genealogy and landscape

Assignment 9 | Genealogy and Landscape of Personal Possessions I543 | Interaction Design Methods | Spring 2014

Alex Hughes, Tianjie Li, Sai Shivani Soundararaj

SUBJECT & STUDY PROCESS Researchers: Alex Hughes, Tianjie Li, Sai Shivani Soundararaj Subject: Female, Freshman at Indiana University, Bloomington Location: Collins Living-Learning Center, Indiana University, Bloomington Date: 03/27/2014 Time: 4:15 to 4:40 PM Project Description: The project aims to explore artifacts by bringing to bear both genealogical and landscape sensibilities to our understanding of personal possessions and how they forge meanings.

Besides, we also looked into how artifacts play an important role in a person’s life and the relationship between the person and the artifacts they carry around with them.

Study process 1) Preparation & discussion Before we went to find the subject for the artifacts study, we discussed about the prompt, analyzing the definition of the genealogy and landscape. Genealogy expresses the history of the artifact while the landscape shows the connections and intersections with other artifacts. We decided on the place to look for our subject. We got our recording devices (camera, mobile and diary) ready for the study.

2) Finding subject We went to Collins for a subject. We entered into the library and found three girls hanging out and reading novels. So we approached them, introduced ourselves and explained our project to them. So we approached them, introduced ourselves and explained our project to them. All the three of them were really interested and started taking things ut of their bags. We chose one of them.

3) Choosing artifacts In total, there were 20 items in her bag, including stationeries such as pens, markers, and cosmetic like lipstick. As per the requirement we chose two interesting items - Tarot cards and a journal to study.

4) Analysis of artifacts through interview We asked a bunch of questions about the tarot cards first and asked about the journal. Our subject gave quick replies to every question. Through the interview we wanted to explore the stories about the items and personal experience when interacting with these artifacts. We also captured the arrangement of the items.

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WHAT’S IN YOUR BAG? List of objects: • Sunglass • Lipstick • Body lotion • Umbrella • Water bottle • Stapler • Post-it-notes • Sachet • Lingerie • Markers • Journal • Tarot cards • First-aid kit • Chewing gum Scented flowers • Match sticks • Birth control pills Classification: We decided to classify the objects in her bag and group them together.

1. Lipstick, body lotion, skin care items 2. Stapler, post-it notes, notebooks, pens, markers 3. Lingerie, birth control pills, first aid kit 4. Sunglass, umbrella, bottle of water 5. Tarot cards Through this grouping and classification, it becomes easier to analyze the objects individually as well as in comparison to the other objects in the bag.

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GENEALOGY OF TAROT CARDS Subject’s view: The Tarot Cards had an interesting Genealogy to it, even though she has only had it for a bit over half a year. Our subject got these Tarot Cards in August from Amazon, and claimed that she has “always been meaning to get them”. This is the first year shes ever had a deck of her own. Another reason she ordered them is because “its a part of culture people don’t explore all that often”, and because a bunch of her friends were getting them as well. Seems to be a social thing, since she and her friends share this interest with her.

The cards seemed to be in nice shape, and she claimed they were not damaged or anything after she got them online. The deck did not come with a box or anything to keep them in. The deck looks like “old resonance glass”, which is one of the reasons she likes them, and looks like its made out of hard paper.

She likes to look at them when she is bored, or shuffle them around.

She claimed that usually she uses them when people ask them about it, she doesn’t look for people to do it on. Usually its with her friends, or when someone asks as she’s shuffling them or looking at them while shes bored.

It also came with a little pamphlet, which explained all the cards.

When we asked for her favorite card, she showed it through this pamphlet instead of finding the card through the deck. She uses this pamphlet often, if she carries it around with her and knew exactly where her favorite card is in it.

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GENEALOGY OF TAROT CARDS Historical view: The first known documented tarot cards were created between 1430 and 1450 in Milan, Ferrara and Bologna in northern Italy when additional trump cards with allegorical illustrations were added to the common four-suit pack. It appears that the first Tarot decks were created as a game.

There were four suits with cards numbered one through ten and also court cards that included a queen, king, knight and page. The deck also included 22 symbolic picture cards that did not belong to any suit. The decks were used to play a game called triumph that was similar to bridge. In triumph, 21 of the 22 special picture cards were permanent trump cards. The game spread quickly to all parts of Europe. People began referring to as tarocchi, which is an Italian version of the French word tarot, around 1530.

In 1781, in France and England, followers of the occult discovered Tarot cards. They saw the symbolic pictures of the cards as having more meaning than the simple trump cards they were used for at the time. They used the cards as a divination tool, and occult writers wrote about “the Tarot.” After this, the Tarot became a part of occult philosophy.

There are also those who believe that Tarot cards originated in Egypt. In some circles, they are thought to be the sole surviving “book” from the great fire that burned the libraries of ancient Egypt.

In this theory, the cards are considered to be the hieroglyphical keys to life.

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GENEALOGY OF JOURNAL Subject’s view: The subject got this journal 3 or 4 months ago at Target. She says she gets a new one about every 6 months, though she claimed it was a “new” notebook. She uses it once or twice a week, and the notebook looks like it is in good condition. If she thinks of something, she just writes it down until “its off her mind, kind of a way of preserving creative thoughts”. Its not necessarily a private thing, if people ask she will show it to them, but she does it for herself.

She looks for new notebooks each time, based on what type of mood she is at that time. The notebook was made by “Someecards” and had a little old time cartoon on the front that the online ecards have. She got this one because it seems fun, because she claims she’s “not a mundane or a Monday person”.

Historical View: The oldest extant diaries come from Middle Eastern and East Asian cultures, although the even earlier work To Myself, written in Greek by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius in the second half of the 2nd century AD, already displays many characteristics of a diary.

Pillowbooks of Japanese court ladies and Asian travel journals offer some aspects of this genre of writing, although they rarely consist exclusively of diurnal records. The scholar Li Ao (9th century AD), for example, kept a diary of his journey through southern China.

In the medieval Near East, Arabic diaries were written from before the 10th century. The earliest surviving diary of this era which most resembles the modern diary was that of Ibn Banna in the 11th century. His diary is the earliest known to be arranged in order of date (ta’rikh in Arabic), very much like modern diaries.

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GENEALOGY OF JOURNAL of date, very much like modern diaries.

The precursors of the diary in the modern sense include daily notes of medieval mystics, concerned mostly with inward emotions and outward events perceived as spiritually important.

From the Renaissance on, some individuals wanted not only to record events, as in medieval chronicles and itineraries, but also to put down their own opinions and express their hopes and fears, without any intention to publish these notes. One of the early preserved examples is the anonymous Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris that covers the years 1405-1449 giving subjective commentaries on the current events. Famous 14th- to 16th century Renaissance examples, which appeared much later as books, were the diaries by the Florentines Buonaccorso Pitti and Gregorio Dati and the Venetian Marino Sanuto the Younger. Here we find records of even less important everyday occurrences together with much reflection, emotional experience and personal impressions.

In 1908 the Smythson company created the first featherweight diary, enabling diaries to be carried about Types of Journals: Travel journals A travel journal, travel diary, or road journal, is the documentation of a journey or series of journeys.

Diet journal[ A diet journal or food diary is a daily record of all food and beverage consumed, usually for the purpose of the tracking calorie consumption for the purpose of weight loss or other nutritional monitoring.

Sleep diaries A sleep diary or sleep log is a tool used in the diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders.

Tagebuch The German Tagebuch is normally rendered as diary in English, but the term includes workbooks or working journals as well as diaries proper. For example, the notebooks of the Austrian writer Robert Musil and of the German-Swiss artist Paul Klee are called Tagebücher.

Unusual diaries Some officer cadets at the Royal Military College of Canada wrote their diaries in India ink on their T-squares; examples of these from the 1880s are retained in the College’s museum.

War diary A war diary is a regularly updated official record of a military unit’s administration and activities during wartime maintained by an officer in the unit.

Dream diary A Dream journal (or dream diary) is a journal in which dream experiences are recorded.

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LANDSCAPE ANALYSIS She keeps the journal straight in the bag, with a few pens to write in it. She did not have a pencil or an eraser, so we assume she usually writes in pen. The post-it notes also kind of relate to the Journal, but in a different way. They are both used by her to make quick notes so she does not forget something. We are guessing that she uses the notebook more for longer things, the post it notes for shorter ones.

The markers could be used in the notebook as well, but she did not mention drawing anything in it, so that may not be true.

The Potpourri is an interesting piece in the bag, mainly because it is the only object in their that exists solely to be in that bag. She doesn’t use it to carry to somewhere else, its there to make the bag smell better.

Interestingly, the cards were not bound together by anything, not by a rubber band, string, or a box to put it in, she just places the deck straight into the side pocket. Though the deck did seem relatively organized still, so either the side pocket is tight or she is careful about her bag, being sure not to mess things up inside. The Tarot cards were located in a side pocket of her bag, with the pamphlet book right next to it. She mentioned going to Athena a lot lately, and after looking up what that place in, it fits in with the tarot cards, and also supports the idea that she is into some non-mainstream environment. The tarot cards and the journal had a connection in the fact that they were both used while she was bored.

The lingerie and birth control pills in her bag were related to show that the subject was sexually active. The lipstick in a way also goes along with these too items, because it helps her look nice. Same could be true with the body cream, but that could just be because

she likes her skin to be soft or something like that as well.

The umbrella and sunglasses are related as well, they are both in there just in case different weather conditions pop up, though they most likely will not be used at the same time. The first aid kit is also a “just in case� type item in the bag, being in there just in case something bad happens and she needs something patched up.

ANALYSIS OF DIGITAL POSSESSION Tarot cards: The Tarot cards in the bag we thought could be digitally translated in a few ways.

1. The first way we thought of is through online horoscopes. This will capture the mysticism of the tarot cards, and give her new ones to check out each time she wants to look. The bad thing about this though is they are less personal, and its harder to share with her friends then the physical copies.

2. The second way we thought of is through sharing posts about the cards through tumblr. We feel like certain tumblr communities will be really interested in this kind of thing as well, and this way she can capture the social aspect the cards have, and meet other people that feel the same way about the cards. Its very personalized, and her friends can follow her as well to continue doing it with her. She can even do tarot readings for people that ask her to do it on her tumblr blog.

for her to keep them quiet if needed. This also reflects the post it notes she has in her bag as well.

Journal: We also thought of a few ways the Notebook/Journal could be digital applied as well.

1. The first thing we thought of was through blogs. She already claimed she didn’t mind other people reading her journal, and she could change the background depending on her mood, just like she does with her journal every time she gets a new one. She may not want it to be that public, but she doesn’t have to advertise it or anything, just people that want to look at it can 2. Another thing we thought of was digital sticky notes, which kind of fit better with this situation, since most of the time she writes things down is because she has an idea or a thought she doesn’t want to forgot. This allows her to do that anywhere, and

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REFLECTION Alex: Genealogy and Landscape analysis is a really interesting way to understand how a person uses something, and works pretty well at understanding how people use things. Though making them take everything out of a bag seems a little weird. We may have learned more by seeing them in the bags themselves, in order to see how they keep them on a day to day basis, and how the personally organize them. Do they throw them in the bag willy nilly, or does everything have a place? Why that place in particular? Just might help with the Landscape analysis if we see the natural layout instead of us placing out a layout to make a “provocative” looking layout, unless you make the layout similar to how it was laid out in the bag.

and information about the person. It is a very interesting way of analysis.

Tianjie: I think this project is really an unexpected experience. For at first before you choose the items that interest you, you have expectations and assumptions of that kind of items. However, after interviewing with the subject, you may either discover some creative usage or have another viewpoint towards this item. In this situation, it inspired your definition of these items and offered you different point of view to design interactions. Also, the genealogy and landscape analysis is a good way to understand one item in the most objective way.

Shivani: This way of study is a completely different take on analyzing objects and their relation to the people. One wouldn’t know how much something means to them until they are questioned about it. Each objects has its own meaning to every individual. The way people handle objects and the way they use it gives so much detail

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