Monday, May 26, 2008

Clip for collaboration



I took screen shots of several of the sequences in this clip which I then began to abstract through sketches

Start of abstraction process

I started looking at ways in which I could portray collaboration. My initial idea was create a sculpture with abstract forms which would portray a type of interaction. How ever after looking more at the abstracting the idea and going through the set process I chose to map on paper the movements of people collaborating. At first I started to video people working together in the class room but this was objected to so I decided to map the movement of gymnasts.

Key word

When I first thought of my essay the word that came to mind was conflict however in my essay I wanted the out come to be positive and focus on collaboration between disciplines. I chose collaboration because I wanted to portray in my visual presentation the positive side and ultimate goal of the essay.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Lecture 11

sci-fi and future technologies

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Lecture 10

politics of the artifical

I was sick for this lecture

Reading

Political ergonomics
Langdon Winner

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Reading

Towards user design? On the shift from object to user as the subject of design
Johan Redström
This paper talk about how there seems to be a shift in design from designing objects to designing the user experience and the problem that this raises such as knowing who the user actually is. To an extent I agree with the author that trying to govern the way in which a user will experience a design, pigeonholes the user and is trying to predict the unpredictable.
I think that designs can have an intended way for the product to be experienced but that the product it’s self should be strong enough in it’s form and function that the user can experience it in their own chosen manor there for not limiting the user or causing the problems of having to try and predict how the user will respond.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

lecture 9

Philosophy of the artificial
Luke started off stating major ‘eras’ of philosophy

  • Ancient philosophy (Greek) 6BC
  • Catholic philosophy 1100-1400AD
  • Modern philosophy – now

He then addressed what is philosophy.
It is in the gap between religion and science.
It has subtopics of

  • Epistemology – the theory of knowledge – what is truth/knowledge?
  • Ontology – metaphysics – our existence/what is it to be
  • Ethics – how do you live your life well
  • Aesthetics – beauty, art sensory perception
  • Mind – what is thinking/consciousness
  • Natural – sciences, physics, biology, etc

He then asks the question “Why is it useful for us to know about philosophy? And how do our own personal world views, background and training effect our designs, consciously or unconsciously?”
Luke went on to talk about the epistemology of design. What is design knowledge and how is it different from other disciplines? What is valid or true knowledge in design?
Design as an academic discipline has only been around since the l970s so it is quite a new field. However, designing itself has been around since the “beginning of time”. Because of this it takes its influences and ways of thinking from all sorts of different sources. Luke then looked at “what is design knowledge based on a worldview from Descartes” and “What is the enlightenment?”
During the period of the Enlightenment there became a separation between knowledge based on religion and what the Church was telling people and knowledge based on discovery by scientists.
The definition of real knowledge became what could be seen and measured.
He then went on to say that light = truth and what was illuminated and understood through seeing was true.
The idea that if you can see it, it is true; if you cannot see it, it is not true.
Descartes said, “I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am”
One of the questions Luke talked about was “’how can we tell if what we see is the same as what others see?”
Descartes represented the relationship between the mind and the world as a pinhole camera and the image which is inside the camera is representative of what you know in your mind and that the things that are most truthful are the things which are clear and distinct in the picture.
He then went on to talk more about looking at knowledge through the metaphor of “seeing” – that you should observe the world and not be in the world.
He also talked about dualism and a Cartesian perspective in which a person is only an observer and detached from the world. But this isn’t good enough for design because a designer needs to interact and be within the world.
He then talked about Heidegger and phenomenology and how we need to not only observe the world but to interact and be within it. [Phenomenology dictionary definition - the science of phenomena as distinct from that of the nature of being.
• an approach that concentrates on the study of consciousness and the objects of direct experience.]

Luke wrapped up to say that when we consider what is valid or rigorous we need a non-seeing epistemology. Good design comes when the design is both relevant and deals with an element of risk.

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Reading

Prometheus of the everyday: The Ecology of The Artificial and the Designers Responsibility.
Ezio Manzini
This paper talks about the environmental problems that we are facing today, some of the reasons why they are a problem and how solutions could possibly have a good effect on design and production. One of Manzini’s main points is that because culture and the world has been changing so much because of the rapid development of new technology, the cultural systems of the past can no longer be applied in the same way. Because of this, products are being created which have no cultural or sentimental values, which generates a new “throw-away” culture.
He also talks about the limits that we have now discovered in this advance technological age. In particular, the limits of the environment and the limits of “our capacity to deal with the increasing mass of information”. Because of these limits, as designers, we have to consider how to design for the whole product life cycle, including production and disposal. We also have to design the brand and information in a recognizable and long lasting way, so that a product brand will stand out amongst the “noise” of excessive information.
He also talks about the relationship between the human race and the environment and how this needs to be considered and changed.