelpan. The Trinidad Carnival has spawned more than 70 diasporic carnivals globally in the Caribbean, USA, UK, and Canada, to name a few. Projects examine histories, cultures, and communities of design (and making) in the carnivals for new understandings and development of novel methodologies and systems for design (and making) in the carnival. Projects also study, design, and build dancing sculptures and employ computer interaction, digital fabrication, design, and simulation technologies to imagine new futures for the carnival. Related areas include:
- Artificial Intelligence + Carnival
- Situated Computations
- Computation + Craft practices
- Interrogative technology design
- Cultural heritage and new technology
- The Bailey-Derek grammar
Publications:
(2019) Vernelle A. A. Noel. “Design Computation and Restoring Craftsmanship: The Bailey-Derek Grammar in Wire-Bending,” in Hello Culture! Proceedings of Computer Aided Architectural Design Futures Conference – CAAD Futures, (Daejeon, Korea. (June 2019): 950-969.
(2017) Vernelle A. A. Noel. “Digitally Displaying and Interacting with Historic Artifacts of Spatial, Temporal, Corporeal, and Kinetic dimensions,” Studies in Digital Heritage (December 2017): 251 268. https://doi.org/10.14434/sdh.v1i2.23277
(2017) Vernelle A. A. Noel. “From Costuming and Dancing Sculptures to Architecture: The Corporeal and Computational in Design and Fabrication of Lightweight Mobile Structures,” in Future Trajectories of Computation in Design. Proceedings of Computer Aided Architectural Design Futures Conference – CAAD Futures, Istanbul, Turkey. (June 2017): 22-41.
(2015) Noel, Vernelle A.A. 2015. “The Bailey-Derek Grammar: Recording the Craft of Wire-Bending in the Trinidad Carnival.” Leonardo 48 (4): 357–65. https://doi.org/10.1162/LEON_a_01089.
(2013) Noel, Vernelle A. A. 2013. “Trinidad Carnival : Improving Design through Computation and Digital Technology.” Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/84166.