"WTAF" are you doing?

Tuesday 11th October, 2016

"WTAF" are you doing?

Another of the 90's 'Introduction to the Internet' clips was shown, this time running through the information that you can find through using the internet. The clip was a good insight into how far we have now come in terms of networking and technology, going to show how much information is literally at our fingertips. Other clips were shown, that were already introduced during first year, one of which was the Hans Brinker Budget Hotel - I have found this design to be very influential toward my branding self. It was and still is a great example of how clever branding and marketing can result in successful business, thereafter having good design of course.

WEEK THREE - COMPOSING

As a reminder to what the week commencing the 10th was, the composing of our ideas and designs was required during this weeks time-frame. This seminar also talked about how it is time to be radically creative during our years at University, this is because we have no ties and are not required to do any specifics like out in industry for example.

This idea of being radically experimental definitely went on to introduce me to the idea of thinking outside the box in some respects with this brief. So it pushed me more towards one of my ideas, specifically speaking the one using 'Network Self' and 'Sociomaterial' to explore the narcissism clearly evident in social media today. This idea is the design using the paper sculptures. A few example sketches, and soon to be complete paper sculptures will be included in the research blog posts.

WTF are you doing?

Tuesday 4th October, 2016

WTF Are You Doing?

Week two - cybernetic brief, social media is people. We and you are social media or mediums of it. The lecture went on to touch on how the internet has turned into a culture among us, because of its heightened use. 'Internet is People'. The internet is just a new way for us to express ourselves and the way for us to experiment with that is to use this brief to do so.

The lecture also touched on how the brief is not just focused on our own social standing, but it is also one that focuses on the social aspect. The lecture was more of one to remind us what is expected at this stage and some other things to consider, these were names like; Mary Ponomareva, Douglas Lanpland, Asha Mada.

Seminar - Post-it/Group Exercises

Tuesday 27th September, 2016

Seminar - Post-it/Group Exercise

During the studio session, we were taken into each of our seminar groups for a small activity to give some creative buzz towards the brief. This activity being a way for us to break down who we are by making us find two words that best describe us. One word highlighting what you say about yourself and the other being a word that best fits what other people think about you. Some words given to recipients of the activity were; materialistic, honest, giddy and so on. Moving forwards with this activity involved changing one word of someones post-it in pairs of two, giving each person total choice over changing one of them.

After this we finally put out the post-its on the desk, marking the end of the first activity;

After this, we went on to do the final activity was one in which we'd break down a few words that we (a group of three) decided to work with in relation to the work. For example, one word discussed was 'Vanity', in the group we discussed it's effect on social media and how it's made people only accept certain physical appearances in both the male and female domain. Something I noticed was that this was very similar to that of narcissism in social media, another growing area introduced to me through the discussion of this brief.

Brief: Cybernetic Self - Introduction

Tuesday 27th September, 2016

Brief: Cybernetic Self - Introduction

The lecture began by watching a clip of the "Kid's guide to the internet", this advertisement came out in 1990. With this advertisement we were introduced to our new brief to start off the year, 'Cybernetic Self'.

'Cybernetics; The science of communications and automatic control systems'

Our first brief as second year students is four weeks in length, in which time we will explore the themes; autopoiesis, sociomaterial and network self. All of which have interesting follow ups when digging deeper and researching each topic some more. To start, with network self we were told to consider the self presentation and social connection in the digital age. This basically refers to the use of social media in today's day and age. Breaking it down further we were told to ask; what happens to self identity when it is presented in new media environments. More research into this topic head will be found on the blog at a later date.

The second theme for the brief, sociomaterial, talks of how technologies are the materials that the social have assembled. This is made up and gathered together by ensembles of people, materials, equipment, components and institutions of which construct the platforms for many people's social presentation of themselves. It was also touched on that the technical cannot be reducible to the social, and the same goes vice versa. This theme basically goes on to highlight how social lives of people are effected by technology. Taking this into perspective, topics such as the 'notification effect' as named by a few of the ideas researchers - meaning people having either a response of anxiety or stress can come into the pool of influence for something under the heading of sociomaterial.

'Research book cover for the above 'notification effect' link'

And to finally complete the breakdown of themes, autopoiesis is the self maintenance through an organised entity through own internal process. This is the concept of something being self sustained to the point that no material that comes through them or outflows from them will effect their ability to self-maintain their lifestyle (were it attached to a person).

Following the briefs introduction, an interview clip was played from Paul Pangaro's channel on vimeo, the clip being the following. In the clip, Pangaro's interview includes topics such as cybernetics involvement with emotion, interation, autonomy and so on. He says things like the fact that he "prefer(s) to imagine that humans live in emotion". Other quotes from this clip are such as "Desires come from interaction". The premise of the ideas being put forwards by Pangaro put the thought of people losing this interaction with one another into perspective because of social media and various other socialmaterial technologies - including the other themes in part as-well.

Other notes were provided based on the briefs specifications, the projects timeline, some impulses for idea generation to kick up the project and our responses and such. And also the final output expectation of each of the respective design courses involved in the 'Cybernetic Self' brief itself.