Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

Openness Form, Method, and Thinking

Submitted by Jennifer Hsu In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Communication Design, Pratt Institute, May 2010

Jean Brennan, Thesis Advisor

Jeff Bellantoni, Department Chair

Contents Introduction

0.1 Foundations 0.2 A Look Ahead 0.3 Reasons for Openness

Chapter One

Past to present exploration of technology and new media

1.1 Understanding New Media 1.2 Testing Boundaries 1.3 The Net and Networking 1.4 New Media and Us

Chapter Two

The role of design in complexity

2.1 Fresh Thinking 2.2 Process is Research 2.3 Inviting the Crowd

Chapter Three

Open-ended, interactive forms in a fluid culture

3.1 Playful Forms of Interactivity 3.2 Increasing Awareness Through Open Participation 3.3 Revealing Community Narratives

1 2 6 6

8 8 11 15 21

22 22 26 30

36 36 42 50

Chapter Four

Visual Project

68

@Pratt

68

Visual Documentary

76

Sticker Log Design Brief

102

Chapter FIve: Conclusion

116

Introduction If you have been in the stands of an improv comedy show shouting suggestions at eager actors, you know the wonder of experiencing a free-flowing performance unravel spontaneously before your eyes.

I know I do. The time I witnessed my first improv, I was skeptical when an actor declared that none of the script was planned or practiced. To my surprise, the impromptu setting allowed the performance to grow in quirky, unimaginable ways with twists and turns of humor. The dialogue evolved in fantastical directions, such as what was at first a topic of “robots” became an outburst of psychotic chairs with men in black running from the plague.

It was ridiculous, fun, surprising, and one-of-a-kind. That is the nature of Improvisational Theater. It is easy to assume that this chaotic model of performance lacks proper process and organization.

However the inner workings reveal a strict and intimate set of rules that must be followed in order for a performance to be successful.

For instance, the actors must work together and collaborate. Ideas are meant to build on each other, not to eliminate or disregard one another. Another key attribute is that improvs are often interactive, such as allowing the audience to brainstorm a topic, which adds an additional layer of surprise.

The essence of this performance—spontaneity, collaboration, and evolution—defines the concept of what I would like to call Openness.

2 Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

0.1 Foundations The word itself has many meanings; my goal is to define openness as a structure that can be applied to forms, methods, and thinking in design. This paper is an analysis of how openness affects the way designers, individuals, and groups communicate. As a result, the conversations produced become an opportunity to explore the idiosyncratic and unconventional qualities of people and society.

Design not only affects commercial practices, but is also about emphasizing the whimsical, complex, and intimate side of existence of which we are all a part.

Many influences come from new media art, technology, and interactive design processes. Innovators in these fields have commented on the affects of the digital transformation age. For instance, Lev Manovich is one of the leading scholars, artists, and experimenters of new media. In his book, The Language of New Media, he analyzes the difference between open and closed interactivity, which establishes the main grounds for defining openness. Closed interactivity is compared to an ATM kiosk where a user interacts with an interface system that is limited to set results. Contrarily, open interactive forms are not controlled by what has been pre-programmed. Rather, the results are unique and spontaneous to specific user interaction (40).

Form Openness is found in the forms of products, systems, and interactions.

Form consists of various technology and mediums; hence, it is important to study new media—past to present—to understand how playing with technology affects people, culture, and society.

Professor Masahiko Inami and Kazuhiko Hachiya comments in Digital by Design, “It is possible for artists to show what technology can bring us, how interesting or amazing it can be when used creatively, how technology changes our life and society with possible problems. It is important that people become interested in

3

In other words, artists and designers should experiment consciously of how technological forms affect and cultivate public awareness and conversation. For instance, architecture, industrial, and experiential design responds to human interaction and conditions.

This paper advocates for open, experimental forms that are both playful and unconstrained.

Method Method is the course of actions, decisions, and reactions that designers and artists experience throughout a project. Recently, the design field has undergone a significant transformation that emphasizes the importance of an interactive process.

In the past, design was focused on producing linear outcomes. Lately, design has taken an open approach where public collaboration and participation becomes a quintessential component. Fields such as industrial, experience, and social design all embrace this concept of incorporating the public, which shows that design is not only concerned with the result but also the interactive process that leads up to it. For instance, the “human centered” method advocates that what we design is determined by understanding and evaluating the individuals and communities we are going to affect.

Tim Brown reflects in his book, Change By Design, “We can use our empathy and understanding of people to design experiences that create opportunities for active engagement and participation” (115).

This involves using ethnographic perspectives to create a better understanding of how design can be used.

Openness as a design method allows designers to explore complexities in our world that aren’t rooted in traditional approaches of practical and commercial services. More importantly, the model is not confined

Introduction

technology and try to understand it, rather than being scared and using it only in a passive mode (276).”

The Openness OpennessContinuum Continuum

L e v e l O n e: F i x e d

The interaction is limited to a direct relationship, such that the functionality is fixed and the audience’s role is confined as a spectator.

This includes posters, diagrams, signage, etc. Factors such as space, time, form, generally do not change with interaction. Examples include the 555kubic illustration that transforms a building into a “dreamlike state,” or the red octagon stop sign standing on every other street corner.

L e v e l T w o: F i x e d b u t Va r i e d

Factors remain constant regardless of interaction, however the results are varied.

An instance of this is like a kiosk where a different press of a button will lead to a result that is pre-defined in the system. For instance, when you go to an ATM, depending on your interaction with the machine, you will withdraw money, make a deposit, or check your statement.

L e v e l T h r e e: Va r i e d

Certain factors are customizable and distinctive, but the results are still constrained.

Most interactive work by new media artists and designers can be characterized here. Examples include work by Antenna Design, Blinkenlights, and Abundance by Camille Utterback. The result depends on specific interaction that generates various outcomes depending on time, space, and the user. However, the interaction is largely reactive to what is pre-set and not participative.

L e v e l F o u r: O p e n

Results are dependent on user participation such that without the contribution of the user, the result wouldn’t exist.

This characterizes a lot of social media such as Wikipedia, social networking sites, Postsecret blog, YouTube, Urbandictionary, etc. It also characterizes many new media work such as Yellow Arrow by Counts Media, and Urballoon by Eyebeam.

L e v e l F i v e: F l u i d

This stage incorporates time as a third dimension; the result is not stagnant, but has the potential to shift and evolve.

For instance, Yelp is primarily an online user-review site, however, it evolves into something more due to its social networking strengths. The Yelp community is not confined to the Internet, Yelp is known to host parties, participate in city walks, and promote public events. Thus, the form and function of Yelp transforms and grows due to the people who interact over time.

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“[W]e need to invent a new and radical form of collaboration that blurs the boundaries between creators and consumers. It’s not about ‘us versus them’ or even ‘us on behalf of them.’ For the design thinker, it has to be ‘us with them.’”

n w o r B Tim Consequently, varying levels of interaction need to be distinguished.

For my thesis, I introduce the Openness Continuum as a guide to how openness is used in various forms and situations.

Thinking Openness is an ideology. It is an all-encompassing way of thinking about the world, society, human nature and the connections in between. For instance, openness is comparable to ideologies practiced in other fields, such as Chaos Theory, which affects public health practices. Thus, individuals in all fields should acknowledge and practice openness to achieve the same goals.

Openness involves being experimental, playful, and inquisitive towards issues in our world that don’t necessarily serve a pragmatic, utilitarian function. Often times, it involves facilitating creative play. Thinking is not only used to create products and systems, but to also tell visual stories and dialogue. While it is important to converge and diverge through the process, this thesis overall asserts a divergent view to think about design.

Introduction

to a designer, but is a platform for individuals to participate. As a result, the responsibility leaves the hands of the designer and manifests in the involvement of the public. Tim Brown states (58),

6 Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

0.2 A look ahead The first chapter of the book explores the technological framework of openness, which includes background of technology and new media art. Chapter two explores openness in the field of design and analyzes the shifts social media has been making in our current society. Chapter three combines the concepts of the previous two chapters and looks at specific examples of openness as an interactive, participatory experience.

0.3 Reasons for Openness The purpose of openness is not necessarily to help you make a purchase or make sure you’re not lost once you arrived in the airport of a foreign country. (Or is it?) Design has a strong tradition as a practical service with commercial intents. However, it is inevitable that our world is changing and design has changed with it.

At a large scale, our world interacts under a fluid interaction model.

Society is made up of different compounding factors that elicit change and evolvement of ideas, customs, and ethics. The influxes of technology influences how people interact, such as the development of a telegram, to telephone, to mobile, to our current Smartphone.

New media art is a field that comprehends these intricate associations between technology and people. Furthermore, as small habits change, they influence the whole system. For instance, web technology not only allowed people to create websites, it triggered movements such as open source sharing and mass collaboration.

As designers, we need to be aware of these shifts and be responsive of how openness can create awareness and dialogue. It challenges designers to reevaluate our roles and determine the fine lines of authorship and moderation. This thesis is a push for designers to adopt spontaneity, whimsicality, and intimacy to respond to our unabatedly evolving society. If so, we can use design to add a layer of insight to our environment, our culture, and ourselves.

[Experimental design forms] provide a space where new ideas and how we interact with each other, technology and culture can be tested, presented and communicated – a parallel design channel or genre dedicated to ideas.

In them, we catch glimpses of how things could be if industry was a bit more imaginative and in tune with how people actually are.�

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Chapter One: Past to present exploration of technology and new media 1.1 Understanding new media Technology is constantly changing. Every season, there are software upgrades, revised product models, or cutting-edge special effects in a freshly released film. How is this relevant to design? F. Duncan Case remarked, “What is presently considered the realm of science fiction will become reality for today’s design student” (146). That does not mean we will be designing a high-tech portal to communicate with creatures from outer space. (Not yet, anyway.) However, the statement does propose that technology influences the design process in order to create meaningful, inspiring, and engaging experiences relevant in today’s society.

An obvious example is how the cell phone has evolved from functioning as a call receiver and dialer to becoming a multi-tasked unit. Back in 2004, I remember I was enthusiastic that my new phone would have a camera due to a family-plan upgrade. Five years later, my newly upgraded touch screen smart phone intrigued me yet again.

Yelp, a user review and social networking site, recently released a new iPhone application that does not only function as a database for restaurants and businesses, but includes an augmented reality component. The application allows a user to point their camera at a specific location and Yelp will retrieve the businesses in that area (Caolo, “Yelp for iPhone’s hidden augmented reality feature”). This innovative design helps relieve the hassle of attaining information in problematic situations. Gone are the days where people have to carry guidebooks and maps; today, users can just turn to their technological gadget to do the hard work for them.

New media has numerous definitions and theories. In order to define it productively, we need to establish its roots. Even that can

9 Past to present exploration of technology and new media

“We are in the middle of a new media revolution—the shift of all culture to computer-mediated forms of production, distribution and communication.”

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10 Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

be hard to trace because anyone can argue that the origins of new media is essentially the Daguerreotype, which revolutionized image production. Or, one might give credit to Eadweard Muybridge for his experiment, Horse in Motion, which led to the pioneering of motion graphics. To cut the argument short, new media consists of both of these things (and much more), but what we will focus on is computerized new media and how digital technology influenced our creative landscape.

Rise of digital technology New media cannot have evolved without the evolution of the computer. Before that, technology consisted of relevant events such as the invention of the Morse code or the telegraph as a systematic way of communicating (Wands 24). It was not until after World War II that the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer were invented. This project was developed at the University of Pennsylvania in 1946 and marked the transition into the digital era.

However, it is important to note that in the early days, the computer was not accessible to everyone. Most experimentation was held at research labs in institutions such as the Palo Alto Research Center at Stanford University. Thus, there was a movement in academia to try and bridge the gap between technology and art. For instance, Ars Electronica, formed in Austria in 1979, holds annual festivals that exhibit electronic, digital artwork (26).

It was not until the 1980s that computers were commercialized and released for public use. In that decade, the development of digital technology flourished. For instance, Adobe Systems, a software company who specialize in digital imaging was established. In 1985, AT&T developed the TARGA 16 graphics card, which ultimately led to the development of the 24-bit model that gave photographic properties to computer resolution (27).

The simplest form of digital technology is essentially ones and zeros.

Lev Manovich is an artist, programmer, and scholar of the digital arts field. In his book, The Language of New Media, he states that

11 Past to present exploration of technology and new media

new media is the “translation of all existing media into numerical data accessible through [a] computer.” This consists of “graphics, moving images, sounds, shapes, spaces, and texts that have become computable” (20). In other words, a product that was originally created by raw material is now captured and reproduced in a mathematical language. Rather than developing a photograph from silver crystals, the visual exists in a numerical data form. When a designer opens Adobe Illustrator to draw a vector shape, the shape is made of mathematical equations. This is relevant because it exposed new opportunities for manipulation and specification of design.

In the past, type settings were limited to metal type blocks. Since the establishment of digital technology, type sizes can be altered in infinite ways because letters were no longer made from a physical object. Designers were free to experiment with these new digital tools, and as a result, new boundaries were established.

“Ultimately, reality is whatever we say it is.”

1.2 Testing boundaries Artists, designers, programmers, and just your average geek (joking) started to experiment with the ways digital forms can be integrated into our world.

People were curious to explore the relationships between machines and humans. In the 1970s, the MIT Media Lab studied the boundaries between computers and humans. F. Duncan Case categorizes these experiments as an example of intelligent reality.

Intelligent reality is defined as a “digital environment where computers are invisible and intelligence is invested in everyday objects” (146). This means that rather than having a computer be the primary interface, the interaction is presented by non-digital,

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12 Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

commonplace items. An example of this is Nicodama, a media art sculpture by Ryota Kuwakubo completed in 2009. Kuwakubo placed electronic blinking eyes on inanimate objects, like a chair, to give it personality and life. The viewer is not encountering a computer screen filled with code; instead, the viewer faces a chair whose features and actions are controlled by computer intelligence.

As a result, our reality of the chair is altered due to the object’s personified animations.

Creating virtual reality One of the common classifications in digital media is virtual reality.

This term categorizes many products, such as video games that contain a simulated on-screen environment. Myron Kreuger is one of the influential developers of virtual reality and interactivity. He has been studying new technologies and experimenting with virtual reality, or “artificial reality,” since 1969 (Turner). Glow Flow is one of his earlier pieces that explore the relationship between digital stimulus and user-actions. The project is constructed in a dark room where four transparent tubes of colored phosphorescent liquids activate visual and audio effects when activated by motion sensors (Walker).

An old debate about virtual reality is whether the experience is “false” or “legit.” For instance, a person who believes virtual reality is false may state that when we move our avatar in Second Life to jump, we are not physically jumping. Myron Kreuger, however, believes that immersing in a digital reality is not a falsification. In fact, he believes that virtual reality “improves on reality in very important ways” (Turner). He states that conceptual thoughts and emotions are just as real as physical objects. Glow Flow exemplifies how virtual reality is an engaging and true experience. As the audience moves through the space, their actions trigger responses that would not have been possible otherwise. This physical and virtual experience generates cognitive responses that are legitimate because we feel them as we interact with the space.

Performative ecologies by Ruairi Glynn, showcased in Emergencia Exhibition, Itau Cultural, Sao Paulo, Brazil 2008.

F. Duncan Case would argue that Glow Flow is considered to be a “real virtual environment.” Real virtual environments are essentially parallel to virtual reality, but take place in physical, tangible space (149). He argues that virtual reality is often times an illusion where as real virtual environments offer real time and real space engagement. An instance of this is Performative Ecologies by Ruairi Glynn. The first prototype was completed in 2007, which consisted of robotic sculptures that react to human movement through facial recognition. The sculptures are not classified as a virtual reality but are of a real time and space experience. As the audience interacts, the sculptures alter the “genetic code” to form new dances. Reality in this case is not only defined by our interpretations and interactions with the sculptures, it is also defined by the continuous change the sculptures generate. This is a two-fold experience where time, movement, and interaction are expressed by our senses and digital logic computation.

Healing Pool by Brian Knep. A top-down view of an interactive video installation, part of Healing Series, 2008.

“As bandwidth increases and authoring tools become more sophisticated, the Web will become the ultimate visual and creative melting pot.�

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1.3 The net and networking The birth of the Internet is a milestone in the field of digital arts and technology. Most people directly think of the Internet right now as Google, Facebook, YouTube, or Yahoo! Social media is so prevalent in our daily lives that in our minds, these products automatically correlate to what the Internet is. But of course, history runs deeper than that.

Birth of the Internet The concept of the Internet can be traced back to the idea of a “galactic network” presented by J.C.R. Licklider of MIT in 1962.

A galactic network consists of a “globally interconnected set of computers through which everyone could quickly access data and programs from any site” (Leiner, et. al). This concept can be seen in many products and services today such as BitTorrent, a free, opensource application for users to share files, or iTunes shared libraries where users can publicly share their collection with others. In 1966,

15 Past to present exploration of technology and new media

New media transcends the digital stage into our physical one, as Performance Ecologies and Glow Flow demonstrate. Thus, it is inevitable that people would use new media to explore real world conditions, such as community boundaries. For instance, many innovators explored the field of “telematics,” which is the interlacing of computing technology and telecommunication networks (Wands 99).

One of the landmark projects includes Electronic Café by Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz conducted in 1984. The mission was to link local albeit diverse communities together through a multimedia environment. The project was up for seven weeks for the Summer Olympics Arts Festival, and held an international spotlight as a prime example of collaborative multi-media environments (27). Electronic Café demonstrates the power of how digital technology presents an alternative lens to view the world. It was not only cutting edge technology back in its day, but it created a different visual comparison for social analysts and communicators to study a community.

16 Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

Lawrence G. Roberts developed the plan for ARPANET, which is a web of interlinked computer networks (ISOC). Each computer would be a “node” in the network, similar to the game connect-thedots. Each dot represents a computer at a different location, and the ARPANET is made of the lines where dots are connected. However, connect-the-dots characterize the traditional ways of networking before the ARPANET evolved. The ARPANET eventually grew into becoming the Internet, an “open-architecture” system that we use today. Previously, most networking was done in a linear form, such as connect-the-dots where we draw a line from beginning to end. The Internet does not function in a linear matter; rather, it is an open, multidirectional web where each connection is intricately tied to another (Leiner, et. al).

How is this relevant in new media, let alone design? The birth of the Internet gave another platform for creative, intelligent, and opinionated minds to experiment. Jodi.org, made of two artists, Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans, did one of the beacon creations of Internet art (Wands 185). One of their first projects was a website, wwwwwwwww.jodi.org, which is an elaborate maze of hyperlinks dancing on the page. The user clicks around confusingly not knowing where the destination will be. Letters, numbers, and numeric symbols are visuals that simulate the mark-up language of the Internet. Another influential art piece was My Boyfriend Came Back From the War created in 1996 by Olia Lialina. This piece is an interactive abstract narrative built in HTML frames. The user clicks on scripted hyperlinks of dialogue and graphics. Examples include a quivering window, or lines like, “You don’t trust me, I see.” Both of these works are experimental, in-conclusive demonstrations that play with narrative and user-journeys.

The Web’s impact What is poignant about the Internet is that interactions were no longer limited to one-to-one forms; rather it constructed a network for global participation. As a result, the Internet became an ideal place for creative thinkers to create social demonstrations, such

Two frames from My Boyfriend Came Back From The War by Olia Lialina.

17 Past to present exploration of technology and new media

as The File Room created by Muntadas in 1994. This project consists of a physical and digital archive where an audience can read historical cases of censorship and contribute to the collection (Wands 199). The authors insist that “rather than being presented as a finished work, [the project] is being made publicly available at the point of its initiation. It is an open system that becomes activated, “filed” and developed through the public process of its own existence” (Muntadas). Information on the website consists of an introduction to the project, definitions of censorship, case archive, and a case submission form. The interface design of the website might seem rudimentary (and rather ugly) in comparison to the high-tech codes now, but the site is a clear demonstration of diverse user-interaction to create social awareness.

18 Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

Jodi.org, Olia Lialina, and Muntadas all created notable and inspirational pieces in regards to the digital arts; but what about the rest of us? What about that party invitation sitting in your Facebook inbox? Or those new photos your friend just uploaded from her backpacking trip on Flickr? How do these things factor into the significance of new media?

According to Clay Shirky, the Internet is one of the many communication tools that does not “get socially interesting until they get technologically boring” (105). He claims that,

“it’s when a technology becomes normal, then ubiquitous, and finally so pervasive as to be invisible, that the really profound changes happen.”

y k r i h S Clay In other words, transformation is not due to the invention of a new product; transformation occurs when the product is released for public engagement. For instance, the Internet changed our social interactions because it is integrated into our everyday lives. People can file their taxes, transfer money, shop for groceries, and set up meetings online. The new social tools that exist on the Internet influence the way people behave, yet the technology had to be around long enough for these habits to form. Change only happens when there is an active connection formed between people and a product.

One of the most important reflections is not only how the Internet gave artists and thinkers a place to experiment, but how it influenced the way we create social bonds with one another.

Shirky states that, “every webpage is a latent community” (102) This can be clearly illustrated by Yelp, the user review and social

Overall, the Internet is an important new media form because it allows mass communication to take place. Contemporary artists use the Internet as a medium to create social demonstrations, such as The File Room; and the general public use the Internet to form social networks. It allows people to communicate in new ways that were not previously imaginable. As time goes on, the Internet continuously changes the way we interact and how we define new media.

Screenshots of two popular social networking sites: Left, Twitter, a utility for individuals and businesses to quickly publicize live messages. Right, Yelp, userreviews written by “real people.”

19 Past to present exploration of technology and new media

networking site mentioned earlier. In the website, individuals are connected through their reviews to others who have reviewed the same businesses. People search, read, and type reviews from their personal computers, yet they are all connected in this virtual space.

I once received a message from a stranger in response to my review of Lombardi’s Pizza, one of the famous gourmet pizza joints in New York City. A service like Yelp constructs a “latent” community where relationships are tied by virtual interactions such as voting for someone’s review or adding them as a friend.

Abundance by Camille Utterback. A public interactive installation in City Hall Plaza, San Jose, California 2007.

“THe world we live in today is incredibly complex. Our social relations, desires, fantasies, hopes and fears are very different from those at the beginning of the 20th Century.�

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The gap between new media and us is getting progressively smaller.

Instances of virtual reality illustrate this; so do the narratives contained in The File Room and the perceptive Yelp iPhone application. Due to the integration of these technologies, new media have dramatically changed our social landscape.

Steven Sacks, the founder of bitforms gallery, comments, “Digital tools are sometimes utilized but do not define the work� (Troika 272) That is, products and art works can contain technological components, but the broader concept relies on the participation of the audience. Thus, new media is not only characterized by advancing technology, it is significant due to human interaction.

New media is a field where artists use technology as a medium to explore and define our perception with the self, physical spaces, mass culture, and relationships to each other. For instance, Abundance by Camille Utterback is an interactive installation that draws relationships between groups of people in a physical space. A camera senses the location of bodies standing in San Jose’s City Hall Plaza. Then, the information is sent to a computer program, which executes elaborate visuals projected onto the side of a building.

Similarly, we can use design to make reflections. As designers, we should be attuned to our surroundings and responsive to changes that occur. Thus, practicing an open sense of design empowers designers to be more playful and experimental in our thinking and actions.

21 Past to present exploration of technology and new media

1.4 New media and us

Chapter Two: The role of design in complexity 2.1 Fresh thinking The nature of design is not fixed. Yes, design often has boundaries; as designers, we design fixed interactions, rely on formal procedures, and are constantly presented with limitations. However, design is also changing and adapting with the evolutions in society.

What we design is largely connected with human interaction. We are responsive to environments and situations. We are trained to constantly be open and aware how products are being used and how people think. More importantly, we acknowledge that there are different needs to be met. This frame of mind establishes new concepts of “design thinking.”

The shift Tim Brown, the CEO of a renowned design firm named IDEO, describes in a TED lecture how design used to be “small;” however, design is “getting big again.” He remarks, “Maybe what passed for design wasn’t all that important—making things more attractive, making them a bit easier to use, making them more marketable.”

Meaning, design is not only defined by small details and design choices, such as picking a font or tailoring an advertisement to fit a certain emotion, it is about observing the bigger picture. John Chris Jones, a leader in examining design methods, believes, “Designing has already left its narrow basis in things…and has begun to spread itself to everything, no longer as a way of imposing on the many but as a way of listening to each other and to ourselves” (Mitchell 150).

This statement calls on designers to deepen our understanding of our audience and environment.

This shift in thinking is embraced by many designers around the world. Cumulus, the International Association of Universities and

“[Design thinking is] often about understanding culture and context.�

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24 Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

Colleges of Art Design and Media wrote a statement called Kyoto Design Declaration that addresses the same needs. The declaration states that there is a shift from “materialistic and visible values to those, which are mental, intellectual and, possibly, less material” (Sotamaa). In other words, design not only addresses visual aesthetics, but personal and social experiences as well.

This new approach is being applied to many areas that affect social functions and demands, such as public health, environment, and community. For instance, the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota utilizes an integrative process to enhance patient experience. Mayo Clinic is a reputable hospital that treats complex diseases. However, they are unique because the hospital experience is modified by inputs from patients, designers, business strategists, medical and health professionals. IDEO helped the Mayo Clinic establish this collaborative system, which was shaped by their SPARC Innovation Program, “See-Plan-Act-Refine-Communicate” (Brown 118). This process shows how diverse perspectives influence a design experience, such that both user and executive standpoints are engaged.

Bridging Concepts Sendhil Mullainathan, a behavioral economist, proclaimed in the lecture, Solving social problems with a nudge, “I think that we’re on the verge of something big. We’re on the verge of a whole new social science […] We’ll recognize the complexity of the human mind.”

As cited in Wikipedia, behavioral economics is a study of social, cognitive, and psychological factors that influence market trends, consumer activity, and interests. Mullainathan brings up “the last mile” problem in relation to public health issues in India. In the 1960s, India had a high mortality rate due to diarrhea. The cure was oral rehydration salts, which managed to decrease the death rates due to diarrhea by fifty-percent. However, Mullainathan quotes that today, “there are [still] about 400,000 diarrhea-related deaths in India alone.” What this shows is that although people have developed, marketed and integrated a cure into public use, there was

25 The role of design in complexity

still a discrepancy in results. The rehydration pills were not entirely successful because individuals rationalized that you “don’t put water into a leaky bucket.” This case illustrates how our capacity of human reasoning is complex and sometimes unpredictable.

It is important to acknowledge “the last mile” problem because it deals with the way we design, initiate, and problem solve situations.

Hence, “innovation needs to continue all the way through to the last mile.” Designers are important in this process. In “Designer of 2015 trends,” an article published by AIGA, the first rule-of-thumb states,

In other words, we need to recognize, listen, and collaborate with various fields in order to effectively design products and systems.

In mathematical and scientific fields, Chaos Theory addresses the nature of complex situations. Two PhDs, Kenneth Resnicow, and Scott E. Page apply the concept to observing behavioral change in a community. In their article, “Embracing Chaos and Complexity: A Quantum Change for Public Health,” they propose that in order to improve the public health practice, professionals should understand nonlinear patterns of human behavior. They claim that behaviors are often unpredictable and “involves multiple component parts that interact in a nonlinear fashion” (1382). Furthermore, unpredictable behavior helps us understand social problems. For instance, a study that analyzed smokers’ resolution to quit revealed that approximately half of the sample stated their decision was “unplanned” (1385).

Thus, human decisions and actions do not always follow a linear, systematic order, but can occur spontaneously.

AIG A

“Designers must be able to draw on experience and knowledge from a broad range of disciplines, including the social sciences and humanities, in order to solve problems in a global, competitive market of products and ideas.”

Three screenshots from Lego Junkbot by game designer, Eric Zimmerman.

Quantum behaviors illustrate how design thinking can potentially be applied. The second principle in “Designer of 2015 trends” declare, “Design problems are nested within increasingly complex social, technological and economic systems and address people who vary in their cognitive, physical and cultural behaviors and experiences.” This means that designers have the responsibility to respond to and “manage” the intricate relationships.

Unpredictability and complexity are two characteristics of Openness. The first step as a designer is to be aware of complex human nature on an individual and group level. By keeping an open mind and sensitive awareness, we can better understand what and why we are designing.

2.2 Process is research One of the many process based design methodologies is called Iterative design. Eric Zimmerman, a game designer and academic, relates iterative design to game design, such as LEGO Junkbot, in the article “Play as Research: The Iterative Design Process.” This practice is about integrating design research within the process, such that “new and unexpected questions emerge directly from the act of design.”

One of the critical procedures in iterative design is the testing phase. After a concept is picked and the first prototype completed, “playtesting” is conducted over a web-based form to acquire data.

The team in charge of LEGO Junkbot took their prototype to an elementary school and observed children’s interaction with the game. Zimmerman reflects, “This testing directly influenced the design of the game, and we slowed down the overall learning curve, designing the first several game levels to more clearly communicate the essential interactive ideas.” Thus, by observing the interactions of users with the product, the design team was able to make the core comcepts of the game experience more accessible.

LEGO Junkbot reveals the importance of integrating the community with the design process. By letting the target audience interact with the interface, designers can learn about the success and shortcomings of a product.

“In iterative design, there is a blending of designer and user, of creator and player.”

Eric Zimm e r ma n

27 The role of design in complexity

LEGO Junkbot started as a project where LEGO.com wanted a virtual game about brick construction that targeted eight through twelve year olds, yet versatile enough to be enjoyed by adults. First, the designers purchased physical Lego blocks to be immersed in the experience of playing with Legos. Then, the team drafted Lego’s “play values,” which were defined as “material and experiential qualities of LEGO as well as the cultural ethos of the LEGO play philosophy.” Once the characteristics were established, it was time to brainstorm concepts and design the game.

28 Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

This supports the concept of openness in design methodology. The audience can dictate some of the outcomes of the design process.

Thus, designers have a better understanding of what their products and services mean. A user’s participatory experience is just as important as a designer’s.

User-centered process What the iterative design process introduces is user-centered design, which focuses on the interactions between a product and user.

Many designers utilize this methodology such as in exhibition, interactive, or product and service design.

Google, an innovative company that hosts the well-known simple and clean search engine proclaims that humans come first. In their manifesto, “Ten things Google has found to be true,” the first one states, “1. Focus on the user and all else will follow” (Moggridge 481). Their search engine, google.com, illustrates this point concisely. The site is extremely plain with only a few navigational links, a logo, and a distinct search bar centered on the page. What Google found through user testing was that when people use search engine sites, they do not want to spend time searching for the search box (482). Thus, Google designed the homepage interface to target user convenience.

“In a user-centered approach, designers observe or have conversations with potential customers, test their creations on people, and are able to evaluate how first-time users can intuitively interface with them. The focus is on adopting future users’ original ways of thinking rather than forcing them to adopt or learn new procedures.”

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A child banging cans at the Sound Around station in Brooklyn Children’s Museum. Photograph by Michelle V. Agns, The New York Times, 2008.

The concept of experience design is commonly used in designing exhibitions, stores, buildings, and public spaces. ESI is a multidisciplinary experience design firm that has worked on projects ranging from designing the Time Warner Center lobby to the Brooklyn Children Museum. Chris Muller, the team’s art director for Physical Design, comments that, “So much of design is putting yourself in the mind of the user and imagining what’s going to be interesting to them, what’s going to affect them, [and] what’s going to be memorable.”

In ESI’s projects, rather than merely fashioning pleasing aesthetics, the design process targets creating interactive experiences for users.

The design is based on the philosophy that the space is not complete until there is a user interacting within it (Muller). For instance, a person walking through the American Family Immigration History

30 Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

Center at Ellis Island can use computer systems to search for family members who immigrated through Ellis Island from 1892 through 1924. Furthermore, visitors can compile a ”scrapbook” of their family history by uploading pictures, documents and recordings.

This open participatory model of contributing personal narratives adds another layer to the exhibition experience.

2.3 Inviting the crowd Designers realize that to solve complex situations, one mind and even one team is not enough. Our world is filled with difficulties such as the decline in environmental health, clash of social differences, or unavoidable states of poverty. As designers, we are attuned to the world around us, however not all of us have the background and experiences that allow us to identify with a community or situation.

AIGA’s “Designers of 2015 trends” states, “Designers must change their idea of customers/users to co-creators (mass customization) to coincide with the rise in transparency of personal and professional lives.” In other words, it is important to recognize the power of the crowd and how design can collaborate with it.

Crowd sourcing is an example of open participatory interaction, a phrase that was coined by Jeff Howe in the article, “The Rise of Crowdsourcing.” The term, originally applied to business and

“Hobbyists, part-timers, and dabblers suddenly have a market for their efforts, as smart companies in industries as disparate as pharmaceuticals and television discover ways to tap the latent talent of the crowd [...] It’s not outsourcing; it’s crowdsourcing.”

Jeff How e

Screenshop of multimedia video, I Can No Longer Think by Emma Ramey, Moto Interactive, and Isaac Ruiz for Born Magazine.

software industry, is defined as, “neologism (expression) for the act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people, in the form of an open call.”

Crowd sourcing is a method of open-source and collaborative action.

Our society utilizes this open tactic to start businesses, exchange ideas, and gather support. For instance, The Born Magazine is a non-profit organization created by Gabe Kean, who is also the founder of an experiential design studio called Belle & Wissell, Co. The site is a collection of collaborative art pieces that fuse literature, art, film, and design. Designers, writers, and musicians are paired up with each other on a variety of projects that result in “mediarich” original work. For instance, the piece “I Can No Longer Think” by Emma Ramey, Moto Interactive, and Isaac Ruiz is a visual narrative constructed out of typography layered on top of film with instrumental sounds.

32 Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

Writing, music, and visual arts can easily be separated into distinct niches, however by amalgamating the fields, a new community is formed. Connections are made by the active contribution of each creative individual—such as the exquisite corpse—a unique result is produced based on each person’s input.

“Open source altruism” A method that allows non-designers to engage in design practices is called “open source altruism.” This new platform is defined as “a prioritization of quick-win, modular ideas, packaged as ‘kits’ in adoptable formats, and provided free of charge” (Hartley). IDEO’s Human Centered Design Toolkit targets organizations that are dedicated to helping communities such as impoverished inhabitants in undeveloped countries. The toolkit outlines a general process that can be applied to specific situations and communities. For instance, “Hear,” Create,” and “Deliver” is a formula to think about how to achieve a larger goal.

“Hear” is not only about listening, but observing in every means.

It is about collecting stories, inspiration, and anything that potentially relates to the original subject. The “Create” phase is about establishing “frameworks, opportunities, solutions, and prototypes” so ideas can be honed into concrete structures. Lastly, “Deliver” involves implementing prototypes and solutions into a community (7).

An article published from the Gates Foundation recounts on how the HCD toolkit impacts communities. International Development Enterprises (IDE) works to integrate affordable microirrigation technology for small farmers in third world countries. For instance, The Gates Foundation helped design a treadle pump from a bike that lifts water to “help farmers irrigate small plots of land” in Ethiopia. However, the device was not successful in many Ethiopian communities because it was not socially acceptable for women to ride bikes. With the help of the HCD toolkit, they found “new ways

A distinct characteristic of open source altruism is that it relies on the participation and collaboration of individuals. Designers who implement this theory fully understand that there will not be a result unless they receive the active support and efforts of other people. An instance of this is social philanthropy. The Extraordinaries is a group promoting individuals to “donate” their idle time while using their computer or mobile phone to help out socially. The system relies on “micro volunteers” who register for a cause on the network. Some of the actions include translating text for an organization, helping to document societal problems, or giving a user-review. The program is based on the idea that small contributions ultimately make a bigger difference.

In a TED lecture, Cameron Sinclair, an architect devoted to improving infrastructure—such as in third world contries and impoverish cities—explained that embracing an open source model was an efficacious tactic. Sinclair used MeetUp and other social networking tools on the Internet to start extending his organization.

As a result, forty chapters made of thousands of architects around the world joined his cause. In 1999, the group launched an open design competition for a “transitional shelter that would last five to ten years,” such that the residents would have direct access to the tools to rebuild their shelter. Results included an inflatable hemp house, shipping container, and “a whole variety of ideas that not only dealt with architectural building, but also the issues of governance and the idea of creating communities through complex networks.”

Furthermore, Sinclair emphasizes the need to get to know a community for a design to be successful. In Africa, Sinclair’s team originally went to study housing problems, but quickly realized after interacting with villagers that the real problem lies in the growing pandemic of HIV and AIDS. Their solution was to build mobile

33 The role of design in complexity

to get product and market information to farmers.” Consequently, human-centered methods helped IDE establish a better framework to design suitable services for the community.

34 Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

health clinics. The idea was not new to the community, however numerous and quirky solutions were formed by the open-source community of architects. One of them was called a “kenaf clinic,” where residents grow plants that would later be chopped down to eat.

Going viral A video of a baby laughing has over a million hits on YouTube. A journal rant written by an average woman has a sudden flood of visitors. A notice about self-defense skills makes its way into every e-mail inbox owned by a female. This phenomenon is called going viral.

Viral messaging is a form of social communication that results from one individual passing on information to the next. Rather than using commercial ways of marketing, viral messages often rely on the influence of the crowd. For instance, flash mobs and smart mobs utilize viral forms to promote events. A T-Mobile campaign, Life’s for Sharing, organized a flash mob in Trafalgar Square, London where 13,500 individuals gathered to sing “Hey Jude” by The Beatles. Not only did the event successfully draw in ten thousands of individuals, the four-minute video documentary has over two million hits on YouTube accompanied by more than 3,000 comments.

Clay Shirky states in Here Comes Everybody (159-60),

“Social Tools don’t create collective action—they merely remove the obstacles to it…[M]any of the significant changes are based not on the fanciest, newest bits of technology but on simple, easy-to-use tools like e-mail, mobile phones, and websites, because those are the tools most people have access to and, critically, are comfortable using in their daily lives.”

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In the article, “Facebook’s Doppelganger Week Is Viral Groupthink,” Dan Fletcher reflects on how viral memes populate the social networking sphere. Celebrity Doppelganger Week occurred in January 2010 where individuals on Facebook changed their profile picture to an image of a celebrity that shared visual resemblance. In another viral movement, female users posted their bra color on their status messages to spread awareness about Breast Cancer Month.

Earlier, there was a 25-facts-about-yourself meme where each person tags twenty-five of their friends to fill out the same questions.

Viral messaging illustrates how our society interacts in an open structure. We do not communicate in a linear direction, rather, information spreads from node to node forming an intricate web.

As a result of this characteristic, it is often hard to trace the origin of these memes; thus, authorship holds less power when it comes to open communication and collaboration. Rather, what makes an experience successful (such as T-Mobile’s Life’s for Sharing) is what happens when the content lands in the public’s possession.

Design needs to recognize the trend towards openness. Our social and technological tools allow the public to create their own opinions, works of art, and movements. As a designer, we need to understand this phenomenon, and rather than trying to control it, we should unite with and accept it as part of the process.

35 The role of design in complexity

The T-Mobile campaign used ready-made, accessible digital tools to reach viewers and participators. Due to YouTube’s popularity, it made the perfect tool to share the experience of the event with those who were not present.

Chapter Three: Open-ended, interactive forms in a fluid culture 3.1 Playful forms of interactivity Integrating play in design is not only about having fun or entertaining, it is about experimentation. Play is important among individuals and designers because it creates a platform for off-the-wall, quirky ideas to flow. Many innovative businesses incorporate play in their daily routines. For instance, IDEO hosts “FingerBlaster” wars, which are small foam rockets that are spontaneously shot around the office. Google is well known for their entertainment facilities that are rumored to be equipped with pool, ping-pong tables, and foosball. In Pixar Studios, employees work in beach huts (Brown 31). As a result, play creates enjoyment and inspiration that builds collaborative teamwork. More importantly, a lively and light-hearted environment allows space for individuals to think outside-of-the-box.

Characteristics of play Play often involves humor, amusement, and surprise to attract attention. This is true no matter how serious of a programmer, designer, or thinker you are. For instance, Tobias Wong is a designer who creates ironic, humorous projects—from sculptures to installations. His piece, 24 hours of pure silver leaf so your shit will

24hrs of pure silver leaf by Tobias Wong, 1998.

sparkle, are edible pills filled with silver flakes. When swallowed, the silver will pass through the body and give the user “sparkly shit!” His explanation ends with a satirical remark,

“Who says everything has been designed?”

Tobias Wong coined the term “para-conceptual” in an interview with Core77. Para-conceptual is defined as “of, relating to, or being conceptual,” which distinguishes Wong’s body of work, a composite that explores the similarities between art and design. In a series of projects for TROY, a contemporary design store in New York, Wong designed a “unique gift-wrapping service” that plays with the irony of inane consumption. The service promises, “We will wrap your purchase with an original Andy Warhol print.” Wong aimed

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38 Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

to highlight Andy Warhol’s ideas about mass consumption and pop culture, such that Warhol’s prints become the gift-wrap of a purchase.

Consequently, a direct association is made with Warhol’s beliefs.

Paul St. George is an artist who created an installation that plays with humor and emotional fascination. The Telectroscope is an interactive sculpture that forms an illusion of a tunnel leading to the other side of the world. The actual construction is made out of hidden video cameras at two different locations (London and New York) that feed real-time video to a screen installed in the opposite location. Thus, the camera installed at the Brooklyn Bridge projected the video on a screen in London and vice versa, giving the illusion that people in opposite ends of space are peering at each other.

The characteristic of The Telectroscope is reactive and not participative, such that the system is set up to produce a linear result. The audience does not contribute, but reacts to what they see. Other forms of interactive play invite the user to be an active participator. For instance, Blinkenlights was a playful installation that allowed the public to engage with the project.

Blinkenlights was an innovative system that turned a building into a computer matrix of “eighteen times eight pixels.” One hundred and forty-four windows were programmed to a light switch, creating a grid for animation. The project was launched in 2001 in the Haus des Lehrers building at Berlin Alexanderplatz. By using mobile technology, the public can interact with the display by playing Pong or send text messages to be displayed.

Similarly, Graffiti Research Lab created a series of street graffiti that uses light and technology. One of them is called L.A.S.E.R. Tag, which is a “system that allows individuals to write with light directly on buildings, displaying their personal communication on a

The Telectroscope by Paul St. George, 2008. Left, sculptural form instsalled by the Brooklyn Bridge. Right, observers peering into “the other side of the world.”

very large scale” (Troika 146). A projector hooked up to a computer and tracking camera sensed the movement of a laser pointer. Thus, an individual can “draw” with the laser pointer to create his or her own visuals on a large public surface. As a result, the act of drawing gives the individual a sense of ownership of the public environment.

What these projects have in common is that they are whimsical, ironical in nature. Each takes a conventional situation or object and transforms it into a playful experience. The Telectroscope toys with our curiosity and fascination of seeing the other side of the world, Blinkenlights and L.A.S.E.R. Tag explore the idea of projecting an individual mark in a public space.

Power Flower by Antenna Design. An interactive public installation in the Bloomingdales store window, New York City, 2002.

Antenna Design is a multidisciplinary design firm that incorporates quirky interactive forms. Their philosophy is to make the “experience of technologically enhanced objects and environments more meaningful and exciting.” For instance, in 2002, they constructed an interactive storefront installation for Bloomingdale’s New York made from light and sound sensors.

Whenever the sensor detected movement, it triggered neon flowers to light up as a person passed by.

Additionally, Antenna Design creates conceptual work that reflects their interest in environment and culture. The Sidewalk Series presents playful perception and experiences in a city space. For example, one component is an “Exercise Stop” where sidewalk timers are converted to jumping counters to promote healthy

41 Openended interactive forms in a fluid culture

exercise. Another is the “Hugging Tree” where tree trunks have extended tubular arms that people can hug. These interventions are designed to “give a new spin and encourage encounters” on habits observed in city life.

Maintaining a playful mindset

“[Serious play] often happens spontaneously, intuitively, accidentally or incidentally. It can be achieved out of innocence or arrogance or out of selfishness, sometimes out of carelessness; but mostly, it’s achieved through all the kinds of crazy parts of human behavior that don’t really make any sense. Serious design is imperfect…Serious design is also often quite unsuccessful from a solemn point of view. That’s because the art of serious play is about invention, change, rebellion, not perfection. Perfection happens during solemn play.”

In a lecture hosted by Art Center College of Design, Paula Scher defines serious play as design methods and concepts that are not necessarily accepted in the commercial market. It is a space and opportunity for designer to develop personal and creative interests.

For instance, in her moment of serious play, she re-designed a performing arts school in New Jersey from a traditional red brick exterior to a white canvas with painted typography.

Scher’s remark applies to the idea of openness because it favors the experimental, spontaneous side of design that most of the commercial market neglects. Designers should embrace the intuitive, accidental, and even careless whims of a creative process.

Paula Scher

42 Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

3.2 increasing awareness through Open participation Many insights begin as a single demonstration that is limited to one-to-one or one-to-many ratios. By utilizing open participation, the information is more attainable for public use; consequently, absorbance of information leads to greater awareness. Thus, this chapter explores how open participation is an important mechanism to spread messages and create appropriate dialogue.

Installations and demonstrations In new media art, installations, performances, and collaborative work seek to express social and cultural messages. Oftentimes, artists are interested in creating a conversational bridge that links their art piece with components of society. A specific niche in new media is net art, a practice referring specifically to “networked media� (Wands 184).

Immediately, one can think of the Internet as a source, however net art references mobile technology, GPS (Global Positioning System), and many other forms of wireless, networking tools (185).

Two concept illustrations from Sidewalk Series by Antenna Design, 2006.

The File Room by Muntadas, as mentioned earlier, is a demonstration that incorporates networking tools to create conversation. Muntadas states (Wands 198),

“The interactive nature of the Internet (which remains at this moment a free system for dialogue and information) allows The File Room to become a social sculpture as it moves back and fourth from its three-dimensional installation to an unknown dimension in the net. When people activate and contribute to this artwork, they are participating in the questions, contradictions and limitations of attempting to define censorship.”

Twitter Sk8 was effective as a real-time performance. The event invited users to skate and create their own reckless tweets; thus, the participatory interaction succeeded in playfully preaching against reckless skating. However, the nature of the project is less impactful after the event. On their Twitter site, sk8monkey, there is

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In a different example, Jodi utilizes the popular real-time messaging service called Twitter to create a social demonstration against reckless skateboarding. Skaters attach a wireless keyboard on top of their skateboard, and then proceed to skate and do tricks in their usual manner. However, as their feet randomly press the keyboard buttons, the data is uploaded online via Twitter. The collection of tweets forms an ongoing nonsensical babble.

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The File Room exists as a physical installation at the Chicago Cultural Center and an Internet database. Users in both spaces can access censorship cases and contribute their “incident.”

Technological tools create a platform for users to engage in a social issue due to the accessible information published in the archives and the freedom to contribute.

44 Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

no description of what these tweets were about. The authors of this project did not purposefully build an afterlife for the project where users can continue the discussion created during the event. The leftover fragments from the original source are the Twitter page and a YouTube video that documents the event.

Yet even without a conscious afterlife platform from the author, an ongoing conversation still exists because of our digital social world.

Various blogs and new media art archives have published Twitter Sk8. For instance, a Wordpress blog called CreativeApplications noted a series of contemporary artwork that all involved the use of Twitter. Through these sources, individuals are still able to learn about this information. Thus, a second-hand awareness is formed.

Similarly, TSA Communications by Evan Roth is a successful social demonstration. The original performance consists of metal plates with words, images, and phrases punched out and stuffed into carryon bags. Most messages are statements questioning the violation of privacy, such as an American flag, the “finger” gesture, or “Mind your own business.” In the airport, the bags are received through the security scanner. Due to the abnormal imagery the metal plates form, security officers are forced to deal with the issue.

Additionally, a hidden camera documents the whole interaction between the security guard, message on the screen, and the person carrying the luggage.

The performance created a physical disturbance in the usual security procedures. As a result, it created a lot of attention and awareness to the issues about personal rights and privacy. Besides performing these disruptions in public space, the recordings are posted online in popular social spheres where viewers can experience it second-hand. What made this more significant was that the official Transportation Security Administration posted this on their own blog, which “received 195 comments, primarily from security workers, making it one of the most discussed posts on the TSA’s website.”

Message in a metal cutout from TSA Communications, a public disturbance demonstrated by Evan Roth, 2008.

Power of awareness What is important about creating awareness is that the more people actively participate, the greater the result. For instance, Clay Shirky states throughout his book, Here Comes Everybody that the Internet allowed mass number of people to self-organize into communities to make change. One of his examples is of a website created by a friend of a women who had her phone lost and stolen. Due to social networking and mass collaboration of individuals, the woman was able to get her phone back (7). This exchange demonstrates the power of participatory interaction, where people are not only spectators, but also contributors to a result.

46 Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

The File Room, Twitter Sk8, and TSA Communications illustrate the importance of participatory interaction. By using open tools available to the public, messages are spread at an accessible rate, and the conversations expand.

Richard Reiss reported in the article, “Interactive Voting Project Connects New York and Copenhagen on the Last Day of the Conference,” a group of engineers, artists, and designers collaborated to create an interactive voting system that connected New York to Copenhagen for a climate agreement at a Copenhagen conference. When individuals in New York slam a “button,” a camera senses the movement and activates a mannequin hand to slam a table in Copenhagen. The installation includes a live video feed so people in both locations can see the activity on the opposite side. Furthermore, a speech transmitter is incorporated in the system to give individuals an opportunity to express opinions.

This installation is an experimental way to engage the public with current events; it allows participants to take a stand without having to be physically presence at the conference.

An interactive voting system designed and built by Adam Harvey, R.David Gibbs, and Chris Neidl for climate change agreement. Left, a woman in Union Square New York votes by slamming her fist down on a pedestal, which will activate a dummy fist to slam on a table in Copenhagen. Right, setting up in Union Square on Wednesday, December 16th, 2009.

“The FIRST AIM OF PHENOMENOLOGY is to reawaken a sense of wonder about one’s environment.”

Shep ard F aire y Shepard Fairey is an artist who plays with the public’s judgment and awareness. Besides the infamous Obama portraits that irritated copyright policies, Fairey is well known for his OBEY sticker campaign that deals with the concept of “phenomenology.”

Phenomenology, as defined by Heidegger, is the “process of letting things manifest themselves.” The OBEY Sticker Campaign is composed of images, such as a black and white illustrated face with the words “OBEY,” that is stuck to various public property.

According to Fairey, “the sticker has no meaning but exists only to cause people to react, to contemplate and search for meaning in the sticker.” In other words, the sticker acts as a catalyst for ideas and thinking to propagate.

OBEY is a conceptual experimentation in rousing public attention.

Fairey reflects that the abstract nature of the stickers cause people to react in differing ways. Some find it amusing while others treat it as a cultish act. Furthermore, as the stickers multiply and become recognizable, the stickers create a “conspicuously consumptive nature of many members of society,” such that the stickers become collectible tokens or souvenirs. The OBEY Sticker Campaign shows how an idea is transformed and manipulated under public engagement. What first started as a single, vague expression proliferated various responses and actions; thus, creating awareness.

48 Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

This Is Public Health campaign used a similar approach to gain public attention. The campaign created stickers with the message, “This is public health,” that tagged public territories. The red stickers were placed on objects and locations, such as bikes, public transportation, fruit and vegetable stands, and fitness centers to indicate “public health.” The goal was to generate an understanding that public health is influenced by many factors in our social and personal lives. In a promotional video, representatives stated, “The stickers will be like our voices constantly reminding people that this is public health, this is public health, this is public health!”

For instance, a sticker on a bike symbolizes how exercising and conserving on gasoline improves lifestyles; or, a sticker on a fruit stand suggests how it is important to eat nutritiously.

Projects such as OBEY and This Is Public Health show how the meaning of design subsists on the interactions of people. Design is not a linear experience; rather, it is open for the public to comment and interpret. These various forms of media connect people to public issues and allow them to think deeper and question their environment. Thus, design has the ability to adapt and transform due to public participation.

“Participation is more open-ended, less under the control of media producers and more under the control of media consumers.”

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This is Public Health campaign by the Association of Schools of Public Health, 2009. Left, link to the public health toolkit. Right, a picture of a sticker next to a sign that promotes hand-washing.

50 Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

3.3 How openness reveals community narratives A community is made of narratives. Narratives establish similarities for individuals who would otherwise have nothing in common. It is a tool for people to communicate messages and create expressions.

When I speak of community, I do not mean to represent specific cultures, policies, or values; rather, I define community as a group of individuals who are a part of something together. The level of openness of a community largely depends on factors independent of design. There are political influences, such as how China authorities hold strict censorship to public information. Or it could be due to shared personal beliefs, such as groups of artists who demand open-source policies over formal copyright dictations. Thus, not every community fits the models I present. However, from personal observation, communities typically function under a fluid system— and if not, our current society is quickly shifting towards it.

To recap, the levels of openness occur in five stages, with the top being a fluid system. Fluid interactive systems are defined as continual growth and evolvement due to open participation in relation to the factor of time. The results are not fixed; rather they are subject to change in response to the interactions of the public. Communities are fluid because due to the interactions, new conversations and ideas develop.

A primary example is Twitter. TwitterSK8 is a project that illustrates how Twitter functions as a social media tool to gain public attention; however, the use of Twitter is extremely versatile.

Steven Johnson tells about the potential of public participation in the article, “How Twitter Will Change the World.� Individuals were able to engage in a conference discussion by participating through twitter feeds. The conference, called Hacking Education, originally consisted of a small group of 40 individuals, however due to the use of twitter, the conversation expanded beyond the conference walls.

Urballoon by Eyebeam, 2009. Six small thumbnails, images contributed from the public that expresses New York City. Right, concept illustration of the installation of balloon projecting images in Tompkins Square Park, New York.

“Injecting Twitter into that conversation fundamentally changed the rules of engagement. It added a second layer of discussion and brought a wider audience into what would have been a private exchange. And it gave the event an afterlife on the Web.�

Stev en The use of Twitter at the conference serves as an example of how openness in systems influences the way we communicate. The community not only consisted of the participants at the event, but also included those who held similar interests and opinions towards the listed topics.

John son

Walk. by Studio Elastik. A public intervention project that plays with dialogue in physical space. Top Left, is the map showing the interactive route through Spitalfields, East London. Top Right, is one of the stenciled signs located on the route. Below, is one of the Public Voice Boxes (PVBs) where the public can contribute and exchange dialogue.

One of the main aspects that form communities is space. For instance, people who are close in proximity are more likely to share similar experiences with each other. Urballoon, Walk., and Yellow Arrow are three different projects that explore this similar theme.

Urballoon by Eyebeam is a collaborative multimedia project that consists of stories contributed by various individuals in New York.

The “stories” can be a photograph, written message, piece of art, or an original creation that gets archived on a website. People upload these personal expressions from their computer or mobile text.

Once the submission period is over, the content is consolidated into a slideshow that is projected on the ground of a New York City park. The projector hovers above the ground with the help of a giant helium balloon.

The stories are uncensored and wide in variety. Some are photographs of New York that you’d typically find on a souvenir postcard, while other images capture a subtler side of the city, such as a street vendors grilling gyros or the homeless curled up in cold corners. Others contribute pure text with quirky, nonsense, nostalgic, or profound statements. When put together, the project becomes a “digital bonfire” that expresses the “bonds” of a city that are often invisible to those who are in it. In other words, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” states the Gestalt theory. Each piece contributes to creating this particular definition of New York.

Together, they form a random yet cohesive narrative of the city by visualizing what people have in common.

On the streets of East London exists a similar community storytelling scheme. Walk. by Studio Elastik is a visual intervention that draws participation from people in the neighborhood. A mysterious white line is painted on the sidewalks and streets of Spitalfields over a distance of roughly 1.8km. Stenciled signs and messages are spray painted along the path to signal local history and facts. The dialogue acts as a visual tour guide disposing personal

53 Openended interactive forms in a fluid culture

Constructing spaces

54 Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

remarks, such as, “How many times have I walked this way?” or “Welcome to the ????eenth Century.” This type of physical intervention forces people to react to their surrounding environment.

Furthermore, Walk. invites users to participate and contribute to the experience. Public Voice Boxes (PVB) are installed along the route for people to record their own personal stories or statements. Like Urballoon, the messages form a greater picture of a community. For instance, at one of the PVBs, a stenciled sign states that there are “43 languages spoken in the area” and a passerby is invited to write down the language he or she speaks. Overtime, the PVB reflects the different dialects of people who interacted with that space.

Similar to Walk., Yellow Arrow by Counts Media creates a quiet intervention in public space. The intervention is subtle, such that the only visual interface is composed of small yellow stickers that are stuck on buildings, telephone polls, fences, etc. The interaction is carried out by mobile technology, namely through SMS. First, participants place Yellow Arrow sticker’s with an individual code in a physical location and contributes a story that is linked to the sticker’s code; from then on, a person who comes upon the sticker can activate the message by sending the specific code to the Yellow Arrow number. Consequently, strangers are able to read each other’s stories by interacting with the stickers in the community. The messages are diverse and open-ended; some are short poems while others are humorous or tell personal accounts.

What these projects have in common is that the end results are directed at a broad audience, such that they utilize one-to-many or many-to-many approaches. The results consist of open participation between individuals, such that people are invited to contribute their personal and individual narratives. What makes these projects unique is that they trigger a deeper level of understanding that is told by a primary source, void of authority. The results from these interactions are made to reflect the quirky, erratic, and sentimental side of humanity rather than stating a matter-of-fact.

Yellow Arrow, a psychogeographic mapping project by Counts Media Inc. Left, Yellow Arrow #g3034 posted by newurban in Boston, MA. Right, Yellow Arrow sticker posted on a New York City street.

One Block Radius is a community art project hosted by Glow Lab, a team of two artists, Christina Ray and Dave Mandl. The project is an interactive “psychogeographic survey” of the block bordered

by Stanton, Chrystie, Rivington, and Bowery Street in Lower East Side of NYC, property of the current New Museum constructed in 2004. Observations of art, daily life, weather, noise, and various other subjects are documented by means of blogs, video, and social media tools. Entries range from pictures of an old water valve cover to videos of a person ascending a building’s staircase. Four hundred and seventy three entries are recorded in seven different media types. Together, these small tokens amalgamate to become a “multilayered portrait” that reveals a raw and candid image of city life.

Projects like Yellow Arrow, Walk. and One Block Radius are unique, open-ended studies of the narratives within our physical landscape, which would not progress without participatory contribution.

56 Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

It allows us to form invisible connections; such as if a sticker told a narrative about a couple’s engagement, we are able to indirectly share the moment with the contributor who first created the text.

Due to the interaction, we are able to connect to each other’s stories, which may trigger further responses and scenarios, and open a different perspective to our surroundings.

Layers in space Design is commonly a pragmatic problem solver, such that streets, buildings, and even fire hydrants exist on a functional level.

However, our physical space can harbor meanings that are complex and intangible. It is important to acknowledge open interaction to better understand the different layers that reside in a community, such as Yellow Arrow, which forms “a cartography of the intimate, the everyday, the monumental, the ephemeral, the epochal.”

Thus, systems are designed to identify the underlying networks of personal, sentimental and often overlooked stories that exist.

A contributed image and screen interface of One Block Radius by Glow Lab.

Speaker’s Corner allows the general public express their thoughts and opinions. The program targets personal and individual voice, and encourages the idea that everyone is worthy to be heard. Urballoon, Walk., and Yellow Arrow all support this notion. Each project is designed to embrace and reveal unique and personal narratives found in individuals and public space. Rather than confining people to a fixed interaction, such as watching a television advertisement, collaboration results in open ends. These types of interaction allow people to take from one another and create new meanings.

Our culture evolves in a fluid process where different sources form an identity. Yet, as more sources are contributed, the identity shifts and evolves. For instance, by listening to the original narratives, we react and form our own narratives and associations. It can influence the way we think, feel, and act.

This means that as designers, our role in society is also changing.

We are not only producers of material, but observers, listeners, and propagators. In the Yellow Arrow project, artists and designers strategized the overall system for messages to form, however the public produced the content. CityTV utilized the same technique to help build community identity, such as allowing the public to contribute messages to be aired. Thus, designers should embrace the nature of openness and reevaluate the process of creating meaningful play, awareness, and dialogue.

57 Openended interactive forms in a fluid culture

A local TV station in Toronto named CityTV utilized individual narratives to foster community identity (Martin 67). In order to give attention to the public, the station installed Speaker’s Corner, which is a small video recording booth, located beneath the station office.

Anyone—even the rock artists, Barenaked Ladies—can go to the booth to record a message for fifteen seconds. The station then picks funny, intriguing, or inspiring messages to air during the downtime between programs.

L e v e l O n e: F i x e d

Hand-drawn Spaces by the openended group Hand-drawn Spaces is a virtual motion installation that explores 3D choreography. Loosely drawn, life-size figures dance to music that matches the choreography.

This installation was first produced in 1998, later refurbished in 2009.

In this experience, the viewer is passively observing the performance on screen. Thus, the interaction is a linear and “fixed� form.

L e v e l T w o: F i x e d b u t Va r i e d

Diesel Spring summer 2010 Video catalogue This interactive video catalogue is disguised as a music video, “100 Lovers” by Josep. However, when the user’s mouse is on ‘rollover,’ the music video stops and the piece transforms into a dynamic browsing utility. Users can click through the film stills to check out what outfits the performers are wearing.

This is an example of a “fixed but varied” model. All outcomes are preset—such as the links to each piece of clothing—yet the order the catalogue is browsed in is determined by the user.

L e v e l T h r e e: Va r i e d

Axe 100 Girls In this campaign, male guests are invited to upload a picture of themselves to be “judged” by one hundred girls in a room (which, in reality, is simulated code.)

This interactive experience is “varied” due to its preprogrammed, albeit flexible nature. Depending on the picture that is uploaded, it executes unique results.

L e v e l F o u r: O p e n

YouTube video: people singing Hey Jude, T-Mobile’s Life’s for Sharing Flashmob, smartmob-type of events fits the “Open” model because the event relies on the participation of individuals en masse. The public contributes their time, energy, and in this case, voice, to create an experience.

L e v e l F i v e: F l u i d

TweetLeak by Jens Wunderling Tweetleak illustrates how a project given to the hands of the public can transform and grow. First, the Tweets are collected from people’s Twitter page. (In other words, the content is generated from pre-existing sources.)

The tweets are printed from a console in public space.

Anyone can interact with the tweets, such as reading them, stealing them, and sticking the stickers in a physical space. For instance, the background image is an example of a tweet being stuck to a wall in Berlin.

Chapter Four: Visual Project The concept of openness is demonstrated by experimentations of new media art and the development of digital technology. Due to these factors, our society is developing to become more and more open. The public increasingly has more power due to technological tools. Digital media, specifically social media such as YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, and Yelp, are sites where individuals can share information and create trends. Thus, we do not react passively to the information around us; instead, we are constantly engaged in a giveand-take exchange. As a result, design has changed from producing stagnant material to increasingly participatory experiences.

@Pratt‌ The @Pratt sticker project uses a playful, comical approach to establish dialogue within the Pratt Manhattan community. I have been a student in the Graduate Communications Design program for almost two years. Overtime, I have developed personal insights on the strengths and flaws of my school experience. For my own record, I perceive Pratt as a friendly, supportive learning environment that has allowed me to grow as a designer. However, I noticed from the beginning that our school lacks an overall Pratt identity. Specifically, I recognize that students from the Pratt Manhattan campus commonly feel disjointed from the life on Pratt’s main campus in Brooklyn.

Graphic identity for @Pratt...

70 Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

Field study To be sure that my opinion is not biased, I conducted interviews to see how other students felt about Pratt Manhattan (PM), Brooklyn (PB), and the school overall. The results were similar to the opinions I had made. When asked about the difference between PMand PB, all responses echoed that it was like Pratt has “two separate identities,” and feels like “two different worlds.”

Based on my information, I drew a Venn diagram to help distinguish the possible connections that would help unite Pratt and reduce PM students’ perception of feeling alienated. The main differences between PB and PM are the visual aesthetic of the campuses, dynamic of student life, and characteristics of physical space. For instance, PB is located near dormitories and has abundant student facilities while the PM campus is a forty-minute commute away and has no cafeteria or gym. There is a contrast in student dynamics, such that most students are graduate level at the PM campus, whereas there is a undergraduate majority on the Brooklyn campus.

Brainstorm From these observations, I started by noting factors that were immutable. For one, the distance between the two campuses will always remain unchanged. (Unless the City of New York magically acquires enough funds to build a new subway line in the near future.) Second, I cannot change the physical space, such that there is objectively not enough space at PM for each student to have his or her own studio desk.

In one idea, I thought about staging a “flash mob” event, such that students from PB and PM will switch campuses for a day. (I termed it, “Open Campus Week.”) However, when hammering out the details, there were many logistical issues. Furthermore, I was dumbfounded at how I could get students from both sides to willingly travel a universally detested commute.

71 Visual project

Brooklyn Visual

Student life

Physical space

. older . “castle-like” . rustic

. undergraduate . more spirit events . more lectures, academic events

. larger campus . dormitory, cafeteria, library, gym . more academic facilities . distant from train . located in Brooklyn

. art school . mix of ages . multinational

. undergraduate & graduate . located in New York City . academic structure

Visual

Student life

Physical space

. “modern” . “just a floor”

. graduate level & continuing studies . department based social activity . Communications Committee . detached from other departments . not as energetic

. . . .

Manhattan

limited facilities no cafeteria distant from other campus located in Manhattan

72 Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

In the midst of my frustration, I came across a fan page on Facebook titled, “You Know You Go To [This College] When:” Curiously, I clicked the link and was surprised at the amount of conversation generated on the group. The members were not limited to a certain niche; in fact, the fans were of different genders, years, departments, and social cliques. Regardless of the differences, people were commenting and joking around with inside jokes about what makes their school unique.

This marked the starting point of @Pratt… I took the idea of using a word meme, such as “You know you go to...” and made it specific to the Pratt community.

Concept development Further inspiration came from the Yellow Arrow Project, Walk., This Is Public Health campaign, and the OBEY sticker campaign. I noticed that conversations were strictly taking place in the digital space, such that the content was limited to the webpage. (Hence, Clay Shirky’s phrase, “every webpage is a latent community.”) I, on the other hand, was interested in extracting the information and allowing students to produce dialogue directly in their viceral environment. Yellow Arrow, Walk., etc. all incorporated physical media as a way to link dialogue with a location. This prompted me to create stickers with the header “@Pratt…” as a way for people to physically tag our school with original conversation.

The interaction has two parts: first, the user takes a sticker and fills in the blank; next, they stick the sticker in a physical space that best corresponds to their message. Yet, to make this process not only open but also fluid, there needed to be a way for conversations to grow and evolve.

The Nokia Vine smartphone application designed by R/GA provided a source of inspiration. The application records photos, videos, songs, texts, voice messages, etc. to form a “multimedia map of [the user’s] life.” As people go about their day, they can log their interactions in the specific spot that a picture was taken or a video

was shot (R/GA). For my project, I incorporated an @Pratt Sticker Log, a smartphone application that allows students to discuss and comment on a sticker. It acts like a “sticker book� that records the stickers a user encounters as they wander through the campuses.

Design implementation: production and marketing Once the visual design was finalized, I kicked off the event by printing my own stickers at home, and later ordering from a printer. (I was able to customize the homemade versions so that the instructions appeared on the back peel.) However, as those ran out, I made miniature signboards as a way to inform the public. This method was useful; the vertical signs gained more visibility than the stickers lying flat on a table. I scattered the signboards and a stack of stickers on each floor of Pratt Manhattan, and two on the 7th floor.

In Brooklyn, I left the same set up in the Student Activities Office, a student lounge, and at the pizza parlor across from campus.

74 Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

I used social media, such as Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter, as a way to gain exposure. I created a website atpratt.com as a hub to connect all the social media profiles together. The website includes a brief explanation about the project, instructions for the stickers, a twitter feed, Flickr slideshow, and links to the pages. The website address is printed on the front of the sticker, so individuals can retrieve more information.

Additionally, I decided to host a sticker party to promote my project.

Stickers are fun; thus, a “party” reflects similar attributes. The @ Pratt Sticker Party was hosted on March 25th, 5PM. Students could fill out stickers, talk into a video camera about what they think about Pratt, and grab a bite to eat. What was successful about this event was that it captured the attention of individuals who were unaware about the project before. Subsequently, the event impelled an abundance of new stickers to be posted around campus.

For Brooklyn, I veered tactics. Instead of staging my own event, I decided to bombard and “infiltrate” existing student activities, such as the International Food Fair and Spring Fest. By talking to a large crowd of students, I was able to efficiently distribute stickers. Often times, I handed a small stack to individuals so they can pass the sticker along to their friends; this way, the stickers were dispersed through existing nodes of the student body. Furthermore, pictures from the event were posted onto @Pratt’s social network pages for people to comment. When people know their picture is taken and will be made public; thus, it creates an incentive for people to visit the website and learn more.

Flyer for @Pratt sticker party.

Visual Documentary

Making stickers Distributing stickers @Pratt Sticker Party International Food Fair Spring Fest Stickers in the community Website + social networking pages

First stack of stickers printed + cut

Stickers loitering around brooklyn campus

Pizza from across the Brooklyn Campus

@Pratt sticker party, March 25th, Pratt Manhattan

84 Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

85 Visual project

International Food Fair, March 27th, Pratt Brooklyn

88 Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

89 Visual project

Spring Fest, April 9th Pratt Brooklyn

92 Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

93 Visual project

94 Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

95 Visual project

stickers posted in the community

98 Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

99 Visual project

atpratt.com

Social Networking sites

@Pratt Sticker Log: Interactive smartphone application design brief The @Pratt Sticker Log is a mobile application that raises conversation about the stickers posted in the community. The log allows people to comment and interact with a sticker by taking a picture, text message, video, or voice recording. The application is not an all-inclusive library of posted stickers (such as Yellow Arrow’s Flickr site that documents the project’s activity.) Instead, the function of the application is for users to collect stickers he or she personally comes across. The process is more like a scavenger hunt; and the Sticker Log is like the treasure chest.

Once perceived by the augmented reality device, the application directly loads and saves the sticker onto the user’s Sticker Log. Each sticker acts as a container of dialogue. (Metaphorically speaking, if the log was a website, each sticker would have its own webpage that contains the responses contributed by other people.) Furthermore, the Sticker Log aims to foster a community. Users can vote on stickers, such that a sticker with the most votes and comments is titled “Sticker of the Week.” Consequently, these stickers are updated on the “Global Log,” a sticker Hall of Fame, which appears on each user’s application. Thus, special recognition provides further incentive for users to comment and interact.

The Sticker Log adds a secondary layer of dialogue to the @Pratt project. By using mobile technology, the life of conversation extends beyond the physical artifact. As more people comment and post multimedia responses, the dialogue acquires an open, fluid form. For instance, a sticker that reads, “We need a cafeteria,” can evolve into a quirky conversation that demands Pratt to purchase a coffee bar, tea station, and more. Thus, the Sticker Log represents open-ended, spontaneous, and unique forms of interactivity.

Storyboard

1. Student A writes down a comment about the new printing policy at school.

2. She sticks the sticker next to the printer in the lab.

5. Student B notices the sticker by the printer...

6. And reads the note.

105 Visual project

3. She posts the sticker onto the Sticker Log application so other people can leave feedback.

4. The next day in the lab, Student B needs to print from the black and white printer.

7. She holds up her smartphone to activate the Sticker Log’s augmented reality sensor.

8. Once she has signed in, the application takes her directly to the sticker she has just sensed.

Scenario

Posting a New Sticker Jason is a student at Pratt Graduate Communications Design department. He designed a pattern to be die-cutted with the laser cutter and was excited that the lab had one to use. However, everytime he went to laser-cut his materials, it was broken.

One day he was walking in the hallway and saw a poster for the @ Pratt sticker party with FREE FOOD. Of course he wants free food, so he went to check it out. There, he met the founder of @Pratt sticker project and she described the sticker process. He remembered how peeved he was at the laser cutter, so he grabbed a sticker and wrote: “@Pratt…the laser cutters don’t like me.” He went to the lab and stuck the sticker on the shutdown laser cutter. He wanted to get votes on his comment so he took a picture of his sticker and “registered” it by using his smartphone application. He went to the lab and stuck the sticker on the shutdown laser cutter. He was curious if other students felt the same frustration, plus, he wanted his sticker to have recognition. As a result, he decided to post his sticker onto the Pratt Sticker Log Network, the @Pratt smartphone application, so people can leave comments.

A few weeks later, he checks back and people have left comments ranging from, “Don’t say anything bad about dear Pratt!” to “The laser cutter ruined my life as well.” He received 20 votes and was the “Sticker of the week!”

107

Task Flow

Register 1. Enter Pratt email account 2. Enter password 3. Retype password 4. Save Sticker Log [browse] 1. Hold phone to augmented reality sensor 2. Enter password in welcome screen 3. Enter application 4. Current sticker loads 5. Selects post message button 6. Types message 7. Posts message to sticker 8. Scrolls through responses by other users 9. Selects video response 10. Plays video response 11. Stops video 12. Scrolls through responses 13. Clicks on photo response to enlarge 14. Closes photo 15. Hits sticker’s “Like” button to cast vote 16. Exits application

Task Analysis post new sticker [Photo] take photograph upload photograph cancel photograph delete photograph [Text comment] new/start message message box (type message) upload comment delete comment cancel comment [Voice recording] start voice rec. stop voice rec. playback voice rec. play, stop, pause, forward, rewind upload voice rec delete voice rec [Video recording] start video rec. stop video rec. playback video rec. play, stop, pause, forward, rewind upload video rec delete video rec [Post new sticker] [Delete new sticker] [Tag new sticker] [Mark location of new sticker] [Create sticker title] [Save sticker information]

sticker Log

[Photo] take photograph upload photograph cancel photograph delete photograph

[Search personal log] date found location tag title

[Text comment] new/start message message box (type message) upload comment delete comment cancel comment

[Sticker map] select sticker next sticker previous sticker back to map

[Voice recording] start voice rec. stop voice rec. playback voice rec. play, stop, pause, forward, rewind upload voice rec delete voice rec [Video recording] start video rec. stop video rec. playback video rec. play, stop, pause, forward, rewind upload video rec delete video rec [Like sticker] Like button Unlike button [Tag sticker] Tag button delete tag button

[Personal library] view/edit favorites view/edit bookmarked view/edit uploaded stickers Global Log [sticker of the week] [archive] Login [enter email] [enter password] [remember login] [logout] Create account [enter email] [enter password] [save information]

109 Visual project

Interact with sticker

Site Map

111 Visual project

Wireframes

113 Visual project

Visual Design

115 Visual project

Conclusion Openness is hard to define simply because the word holds various interpretations. However, this thesis establishes three distinct qualities of how this concept applies to design: spontaneity, collaboration, and evolution. These characteristics determine the way we create forms, apply methods, and think as designers.

Openness is an examination of the intersections between new media art, technology, design and social media; it seeks to explain how each of these topics influence one another. The field of new media is comprised of artists and designers who give meaning to technology. It is a way for individuals to critique our social world, such as The File Room by Muntundas who sought to exploit the issue of censorship.

Fusing technology with art became a way to examine and explore our environments, such as building virtual reality installations. Thus, new media was a realm for artists and innovators to experiment with how technology affected people, and thus, society at large. It marks the frontier of interactive digital media that later inspired social, collaborative projects, such as Dialtones, an interactive performance

by Golan Levin et. al. during the Ars Electronica Festival, 2001. The concert was conducted by coordinating audience members’ mobile phones, which were dialed by performers during the show to produce a “diverse range of unprecedented sonic phenomena.�

Technology was not a medium limited to artists and professional innovators; due to the commercialization of the Internet and growth of telematics, it quickly became ubiquitous in our social lives as well. Our societal landscape transformed, such that it allowed for mass communication between groups of people to happen and a wealth of information to be widely accessible. Consequently, social media became one of the prevalent ways of how our society communicates. Sites such as Facebook and Twitter are leading utilities in the way people exchange dialogue. Open-source and crowd-sourcing phenomenons are an example of how we interact

118 Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

under a participatory, collaborative process. For example, flash mobs are a type of public event that uses a many-to-many communication platform to create awareness and generate dialogue.

Inevitably, designers responded to the changes happening around them. Tim Brown coined the concept design thinking, which urges designers to use design as a way to resolve larger social problems than traditional commercial tasks. AIGA, the dominant coalition for designers, embraces a divergent view as well, such as points illustrated in their “Designer of 2015” manifesto. Thus, openness is characterized by the type of thinking practiced by many who believe that design plays a broader role in our lives.

Furthermore, it is important to understand that interaction is complex. Interactivity is not simply about making a website interface, it is more about understanding a community and the dialogue interchanged. For instance, Speaker’s Corner by CityTV incorporated an interactive video booth for members of their community to record video messages to be aired in between programs. Walk. by StudioElastik maps an interactive narrative within a neighborhood, which creates a second layer of identity in physical space.

Most importantly, interactivity exists on a continuum. I devised the Openness Continuum to describe the varying levels of user involvement. The continuum is largely influenced by Lev Manovich’s terms “closed” and “open” interactivity as defined in his text, The Language of New Media. The principal difference between early and late stages is that latter stages embody participatory versus reactive interactions. When users contribute an original expression, results are often unpredictable, whimsical, and unique.

Spontaneity, collaboration, and evolution became the basis for my visual project, @Pratt... The @Pratt stickers used a verbal meme to provoke dialogue within the Pratt community. Due to the broad nature of the project, the responses were open-ended and spontaneous, such that messages ranged from personal secrets to

The Sticker Log smartphone application adds an additional layer of conversation, such that members could give feedback when they encounter a sticker in physical space. The application utilizes many of the prominent multimedia functionalities, such as uploading photos, text messages, video, and voice recordings. Additionally, the Sticker Log contains a social objective. Besides commenting, users can vote on their favorite sticker to be nominated “Sticker of the Week.” Thus, @Pratt represents an open interactive experience where users are not complacent, but are active contributors to the process.

Evolution describes the last stage of the Openness Continuum.

A “fluid” model is an open system that evolves under the factor of time. When individuals participate and contribute, results are favorable to shifts and changes. As a result, time alters the way we interact and give meaning to the world around us. The fluid stage embodies how our current society adapts and advances.

For instance, when new technological devices are invented, it is not relevant until it is integrated into public use; hence, public consumption determines the vitality of technology.

The importance of openness can be stated in two parts. First, openness is inevitable. Our society is constantly changing under new technological advances and shifting social affairs; as a result, designers need to adopt openness as a way to observe and understand the world which we are designing for. Second, openness is a way for designers to explore the world beyond commercial intents of traditional design. Open-ended, interactive forms can highlight dialogue and narrative of a community. These stories are often spontaneous, whimsical, and intimate. Thus, practicing openness as a form, method and thinking can add insights to our environment, our culture, and most importantly, ourselves.

119 Conclusion

criticisms. (For instance, the most “shocking” sticker posted was an out-of-place comment about our chairperson’s attractiveness: “Is it wrong that I think Jeff is kind of hot?”) Thus, the project aims to use playful and collaborative interaction to reveal narratives about Pratt.

Acknowledgments I owe a thank you to Jean Brennan, my thesis advisor, for her continuous guidance and shrewd reminder that in the end, thesis is “what [I] make of it.” Seven thank yous to my diverse and talented classmates for their insightful feedback and inspiration. Lastly, thank you to my friends and family—specifically my parents—for their unconditional support.

Openness was not only a paper, visual project, or requirement for a Master’s degree. It was a process. Thus, I look at this thesis not as a completed package, but as another step in my continuum of learning.

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126 Openness: Form, Method, and Thinking

Images Pg 13. Glynn, Ruairi. Performative Ecologies. 2007. JPEG. Pg 15. Glembin, John. Healing Pool. 2008. JPEG Pg 17. Lialina, Olia. My Boyfriend Came Back From The War. Screenshot, JPEG. Pg 19. Twitter.com. Screenshot, JPEG. Pg 19. Yelp.com. Screenshot, JPEG. Pg 20. Utterback, Camille. Abundance. 2007. JPEG. Pg 26. Zimmerman, Eric. Lego Junkbot. Three images, JPEG. Pg 29. Agns, Michelle V. “Brooklyn Children’s Museum, Bang a can.” The New York Times. 18 Sept 2008. JPEG. Pg 31. Ramey, Emma. I Can No Longer Think. Screenshot, JPEG. Pg 37. Wong, Tobias. 24hrs of pure silver leaf. 1998. JPEG. Pg 39. St. George, Paul. The Telectroscope. 2008. JPEG. Pg 41. Antenna Design. Power Flower. 2002. JPEG. Pg 42. Antenna Design. Sidewalk Series. 2006. JPEG. Pg 45. Roth, Evan. TSA Communications. 2008. JPEG. Pg 46. Reiss, Richard. 2009-12-17-IMG_2592. 2009. JPEG. Pg 46. Reiss, Richard. 2009-12-17-IMG_2613. 2009. JPEG. Pg 49. This Is Public Health. 2010. Screenshot, JPEG. Pg 49. Delightful. “Wash your hands!” This Is Public Health Flickr Group. 23 Oct 2009. JPEG. Pg 50. Sumeera. Urballoon. 245 14 Sept 2009. JPEG. Pg 50. Gomez De Llarena, Carlos J. “Graffiti everywhere.” Urballoon.

9 Sept 2009. JPEG. Pg 50. Carlos. “City of Dreams.” Urballoon. 18 Sept 2009. JPEG.

Pg 50. Pinto, Mateo. “City tag.” Urballoon. 18 Sept 2009. JPEG. Pg 50. Fred. “Paris.” Urballoon. 18 Sept 2009. JPEG. Pg 50. Eyebeam. “balloon_cityhall_sm.” Urballoon. 2009. JPEG. Pg 52. Studio Elastik. “Path.” Walk. 2004. JPEG. Pg 52. Studio Elastik. “Stencils.” Walk. 2004. JPEG. Pg 52. Studio Elastik. “Public Voice Box.” Walk. 2004. JPEG. Pg 54. Yellow Arrow. 2004.

Pg 54. New Urban. “Yellow Arrow #g3034.” Land/Mark. JPEG. Pg 56. Glow Lab. One Block Radius. Screenshot, JPEG. Pg 56. Ray Christina. “Mesa Vertigo—new store.” One Block Radius.

16 Mar 2004. JPEG.

All other images were personally taken.

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Pg 50. Carlos. “The window cleaner at MoMa.” Urballoon. 18 Sept 2009. JPEG.