2016 Zukunft der Arbeit Prof. Iris Utikal, Prof. Michael Gais
Documentation from Pui Yu Carol Ng
Age Freeze
Concept The pain in ageing My work aims to raise the issue of elderly’s life quality after retirement. I would like to address the past, present and the I demonstrated my assumption that people can have infinite lifespan in the context of future. Aging is a natural phenomenon that seems unavoidable. People suffer from aging-related disorders like Alzheimer’s disease and organ degeneration. As medical technologies are developing rapidly, humans have longer lifespans. When people have larger porportion of their lifetime of being old, it is possible that they have to suffer more. What if we can promote longer but also healthier lifespan in the future?
Age Freeze
2016 Zukunft der Arbeit Prof. Iris Utikal, Prof. Michael Gais
Documentation from Pui Yu Carol Ng
Research Problems existing now Ageing population sounds familiar to me since it is also an issue in Hong Kong. My research starts with the questions I asked. What is ageing? Why ageing population is formed? How ageing population affecting the society? Is elderly suffering from ageing? Who is actually suffering from ageing? Will there be“elderly” and “retirement” if life extensions exists? First, I searched for academic articles online about life extension technology. I tried to visualise the relevant statistics in various ways, hopefully this can bring more insights to readers than simply data. I had read some academic journals and reports from World Health Organisation. Yet, it is still difficult to gather all the information I need. Professor Utikal suggested me to do research based on the situations that I can observe. Therefore, I went to Lindenthal district. There are a lot of elderly living there and a few large clinics. It is better to visit there in person and see what I can found.
Sketches of inforgraphics, the layouts and form of the newspaper.
Besides observing the activities of elderly, I tried to do interviews with them. However, only one out of ten elderly knows english so I can only talk with her. She talked about her life in Lindenthal and her relationship with younger family members. It is quite inspiring but the findings are far not enough than expected.
Future solutions for problems Base on the problems of elderly that I found and my theme of “life extensions”, I proposed a life extending health centre—The White Bullet. To make sense of it, I did some more research on science theories, high-tech medical facilities and sustainable innovative materials. Again, it is a challenge to create the model with my limited knowledge with softwares and engineering.
Age Freeze
2016 Zukunft der Arbeit Prof. Iris Utikal, Prof. Michael Gais
Documentation from Pui Yu Carol Ng
Form of Work Newspaper—Tectura Times
The girl addressing ethical issues.
I chose to present all the information in the form of a newspaper with infographics that links the past, present and the future. Newspaper has a significant position in the intellectual aspect of human history as it spreads global news and knowledge, connecting people locally or even internationally. Therefore, I am implying that we should not forget our past while thinking about the future. This is also my assumption to the future form of newspaper. At this point, my assumption seems conflicting with the general view of “future” where our society should be even more dependent on technology in the future. Even though digital version of newspaper on mobile devices is becoming widely-used, I still believe in the pleasant feeling of interacting with paper. This human sensation can never be replaced by metallic wares.
Fake Information The “fake “ assumtption about governments.
In the page of “milestones”, I created a fake point—In the year of 2016, the government had reached consensus that realising infinite youth is the first priority. Since elderly service had never been the first consideration of government. The importance of aiding
elderly is being underestimated. By inserting this piece of false information, I hope people can reflect upon how they react to elderly as an individual, as a part of the society and as the generation of “future”. The man from the cover story is actually the father of artificial organ who died in 2009. Making him as part of the story is a tribute to him. On the other hand, I tried to address the ethical issues of life extensions with simply an opinion from a girl. I assume life extensions will come true in the future but I can already foresee a lot of problems like limited natural resources with over population.
Links of references and articles which embedded in QR code and printed at the back of the newspaper. ht t p s : / / d o c s. go o gle. co m / d o c um e nt / d / 1 i 8 vfWUbCk8k9ABO--hlBKFcnp4F25K6SO2-ZIcl1_k/edit
2016 Zukunft der Arbeit Prof. Iris Utikal, Prof. Michael Gais
Documentation from Pui Yu Carol Ng
Age Freeze
Challenges Our group was formed without any similarity in themes. Therefore, we spent a lot of time in creating a key concept. Yet, the result turned out not satisfying. We all had strong aspirations of realising our own ideas. Therefore we split up but still help each other as a group. My final work isn’t as good as expected. Yet, the concept formation could be count on group work. In general this project is fun as it has no limitation of what to do but it is also too ambiguous which I felt lost at the beginning. “Future is based on the past assumption”. Now we are creating assumptions about future which may come true! It is like a chance for us to dream big about future. Besides, I was determined to make my model of rejuvenation sensible, so my research had brought me into new fields of science knowledge which I found interesting to analyse.