taller expo-disseny
From contemplation to participation and beyond...
a guide for designers
Expolab What is expolab? Expolab is a new way of understanding exhibitions. It is a lab, dedicated to create and investigate new exhibitions in the area of technology, innovation, science and design, the main areas of divulgation of Citilab. Expolab offers the possibility to creat expositions thanks to the participation and contributions of Citizens. And this means a new challenge within the world of museology. Moreover, Expolab can be the point of departure for the creation of new workshops, new social groups, new networks, new stuctures etc. The first exposition ´from contemplation to participation and beyond´within the macro project Expolab reflects on the changes in education, communication, art and exposition techniques over the last fifty years, due to the introduction of technology as a tool and as a way of thinking and organising The aim of the first exhibition of Expolab is to show how the different aspects of our lives have changed. Starting from personal memories of people we will show the social changes and the technology that is behind these changes. We started the project with a qualitative investigation to understand how the daily live of citizens have changed due to the introduction of internet and digital technologies. The goal of these workshops was to collect personal memories and experiences to search for themes that future visitors of the exposition can easily relate to. Finally we divided all the material in five different areas, which will be the basis for the exhibition.
The first steps Why and how did we collect personal memories of people? We aim to exhibit themes that people can relate to, and use these themes to explain science and technology topics. During three workshops with a total of 40 citizens we asked them to pick images that explains how they have experienced changes in their live because of internet. The participants made collages about their memories and explained what they had made. Secondly, they were asked to choose one of the anecdotes and create an object that represents their experience. Finally we discussed everything that was made, and lots of interesting stories were revealed.
preparation
generative session
The theory behind the excercises: People are experts of their personal experience. They have a lot of information in the back of their head that can be revealed by means of images or objects that they create. Visual material stimulates the brain in a different way, and it helps to reveal latent knowledge that is hard to explain in words. The pictures show the process of capturing and processing this type of information, which is called ´contextmapping´. After the workshop we studied all the material. From the images, objects and stories we distilled five interesting themes. The themes will be the basis for a design competition about the look and feel of the exhibition, which is organised in collaboration with Tech Museum en California. This booklet shows a selection of the anecdotes, pictures and objects that we collected. It is a visual summary, a guide for the designers who participate in the design competition. It will help to empatize with the people who shared their stories. We realize that the experience of people is too complicated to capture in a couple of pictures but we aim to give some inspiration and trigger curiosity.... Enjoy the experiences of the citizens who participated in the workshop!
discussion
analysis
You can find additional information in our blog: www.expolab.net
communication
Prepare yourself for the session: please fill out his booklet with questions about your daily life.
I am connected to the web at least eight hours a day, to search for information, to work and to contact my friends. In my free time I like to swim and to play with my sons. Luckily I can still do these things without the internet! Frank, 36 years
How has internet changed your daily life? Explain it to us with pictures and with objects!
from collages and objects
via memories and anecdotes
to themes
Knowing the body
Lately I broke my arm. I was amazed when the doctor used a device to visualize the inside of my arm. He could zoom in at the fracture and only put the plaster where it was necessary. Today technology helps us to have a look inside our bodies.
Jesus, 21 years
People were explaining us how internet has changed live...
Experience safety
When I was young there was a man known as ´sereno´ who guarded the neighbourhood. He knew everything that happened and had the keys of the houses. Everybody thought he was doing a great job, helping people being safer. Nowadays they put cameras everywhere. People feel observed, while nobody felt that way when the job was done by a human being. Isn´t it strange that people feel more threatened by a camera than by a person?
Nuria, 51 years
Today many people are against cameras but before they did not mind the sereno. The experience of safety with a camera is completely different. We will use this anecdote to explain the concept of datamining and how this relates to the theme of surveillance.
Thanks to facebook I found back a nephew of mine. I would never have found him without internet... I made the three green cubes to represent my family members, united by the threads of the web. The reunification is visible because you can place the cubes into each other.
Filip, 45 years
I remember the moment I discovered chat very well. I was immediately so engaged, I forgot that I was cooking in the meantime. The whole meal was burned when I turned back to the kitchen.
Maria, 72 years
Connect to other people
This is a representation of the web, you see that all the cubes are interconnected. But in reality we happen to be not thát connected. On the other side you will see that in reality it is more like small groups. In daily life you have to make an effort to really connect to people
Bill, 42 years
Every day we are in contact with the web but we don´t realize what it actually is. In this theme we will explain what the Internet is, how it grows, how far it can reach and how we can connect to other people. Also we will show that in general we are capable of managing 150 ´connections´to other people.
Share memories
When I was young we had a box with photos. We spoke about ´the´photo of the wedding. Today we take 1000 pictures of any situation and upload them to flickr. I wonder if people ever watch them back afterwards...
Andrea, 69 years
Photography has changed a lot because of new technology and Internet. It would be interesting to show how analog and digital photography work. Moreover we would like to explain what a pixel is.
I live in a small village and sometimes it´s a bit boring here. I am 83 years old and I have always loved to travel but on my age it´s difficult. Today I can travel with the Internet. This morning I was in Paris, after that in New York and tonight I am planning a trip to Italy.... without physically moving! Internet is so much nicer than watching TV!
Sylvia, 83 years
Travel through space & time
Today we can travel through the Internet and discover the world. Webcams help us to get to know people on a distance. We use this anecdote to explain webcams, we will show what it is and how it works.
Work
In the office of the future we have a docubot. While we are talking a robot takes notes and prepares documents in the desired format Gary, 35 years
The Citilab building used to be a textile factory, where programming was used for making the textile design. Today we are working with another type of ´threads´: the cables of our electronic equipment.
I worked as a car mechanic. In the past one person could understand every part of the car, and repair or replace every piece. Today the cars are complex systems consisting of hard and software that is hardly impossible to be understood by one expert. I lost my job because I was not into software but now I am learning what I need to know, so I can finally return to the job I like.
Nico, 52 years
Paul, 59 years
We have heard a lot of work-related stories. In the exhibition we will focus on the changes in programming. We would like to explain old fashioned programming from cards with holes, to modern tools for programming like Scratch.
and beyond! We will use the anecdotes, memories and histories of the citizens as inspiration for the content of the exhibition. Our ideas will serve as a basis for an open design competition, which we organise in collaboration with Tech Museum in California. They have a platform for design competitions and offer a space in Second Life as a tool for building design proposals for the exhibition. We invite everybody who is interested in participating in the development of the exhibition to upload a design proposal. Visit http://thetechvirtual.org/projects/expolab