LILIAS ADAIR This book is a collation of the work I’ve undertook throughout my second year on the Goldsmiths BA Design course. Enjoy with popcorn.
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contents, escape, LOOP 4
ism, HECTOLECTICS
live, THE PEOPLE’S FEED
CRITICAL REFLECTION
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escape,
LOOP
Lilias Adair COLLABORATION Jean-Luc Ambridge-Lavelle, Roni Ben-Tsruya, Hayley Bruford, Aino Tiovinen 21.09.15 5
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INTRO When ants lose track of the ant in front, they will continue to walk in a circle until they die of exhaustion. Naturally, this is called the Circle of Death. Similar motions occur in our own instinctive movements. Have you ever found yourself lost in a forest walking in circles? When you misplace yourself in sets that appear symmetrical and repetitive, such as forests or hotel corridors, you begin to loop back on your movements, repeating them again and again. Around and around and around you go until you realise looping doesn’t get you anywhere‌ Natural patterns of repetition are also witnessed in other human performances. When attempting to run away or escape we may visit the same bank everyday, eat similar foods at similar times, sleep for the same hours each night. This makes us easy to trace, captured by
our own habitual tendencies,
escape, L O O P
ndenci e t e l ua
r ou
u
le to ev b a n e
y es c a p r ul e rt
s
unable to ever truly escape...
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own hab i t
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PROCESS To establish our escape we first wanted to understand escape as a concept. We speculated on the relentless repetitive cycle of escaping; there will ultimately always be another situation to which you’ll want/need to escape. We began by using journeys to investigate what escape means, We embraced and fetishised escape by attempting to disorientate ourselves. Journeys are a good place to initially explore as they are easily accessible and act as reminders of the repeated notions we each encounter every day. It is a good place to start any project by using what you can easily access i.e. journeys. I often find myself analysing the forgotten, instinctive aspects of human habits and what they reveal about the expectations of us in a modern society. This project allowed me to use familiar routines to explore what these mean for us as a human collective.
PHOTOS Hayley Bruford
LOOP
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JOURNEYS//INDIVIDUAL ZOMBIES
9:30am 1. Go to the nearest station/stop and go north/ west for 6 stops. 2. Exit station 3. Spin on the spot for 10 seconds and go 3 minutes in that direction 4. Ask someone where the nearest supermarket is, head in the opposite direction for 3 junctions. 5. Ask someone to suggest somewhere to eat (get coffee/glass of water there) 6.Take the first bus for 10 stops. 7. Make your way to Crystal Palace overground station.
We all were given the same instructions but took different approaches in how we documented our separate journeys. I chose to photograph the points where i felt most lonely and anxious. Aino photographed a clear symbol of each stage of instruction. Hayley documented the movements of her feet, highlighting the repetitive motions in her journey. (see previous page)
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Performing tasks separately is beneficial for producing more material and adding varying dimensions and personality to the group process. For me it reveals something about the wider context of our society: We all fundamentally follow the same structure to our lives. We sleep at night, we wake up in the morning eat breakfast travel to work/uni etc. and yet we all have our own ways of doing these things, adding a personal layer to this communal narrative. We all do the same things just differently- like individual zombies.
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M A Z E // REPETITION// SYMMETRY// SPACIAL IMPOSSIBILITIES// INFINITE ARCHITECTURE// LOOPING//
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We often walk in circles, looping back on our movements when we are in spaces that appear symmetrical and repetitive. We experienced this during the group visit to the maze in Crystal Palace. The unnerving experience sparked an interest in disorientating, repetitive spaces and how we could design similar experiences using these. The spacial impossibilities in Stanley Kubrick’s ‘The Shining’ prompted our explorations into cinematography and how film can provoke a sense of confusion and interest within architecture. With this in mind, we began testing different filming techniques to create new architectures and our own cinematic illusions...
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ARCHITECTURE//ANTICIPATED OUTCOME
I often use shapes and diagrams so I can visualise and understand something in my own way before actually doing it. Shapes helped me a lot in this project, having a metaphysical image of a circle in my head helped to realise our process and the reason for doing things, in an abstract and free way. Here it helped me to understand how me and Aino’s movements could synch with the camera in a looping performance that utilizes the existing architecture to create the illusion that the person is changing around every corner.
k pan
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camera follows person A
CHOREOGRAPHED CORNER LOOPING PERFORMANCE key camera person A person B movement
existing space switch to person B
out of shot quick pan
camera follows person A
person A runs to next position
key camera person A person B movement
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PERFORMANCE//UNANTICIPATED OUTCOME
F I L M - 50 and 1 popcorns Aino Tiuvinen We wanted to understand the effects repetition can have through first hand experiences. Aino’s video appeared as a GIF as she mirrored each action of eating popcorn perfectly. When the viewer realises this we understand how boring this must have been, empathising with her struggle- creating an experience for both performer and viewer. I had felt really proud of how active we had been so far. There had been little discussions which tried to determine the direction of our project; we had been allowing our experiments and aspects in our research to guide our process.
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I have realised just how beneficial speed and documentation are for communicating our project successfully to others. I forced myself to work harder and document my future experiments without fretting too much about the aesthetic outcome, communicating clearly what you have learnt is what matters most.
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RESEARCH//
looping as a tool, Interrogating concepts often holds my gaze in my design practice. The project was becoming a critique or investigation of escape rather than deciphering a physical escape route and designing the tools to facilitate this. We were beginning to develop a conceptual understanding of ‘Escape’ in it’s entirety. Escape is infinite; you’ll never truly escape anything to which you are attempting to escape as it will always lead to another thing to which you’ll long to escape. You may leave your job, move to another city and yet your day still follows the same pattern. If escaping is impossible due to this eternal looping process then our only option is to fetishise it. Embrace the concept; use the looping as a tool to explore and investigate its presence in our surroundings. What will this expose? What wider meanings and implications are revealed? When does the circle break? Does it ever end? what are the
psychological limitations? We are trapped in our everyday repetitive lifestyles which don’t satisfy so we’ll always long to escape them. The German word Sehnsuct describes a deep emotional state of yearning and longing for something more than your reality whilst coping and trying to be happy with the situation you are in. Daily routines, and the fear they pose for losing individuality and identity, encapsulates the feeling of Sehnsucht. These findings offered a deeper meaning and wider area for our project to investigate and disclose.
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WORDS
Escape Attempts: The theory and practice of resistance to everyday life’ by Stanley Cohen and Laurie Taylor
There is simply something about such matters as brushing teeth, or putting on shoes that is inescapably habitual; this is a mode of consciousness, a mental technique for managing aspects of our paramount reality... The more predictable the life plan appears, the less we are able to sense ourselves as individuals possessing unique identities...Is this what our life is really about? Why is each day’s journey marked by feelings of boredom habit or routine? ...The clothes we wear, the food we eat, are visible reminders of
an awful sense of monotony. 21
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RESEARCH//
GIF Lilias Adair Prominent words in our project so far, When a word is repeated until it loses its meaning it is called Semantic satiation.-the breaking point of the repetition.
MODEL Aino Tiuvinen Small scale recreation of M.C, Escher’s ‘Penrose Staircase’ Using mountboard and glue. Used to aid understanding of illusions and how to create these in a 3D form.
MODEL Jean-Luc Lavelle Cardboard ‘augmented reality goggles’ used to immerse viewer in experience on screen, Inspired by augmented reality experience apps.
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SECOND HAND/
/FIRST HAND
/COMPLETE SYNERGY/
Sorting the work we’d done so far into first hand and second hand research allowed us to map the journey of our process and help determine our next direction. We were able to visualise at what points We had already been successfully exour experiments had crossed over ploring the most poignant points in our with our secondary research and secondary research (and vice versa) what needed to be explored further. and we worked hard to fill in the gaps in our research to create a complete synergy between our context research and personal investigations. I believe this is a major part of our process that ensured this project was a success.
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POST- PRODUCTION//
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Having closed the gaps in our research the group became interested in the effect post production can have on distorting, augmenting and alluding reality. We looked at gifs, broken gifs and ‘Augmented Reality’ apps.
THE STRUCTURE OF A GIF EPITOMIZES LOOPING, BROKEN GIF CAPTURE WHEN THIS REPETITION BREAKS... WHAT IF WE WERE TO APPLY THESE LOOPING STRUCTURES TO THE MUNDANE STRUCTURE OF OUR OWN LIVES?
Although I enjoyed the research and explorations with post-production I was worried at this point that focusing on post production would leave behind the more relatable, engaging elements to our ‘live’ experiments. I am more engaged with design that involves authentic experiences as they often give a more genuine, less strained outcome. I feel that these works leave room for interpretation and curious engagement from the user: What just happened? How did they do that? How is it possible?
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POST- PRODUCTION// F I L M - b r e a t h e ...h i c c u p Lilias Adair Exploring our own daily routines and cycles by either exaggerating, distorting or interrupting them. Helped our understanding of breaking points and we focused on producing films that evoked distress. I layered the natural regular sound of hiccuping over a video of me breathing slowly. Disjointed sound with visual gives unnerving effect. Also physical distress is witnessed as I get light headed from the deep breathing. DRINKING - Jean-Luc Ambridge Lavelle First sip of every drink, visibly drunker each time.
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EATING POPCORN - Aino Tuovinen layered with exaggerated sound. COFFEE - Roni Ben Tsruya Stop motion to exemplify amount of coffee consumed. URINATING - Hayley Bruford Interrupted weeing cycle throughout evening, Video diary of events- most successful as viewer can empathise with the struggle witnessed. 27
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LIVE PERFORMANCES //UNANTICIPATED OUTCOME
pushing routines, Where do we spend most of our lives? How much time do we spend making cups of tea, brushing our teeth, taking showers or on the toilet? What happens if we pushed a life time of actions into one scene? Repeating normality until it became surreal.
what will this reveal?
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We were becoming too concerned with the post-production in our films so the experiences had become forced. What became more interesting (and more of a challenge) was creating an experience for a viewer whilst we were experiencing something new ourselves through live action performances.
Focusing on the morning routine, each member of the group took one aspect: brushing teeth, washing hair, getting dressed, making tea, making toast. However we repeated each action taken in the normal routine and multiplied each action by ten; creating a 10x Purgatory of repetition.
TEA x10 Aino Tuovinen
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SHAMPOO x10 Lilias Adair
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LIVE PERFORMANCES //ROUTINES
ROUTINES X10: tap on, tap off x10 rinse hair x10 shampoo bottle up, bottle down x10 bottle open, squeezed out, bottle closed x10 lather shampoo x10 rinse hair x10 tap on, tap off x10
CONTROLLED ACTIONS: Physically draining: scalp burnt, hair very dry, soap in eyes stinging. Psychologically draining: unbelievably boring, made me consider how many times I’ve washed hair and how monotonous it is. I normally do it on autopilot but this time i really had to consider each step, making the whole situation very surreal whilst para-mounting my existing reality.
UNANTICIPATED OUTCOMES: We were forced to consider each action of the routines we normally have unthinking involvement with. Watching the rest of the groups performances I could also sympathise with their experiences. The whole experiment had made us reflect on the horror of our reality as we succumb to the monotonous nature of societal regularities through our morning routines.
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TOOTHBRUSH x10 Hayley Bruford
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MATERIAL //OBJECTS
purgatory of repetition, The destructive consequences of our most recent experiments (damage to taste buds, burnt scalps/hands and incarcerated toast) were beginning to layer a genre of horror over our project. We were beginning to build a narrative context to our designs- a purgatory of repetition and looping. What objects would need to exist to facilitate this repetition? What does this infinite world of loops look like?
how can we design for this? Designing repetitive materiality helped bring our project (and purgatory) to life. Working in a tactile manner helped to visually understand the context of our project. Placing symbols and mascots of replication in contexts where routines normally occur helped enhanced our engagement and affiliation withlooping and it’s prevalance in our every day lives.
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O B J E C T - Teethbrush Hayley Bruford
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MATERIAL //OBJECTS O B J E C T - Infinite Sock Roni Ben Tsruya
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O B J E C T - Never Ending Turtleneck Roni Ben Tsruya
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MATERIAL //ARCHITECTURE
materialising architecture again, Materialising an imagined environment where the never ending looping of routines exist. Can we utilise existing repetitive architecture with the use of filming techniques as a tool to create virtual and surreal spatial impossibilities? Can we construct a narrative using this meta architecture to engage and
disorientate the viewer?
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F I L M - Barbican, Barbican’t Lilias Adair Corner looping performance (p 17)
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MATERIAL //ARCHITECTURE
F I L M - Two by two Aino Tiovinen
Our continuous tests and experiments with creating impossible architectures meant we knew how to film each shot for the scenes that would feature in our film. We had worked out that quick pans and turns were the best way to link two spaces together, filming or editing footage to black and white made the illusion more convincing. Having people in the shots accentuated the impossibility of the spaces- appearing twice in one scene where it is not geographically conceivable.
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F I L M - Staircase Jean- Luc Lavelle
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LOOP human performances
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HOW CAN WE AMALGAMATE OUR PROCESS INTO
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A FILM FOLLOWING ONE ENGAGING NARRATIVE?
routines pushed to breaking point x looped architecture x looped
We worked hard to find a way to bring our impossible architectures and exaggerated routines together into one structure that illustrated our perception of escape. We aimed to create an immersive, engaging and distressing experience for the audience who would also unknowingly participate in our performance. Narrative of our film needn’t be explicit, Architecture could be used as interesting structural narrative that holds the scenes of routines being pushed to breaking point. The project had worked around a looping structural shape so made sense to use this to pull project together.
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DIARY//MAKING OF FILM
PLANNING: Discussed and planned possible ways could use architecture as a structure to expose this strange narrative of the every day routine reaching breaking point. We drew different diagrams which helped us visualise the structure and the choreography of the camera movements. Decided that the camera could be a character (nicknaming it ‘Cameron’) which is walking through this strange purgatory of infinite architecture that doesn’t make sense, from this architecture he’d enter a room where a different ‘mundane everyday routine’ would feature. Cameron would dip in and out of witnessing these scenes and each time the scene would progress to breaking point then repeat again. MUNDANE TO BREAKING POINT SCENES: I took on the acting role which meant I endlessly had to repeat the routines , enhancing my new feelings of distress towards my monotonous life style. Toothbrushing: Fake blood gradually gets incorporated till mouth is filled with blood and carry on brushing teeth. Tried different versions of filming to make sure the scene would fit seamlessly with the architecture footage. 1. Quick pan in from left of frame, 2. Quick pan in from right 3. Slower pan in from left 4. Slower pan in from right. We ended up using all the quick pan in from left shots as they were the easiest to fit seamlessly with the connected architectural loop.
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IMPOSSIBLE ARCHITECTURE SCENES: A lot of our time was spent re-shooting the architecture scenes. We were naive in thinking the routines would easily fit with the previous shot scenes of spaces. In hindsight we should have sorted the routine scenes first. I learnt a lot from my peers in this project about precision and dedication to producing the most perfect shots possible. I have developed an understanding of the viewer and to not take it for granted that “they probably won’t even notice”
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film, Through general investigation, our main focus was psychological limitations of escaping; how they effect the space in which we exist. Specifically our ‘paramount realities.’ By distorting the timescale of these spaces we have created a perpetual state of existence in a constructed architectural fabrication through post production. The metaphysical scale our project focuses on an in-finite structure. There is nothing larger than infinity. However when we consider the scale of the tools we used to explore the infinite loop, we approach the world on a much smaller scale. The mundane. The everyday. The routine. These daily tasks use instinctive and often unconsidered actions and by stretching, exaggerating and fetishising these innate performances, we bring discomfort to everyday reality. What if we were to push these forgotten tasks to breaking point? Imagine a world where brushing your teeth took a whole day, we concealed our eyes with layers of makeup and we were bound by the restrictions of never ending clothing. We have trapped our own instinctive routines in to an infinite loop of Purgatory.
e timescale of these spaces we have created a per torting th petual state o s.’ By dis f existe realitie nce in
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LOOP
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LAYERS//FILM//PERFORMANCE
ARCHITECTURE The looping architecture acted as both a confusing narrative structure and a representation of the passing of time between each stage of the routine scenes. The spaces created were fast pace and visually disorientating creating an uneasy experience for the audience.
ROUTINES The everyday routine scenes represent our often unconsidered paramount realities. Fetishising them highlights their presence in our lives. The audience are free to decide how they feel about this, though the horror element may sway them in a negative direction!
BREAKING POINT Pushing the routines to breaking point represented the psychological consequences of repetition in our daily lives. Visualising at what point they broke and then repeating the same actions enhanced the inescapability to routine and the everyday we are all subject to.
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PERFORMANCES//REALITY These performances were used to emphasize that the reality of the film plays tribute to our own realities and the inescapable monotonity of our every day lives. - Nervous twitching from group members in-front of screen - Audience repetitively eating popcorn - Character opens door at end The audience were unable to disengage from the continuous notion of eating popcorn, contributing to the performance whilst emphasising they too advocate the reality of this purgatory. The film’s main character enters the room, metaphorically handing the film over to our reality. The film on its own, without the added performative layer is designed to loop for eternity. Enjoy with popcorn.
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REF LEC T ION The Escape project was based around the conceptual idea of escape being an infinite loop. This gave me a meta circular shape to base my affiliations with the project around. This seemingly simple concept grew with the project, the project’s work split itself into architecture and routines. We applied our looping concept to these forms, expanding them further and further then refining them to a solid and succinct outcome. Repetition has huge prevalence in our daily lives, but this is often unconsidered. Through our general investigations we were heightened to the repetition in our existing situations, we became concerned with our daily routines exploring how far we could push them. Exploring how we could escape them arriving at the conclusion that no we could not. These explorations all went hand in hand with our theory based research which only intrigued us further. Psychological limitations of looping underpinned our project through our daily lives and our physical surroundings- two areas we can never escape. I really thrived in this way of working, using the micro -in the forms of circles but also the every day mundane and blowing these out of proportions, using them to understand bigger unconsidered or unrealised areas of my own situation and surroundings. I am
fascinated by the most taken for granted aspects of human existence- routines, habits, journeys, stories- the micro patterns that make us human. How these expose that we are all products of the same society that we all shape whilst it shapes us. I worked really hard on this project as I was challenging and questioning the concept of escape but within my means, I was able to use what I could access and understand -my everyday routine as an action, myself as a tool and my camera to record. This made me comfortable but also then pushed me to explore further, try out different camera techniques, I had confidence as I was constantly producing and I wasn’t out of my depth. That isn’t to say I didn’t find it challenging, there were aspects that really pushed my capabilities I had to be thorough and neat and determined to get the right shot when filming. I had to communicate clearly with other team members if I was directing, this year has forced me to be more articulate and I am really glad this has improved.
With this opportunity to reflect I have begun to bring my own understanding of the film and the project process and what it reveals. The project has revealed the reality of the habitual monotonous lives that we try to disregard and ignore. It has made me question how we fit into a contemporary society that expects us to be individuals whilst forcing upon us a predictable map of actions. With a more profound affiliation with the meaning behind the project I will begin to explore these elements further. - I have taken on board the advice given to us in our feedback to revisit the project. - I will use a map of the process, developed from the map of film layers, to help determine what I work on,- visualising areas where I felt there is opportunity for synthesis. -I have also used the generation tool, designed in the ‘Ism’ project, to aid my consideration for the project. (see page.)
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I have developed the diagram I made for the film process to suit the over all map of the process. I feel as though although the project is complete and has a solid outcome, The explorations into Architecture and Routines never crossed passed through a performance in itself.
I want to find performances that could bring the two together. Whether this be a performance of a routine that incorporates the architecture or a space where these two naturally exist.
Bringing these three together will create a trialectic discourse between the three entities bringing them together. I am really interested in these areas of synthesis and room for synergy in my design practice and feel they will enrich my practice.
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E X PA N SION
horror? Due to the often painful results of our routine experiments our project naturally picked up a genre of horror. We took our film quite far down the horror route and forced a negative opinion of routines upon our audience. There are positives to routines in peoples lives- they can be a space to think whilst absent mindly keeping your body focused on a task for example, “I have some of my best ideas whilst shaving or brushing my teeth.�
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Letting the routine scenes of our film play out naturally to show what would actually happen (no fake blood, extended objects or scary faces pulled) would allow the audience the freedom to construct their own opinion about the natural looping of our lives. I feel the new footage we shot is perhaps not as strong, in terms of a visual experience for a viewer however I like the idea of showing a more natural performance, which is less forced and open to more interpretation. Would like to push this further, 10 times amount of toothpaste perhaps. foam foam foam.
natural,
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unnatural context, Placing the routine outside of its usual context allows the audience to consider the actions more. We exaggerated this routine in a live performance with no interruptions or enhancements, although the viewer cannot see the suffering, skin and scalp were burnt and the experiences behind the camera were still rather horrific.(I have just compensated for the drama you don’t see on screen.)
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I revisited the project briefly with Hayley Bruford and JeanLuc Ambridge Lavelle. We produced more footage and directed each other to suit where we’d like to take the project. We purposefully didn’t discuss too much about the meaning as we wanted to take ideas from these developments in different directions.
natural? 61
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makeup relay,
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LAYERS//FILM//PERFORMANCE
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Synergy between architecture and routine through choreographed performance. The connections between the architecture and routine scenes in our final film had been quite static despite the seamless cuts. I was interested to see how the camera , space and routine could all come together in one performance. This was a more challenging, engaging experience for both performers and viewer. The Rapid processing project undertaken latterly from this project has improved my understanding of the space you have to work with out of shot and how to utilise this area effectively. This year has broadened my knowledge of how to create illusions through filming- without post production. - The camera rig was simply a heater with wheels that the camera sat on. - Camera slowly moves along infront of the row of chairs - As each person is out of the shot they must quickly run around the back of the camera and take the seat on the next empty chair. - As sequence pans out performances continuously layer on makeup,
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consume, The makeup relay experiment made me consider the amount we relied on consumable products for our experiments and how this reflects our need for these products day to day. It prompted me to further question how consumer culture plays a role in our routines and rituals. Western society expects us to be clean, fresh and enhanced- How does consumerism cater for our ‘needs’/ how do our needs cater for consumerism. Supermarkets provide us with a repetitive space where everything is always in the same place, yet somehow we still get disorientated. Is this planned? Can I explore this through other
existing systems?
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Brinner? you must be mad. Routines encapsulate our ‘paramount realities’ and represent the conflict of society’s constructed norms. Consumer culture facilitates our routines and we contribute to this through our consumption, this creates an ontological discourse. We are part of a society that demands constant advancement and a break from the current traditions: the new generation of iphone, the new release of trainers noone can afford but still buy, the new anticipated update on a Kardashian’s augmented body. Helplessly the temporary breakouts slip back into paradigm- a new order is created from these that society will follow. Even those conscious of this cannot resist the urge to stay true to their patterns of every day life. We still use the same old toothpaste, wear the same old makeup, rock the same old hairstyle Brinner? Breakfast is always in the morning. You must be mad.
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prison of repetition. “well everyone knows that 5 times round the yard is a mile. So its just a case of keeping count... When we play chess its not best of 3 its best of 55 haha�
Anonymous family friend
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ism, H E C T O
HECTO
Lilias Adair COLLABORATION Hayley Bruford, Gabriella De Rosa, Katie Foster 09.11.15
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intro, Utopia will always become Dystopia when rights that were fought for become duties. Ideologies are utopian lenses that offer an alternative idealistic glaze to place over an incomplete world. Through a set of rules, restrictions and rituals that manifest their movements, ideologies respond with an imaginary relation that intends to advance the real conditions of existence. Forming in response to what they resist, a dialectic discourse then occurs between two binary opposing ideologies. In dialectics, contradiction between opposites is the force behind change; in trialectics, equilibrium between opposites is that force. Hectolectics believed in the power of trialectics to create change through otherness. Using the number 6 as a tool to advance trialectics, the Hectolectics were able to step out of the ideological field and examine it from above creating their own lens through which to perceive and consider the world.
ism, H E C T O
process,
The story of Hectolectics is told in these three phases: Narrativism, Hecto-Narrativism and Hectolectics. Narrativism takes a look into the power of the story, and how stories are a means of material which can be used to analyse and communicate with our surroundings. Hecto-Narrativism is a method of generating and considering elements from the world. It utilised the number six as a tool of enquiry- proving an insightful way to further understand the environment around us, problem solve, develop ideas and facilitate analysis of our movements through the project. Hectolectics is the creation of a flexible tool which linked and connected information from different areas to create new concepts; illustrating that change does not emerge from a single entity.
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LAYERS OF INTERPRETATION// INDIVIDUAL
NARRATIVISM Narratives hold an extensive degree of power in our lives- they are our chief means of understanding ourselves and our surroundings. Whether it be through personal diarys, blogs, social media, or our Tinder profiles we are all story tellers and we all have a story to tell. We possess the power to re-interpret stories; subverting, distorting, reconstructing them; adding our own narrative layers.
Narrative Identity Theory highlights the ways in which we ruminate over our lives, re-writing our pasts in an attempt to predetermine our future narratives. These individual narratives are an interpretation of the self (Paul Ricouer, 1994). They always embody signs, rules and norms, enabling wider public understanding as often the signification of words speak louder than the words themselves. With these concepts in mind, the Narrativists emerged.
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BACK STORY: In this exercise we asked three tutors to write down anything they wanted. We then created an imagined narrative from a combination of these written thoughts. The new narrative had changed the meaning of the original words and it was difficult to disconnect both accounts from one another, This introduced us to layers of narrative and understanding the power stories have to change perception.
I love you This pen doesn’t work very well The last laugh is always the hardest The boy wrote the word in white ink on white card. She’d see the congratulatory message of her recent wedding but underneath is the message, right there in front of her. He loves her. 81
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LAYERS OF PERCEPTION//
This exercise was investigating whether it is possible to capture the complete narrative of a space in one situation. The stories crossed paths and personalities shone through the observations, A more engaging narrative was created, highlighting the effect an individual can have on one situation. 1. Collect an account from A,B, C and D about situation X. 2. Compare.
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C COLLECT AN ACCOUNT FROM A, B AND C ABOUT SITUATION X. COMPARE. X - Goldsmiths Library window 1st floor 11:28am- 11:30am.
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‘doors opening’ “I walk into the lift” ‘lift going down’ “I press ground floor button and close-” ‘doors closing’
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NARRATIVE JOURNEYS//
SITUATION- RICHARD HOGGART BUILDING PERFORMANCE- NARRATED JOURNEY, LAYERED The narrativists combined their explorations into narrative layers of perception and interpretation into journeys. They used language to narrate their journeys, this soon became a flexible, complex tool that created a reflective discourse between themselves and their surroundings.
SPACE/ SITUATION
JOURNEY 1- NARRATOR JOURNEY 2- REINTERPRETATION 3RECEIVER
In this experiment three members take three separate impromptu journeys, recording an audio commentary of the movements and surroundings throughout. Each Narrativist makes impulsive choices creating an individual narrative. Once the loop of the first journey is completed, audio recordings are exchange between participants . Each interpreter retraces the steps of the given recording. They interpret and remap the previous individual’s venture whilst recording another commentary of their discovery, which will undoubtedly be affected/influenced/ distorted by the original recording. This recording is swapped for a second time back at the start and interpreted once again by the receiver.
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I’ve come to a bench and there’s a leaflet on there
spotty carpet.
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TOOL- LANGUAGE Through the use of hermeneutic linguistics our perception of reality, is distorted by a discourse of interpretation. Michael Foucault describes linguistics as a tool used in an attempt to fill a gap between us and the physical world. If we were to infinitely loop this layering of fiction in the Narrativists experimental journey, the spoken words would endlessly unravel into an incomprehensible perversion of reality.
During the first journeys language had helped us feel connected to our surroundings, during the reinterpretations however language quickly became a means to distance us from the space. Having to play close attention to the sounds meant we were influenced by the recording, forced to experience the space through the previous narrators eyes. This highlights the power of the space between the sign and the signification of language and to what degree it can be distorted. This reflective discourse between the two is symbolic of the Narrativist’s ideology. We wanted to control the distortion of this further by making the journeys more stressful and confusing. These experiments made us question how narratives can be used as a means to control. Ideologies are often based on a set of rules and restrictions so it made sense to explore these to our advantage. Limitations can make people more creative, as there is heightened stress which can increase impulsiveness. We set out to find a suitable boundary to place over our ‘ism’.
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SIX WORD CONSTRAINTS
for sale baby shoes never worn
Ernest Hemmingway claimed that he could write a novel in six words and demonstrated that working within constraints can have invigorating consequences: It seems impossible but Hemmingway was able to set up an enticing narrative with very few words. The reader creates their own back story of the six word story, contributing our own new layer to the narrative, The Narrativists were determined to use this limitation of 6 words in their journeys of spaces and beyond. They used six word sentences to narrate the spaces they travelled through, recording as they went to produce enticing, often cryptic, layers for the perceivers and interpreters to make sense of.
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Leave at nest where objects stand Alone, green floor turns to grey Window tape, stairwell blue, make escape Boiler room, mouse trap, towards trunk Liquid over-head, liquid under toe Computer chair, drain the bike man Builders stack coloured block, scrap metal Graffiti on wall, grey on ground Climbing the criss-cross floor, step up Knock knock knock its open, walk Approach tool and see the yellow Pass Dartmoor, lounging sun and squares Into small space, costa cups coupled March the isle, behold the nest. 91
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SIX WORD JOURNEYS// Split river, two choices, wrong way Men support one another holding instruments Reach the hat as voices tinkle Large utensil for soup eat.. up
ism, H E C T O BRITISH MUSEUM This structured yet experimental mechanism generated a fluctuation between thought and interpretation, in order to venture into a state beyond their analytical means. This experiment followed the same layering pattern, however, in each sentence of this audio commentary only six words were said. Participants were trying to save on the word count by removing conjunctions and basic directions from their vocabulary. This meant the use of metaphors and similes were more prominent in this experiment; linguistically distorting the signifiers from the offset. Due to the initial metaphoric interpretation of the space in the first recording, the final recording was already eroding into an incomprehensible abyss of representation.
Illustrating journeys, making it difficult to read original narratives of journey, removing the narrative further from reality of the space. Reinterpreting stories through different mediums and forms became a kernel of our process- producing more riveting layers of results.
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The six word journeys had demonstrated how using six as a tool would prove beneficial to Narrativist Ideology. They became infatuated with the number; obsessed with its dynamism.
MATHS:
Six holds mathematical divinity as the first unitary perfect number; a number that is both the sum and the product of three consecutive positive numbers: 1 x 2 x 3 = 6, 1+ 2 + 3 = 6.
RELIGIOUS SYMBOLLIC PREVALENCE:
The star of David has six points and means “Haile Selassie I, the name of perfection and the balancing force of the eternal elements within humanity.�
SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION:
The theory that everything and everyone is just six steps away from one another be that through a friend of a friend or other links.
STRUCTURES GRAPHENE: A material stronger than diamonds formed through a hexagonal lattice. BUCKMINSTER FULLER:
Believed in the power of 6 as a structural force, often using the geometric hexagonal shape in his architecture.
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NARRATIVE STRUCTURES
KURT VONNEGUT: ‘CINDERELLA’ Kurt Vonnegut argued that the structure of all stories always follows one of eight shapes of narrative. He claimed he could draw the structure of any narrative on a graph. Here he demonstrated the story of Cinderella: x beginning-end, y being from misfortune to good fortune.
Across this page I have drawn my own reflective story of the project so far. The x axis is time, whilst the y axis is my motivation and drive towards the project.
The project had started with what seemed an engaging topic for me: Narratives. I soon realised that working from such a broad initial topics is very daunting and overwhelming. I find it difficult to make sense of large spaces and subject matters without a smaller concept or tool to explore it with. My motivation increased when we were moving in to the territory of shapes and numbers.
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HECTO-NARRATIVISM
The Narrativists appreciated Vonnegut’s use of shape to guide narratives. With their adoration for six and belief in its potential, they adopted a Hexagon to guide them, thus their ideology evolved into Hecto-Narrativism.
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EMBRACING IDEOLOGY// HECTO-JOURNEY RITUAL
I had found the concept of creating an ideology quite peculiar. Forcing a belief system upon ourselves felt very unnatural. Ideologies generally come from a passion. For me it would have made more sense to do a project then create an ‘ism’ from that. For example, during the escape project I felt as though our group were on the cusp of creating an ideology obsessed with looping and repetition. We gave ourselves rituals to undertake in our experiments, making us passionate and giving our work conviction. I think the biggest thing that was stalling me in this project so far had been that I hadn’t got my head around the large surface area we were entering by creating an ideology.
ism, H E C T O Having found it difficult to define a single purpose of Narrativism, Hecto-narrativism gave us a shape to work with, a motif to guide our belief system. We explored and imagined a world of hecto-narrativists: how would they look? would they have 6 fingers, 6 eyelashes, would group meetings take place in a hexagon shape?
HECTO JOURNEY INITIATION As the Hecto-Narrativists believed in the power of 6 they realised they were going to have to work harder to find it’s potential. What does 6 do? What can hexagons reveal about the world? They used a hexagon to guide a ritualistic pilgrimage across new cross. At each node of the hexagon each hectonarrativist recorded a 6 word impression of their surroundings. This helped the group understand hexagons as a malleable yet meta structure and how this can be used to physically guide us. 99
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DIALECTIC
DIALECTICS//TRIALECTICS//HECTOLECTICS
Thesis
Antithesis
The Hecto-Narrativists believed that narratives are formed from binaries. When body meets space or sound meets thought or fiction meets reality, a layered composite of narratives emerges. During their journeys they were embracing this concept, creating a dialectic between themselves and their surroundings through a discourse of language. Thesis- Situation- mapped Hexagon Antithesis- Tool- Language
TRIALECTIC Thesis
Antithesis
Synthesis Synthesis- Action - 6 x 6 word journey The actual journey itself acted a synthesis, sitting as an extra component between language and the space. Thus, creating a trialectic exercise. Where Dialectics contradiction between opposites is the force behind change; in trialectics, equilibrium between opposites is that force. We were beginning to understand the power trialectics can have in generating new ideas and advocating creativity.
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HECTOLECTICS The Hecto-Narratives believed that through the combination of the original theory of trialectics and their own theory of 6 and its power to link situations, they could create a logic system that could link the world through collaboration, discussion and reasoning. This system like Lefebvre’s theory of trialectics would be ‘radically open to additional otherness, to a continuing expansion of spatial knowledge.’
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QUILTING IDEOLOGIES//
The Hectolectics were interested in the ‘otherness’generate d by their system of reasoning and how this could be expanded through the linking of situations. They drew on Zizek’s ideological quilting, and aimed to prove his theory through their geometric consideration of thought.
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SLAVOJ ZIZEK: Zizek argues that all ideologies are interconnected by their struggles and sit within a unified ideological field. The multitude of ‘floating signifiers’ of proto-ideological elements, is structured into a unified field through the intervention of a certain ‘nodal point’, which ‘quilts’ them, stops their sliding and fixes their meaning.
“Ideology is the struggle over which of these elements not only is defined by its relationship with the others but also allows this relationship, is that medium through which they are organized. It is the struggle not only to be one of those free-floating ideological signifiers whose meaning is ‘quilted’ or determined by another but also that signifier which gives those others their meaning, to which they must ultimately be understood to be referring.”
BUCKMINSTER FULLER: “Thinking isolates events; “understanding” then interconnects them. “Understanding is structure,” for it means establishing the relationships between events A “thought is then a “relevant set” or a “considerable set”: experiences related to each other in some way. All the rest of experience is outside the set- not tuned in. A thought therefore defines an insideness and an outsideness; it is a “conceptual subdivision of Universe.” “I’ll call it a system” declares Bucky; “I now have a geometric description of a thought.”
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Engaged with this idea of linking ideologies through quilting, we attempted our own prototype of this. It required a lot of reading initially and we were becoming quite bogged down already in the amount of theory we had looked at. It quickly became obvious that many ideologies are linked completely by what they juxtapose, and without one another they would cease to exist. This made me begin to question whether this eradicates ideologies altogether. If what an ideology strives for is based on what it opposes then surely that ideology would mean nothing without its counterpart.
AUTONOMISM
I was becoming a lot more engaged with the project at this point as I was interrogating a large field with a structured form- a Hexagon.. Exploring macro structures with micro forms often provides a space I find invigorating to work within.
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The Hectolectics were determined to find systems that would help them gather six words to then create new narratives and situations from.
GENERATOR//
We began exploring our surroundings through 6 categories: 1. Behaviour 2. Architecture 3. Cultural 4. Material 5. Political 6. Stakeholders *these categories can be any categories that suit your situation. We generated audio prompts to gather a cloud of words from people. 6 words from each category were gathered that could then be used for infinite combinations through Hectolectics. The exercise lent to past experiments where we had forced stress upon participants to evoke more riveting responses.
In this particular performance of the exercise participants were unknowingly working in a trialectic force. Each recording was played 10 seconds apart so each word said was in response to the previous word heard from participants before. Participants hear 6 audio clippings, one that falls under each category. Each timeinto the3 ding sounds participants submit a word, there take a seat hidden from others view. 1 Hexagonal table split sections ,1 Audio player is setmust up in each section. 3 Participants are 6 for each category. 36 words in total.
HEXAGONAL TABLE SPLIT INTO 3. 1 AUDIO PLAYER IN EACH SECTION. PARTICIPANTS TAKE SEPAR
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m others view. Audio is played through headphones 10 seconds apart, every time a ‘ding’ sound is heard participants must submit a word
AKE SEPARATE SEAT. AUDIO PLAYS. SUBMIT ONE WORD AFTER EVERY ‘DING’. TRIALECTIC ESTABLISHED. 107
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GENERATOR//
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WATER WATER WATER WATER FORMULA FORMULA FORMULA FORMULA ELEPHHAANNTT LEP EELEPHANT ELEPHANT
WATERRHINOCEROUS WATERRHINOCEROUS WATERRHINOCEROUS
MACHINE MACHINE MACHINE MACHINE
RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT
CORNUCOPIA CORNUCOPIA CORNUCOPIA CORNUCOPIA CORNUCOPIA
The Generator Machine acted as a way of receiving information to then add to the hectolectics. The disconnection between the two systems made the generator more confusing so more instinctive responses were given. Information was submitted impulsively without realising it would then be used for a different causeconsideration. 109
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We created the tool to have a tangible object to work our ideology around. The idea being that one can work around the tool filling in the nodes of each hexagon with words relating to their chosen subject.
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In the centre of each object/cluster of hexagons there is A, B or C (your idea, project, thought etc). surrounding these are 6 subcategories with 6 nodes to write different words relating to the category within your idea. Via the meeting points of the nodes a new triad of words is created for consideration.
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If the words aren’t working or the user is not satisfied, objects can be used until a more invigorating combination is found.
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In this example words A4.5, B6.1 and C2.3 would be considered together.
We tested the tool in an educational circumstance, using it in relation to projects to explore collaboration and the potential of synthesis between different systems of thought.
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EDUCATIONAL TOOL Have you ever had that devastating moment in a project? The moment when you’ve been walking around your brain, calmly picking up ideas throughout the journey. You’ve been attempting to make those ideas talk to one another but you keep dropping one. Finally you think of something, you’ve found those ideas that might just work well together. The front door of epiphany is before you as your hand lifts to desperately curb those ideas through the letter box your brain takes a rapid u turn, blindly whipping you back to having your dinner. Ideas forgotten, potentials lost forever.
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Our brains have a limited immediate capacity; there is only so much we can comprehend at a single moment in time. How can we visualise our brain’s existing potential and generate new possibilities? Enter- Hectolectics, a generative systematic tool that visualises and considers your existing thoughts to determine the potential of your ideas. The tool utilizes hectolectics, an advancement in dialectic reasoning using the power of six. Hectolectics can also be used for collaboration between projects, It can be used to solve problems, prompt new conversations, offer alternative ideas for a variety of circumstances.
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CONSIDERATOR//TESTING OUR TOOL
WORKSHOP GOLDSMITHS FIRST YEAR DESIGN STUDENTS We tested the tool in a workshop where we prompted the students to expand on a past project, opening it up for new ideas, synthesis and collaboration. They walked ideas around through the connections between their projects via the nodal-triad points. The response was very positive, the students were appreciative of the introduction to Hectolectics and were eager to get copies of the formulae instruction sheets. This was a rewarding way to test the system as it proved the ease and flexibility of the physical tool. Students were open minded to new combinations and ideas were quickly negotiated then passed along, ensuring a wide range of possibilities were considered.
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POSITION //IDEOLOGY//TOOL
AN IDEOLOGY? Ideologies are systems of abstract thought that are applied to public matters. Hectolectics presents itself as a system of thought applied to the systems already put in pace ie. ideologies. “an ism-ism as it were” though it is not a belief system/ ‘ism’ it is a system of understanding, an optional tool used to reinterpret the world by making links and connections between the nodes of situations. A SYSTEMATIC TOOL The Hectolectics strived to build a processing tool to consider and generate thoughts from existing ones. They believed with this tool they could bring limitless opportunities for collaboration between situations: projects, thoughts, ideas, objects, things, other systems and of course ideologies. This was a logical ideal built on the rationale and truth within numbers and geometry. Thus, moving the group away from being an ideology.
CONVERSATIONS ETC HAPPEN AT NODES NOW BETWEEN EACH PROJECT/TOPIC/IDEOLOGY ETC
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HECTOLECTICS A SYSTEM TO MAKE SENSE OF SITUATIONS/ IDEOLOGIES
SITUATIONS/IDEOLOGICAL FIELD A LENS TO MAKE SENSE OF OUR WORLD
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REFLECTION CONCEPT The Hectolectics is a developed tool that stems from the analysis of ideologies and reading the world . It can be used to link situations or bring existing ideas to the foreground with synthesis. Based around a hexagonal shape the hectolectics had a strong image. It was in a way an ism of isms. A lens to place over ideologies but also the rest of the world. It critiques, anaylses and reflects through its mathematical truths, it is a process. RESEARCH The project was densely saturated with heavy theoretical research. Though this was interesting and engaged me in the project it also distant me as I was often unable to see past my questioning of ideologies. Our research was very ‘wordy’ and often conflicted between us leading us to lengthy chats about the meaning of our project. We often found research that was difficult to understand but we did not try to under stand it with our own experiments. This made the project incrediblt difficult to pin down and to answer all the questions that surfaced from research. PROCESS We chose a huge subject Narratives and didn’t ever end up defining this. We had such conflicting research and interests going round the group that it was difficult to find a point we were all happy with. Turning to numbers and shapes helped this as I feel we all adjusted our own passion towards it.
PROJECT ID The hectolectics was embedded in heavy theory. We were guided by philosophers and we were trying to give our project meaning. This made us quite closed minded towards alternative questions and answers,. My option to begin to eradicate Ideologies in my head was what kept me focused on the project and constantly asking questions but it also meant I lost affiliation with the designs of the project. However when i translate the design back down to its form of trialectics I really enjoy it and appreciate its functionality. I have personally been using it as a tool to explore my surroundings and it has helped me loads with the content of this book. CONCEPT We had tested the tool and the system to a degree that reassured us that Hectolectics at least had the potential to produce results. Through our testing of the Hectolectic tool we had shown that the system works in bringing ideas together quickly, allowing us to consider our existing ideas and challenging us to generate new ones through new three word triads. We tested it on others who are in similar contexts to our own- educational, university, design course, confirming that the system has a strong potential. We did not however prove its potential. Partly because we ran out of time but partly because we were so engrossed in the technicalities behind the system and how it would logistically work that we missed out on communicating the more suitable areas- producing, making, engaging, linking, DOING. I have drawn out my reflections on the process to help me decipher where it is that needs extra work, what we could have done differently and how I will implement these changes to our process.
ism, H E C T O ‘ISM’ - NARRATIVISM: We began with a very broad topic, struggling with how to pin point a belief system from such large amounts of conflicting researched interests. JOURNEYS- NARRATIVE LAYERS: We began whittling our ideas down and our ideology to journeys. With the limitation of using 6 to control narratives the ism morphed into
HECTO-NARRATIVISM:Allowed us to explore the world around using the potential of 6, discovering and uncovering existing theories combining with our own. HECTOLECTICS: Came from an advancement in trialectics to create stories. Linking and connecting binaries with hexagons. Systematic tool designed to help consider existing thoughts and generate new ones. Incomplete outcome. Failed to show potential of hectolectic- Solid design but needs outcomes to show potential. GENERATION OF OUTCOMES: Flooding the process tool with results etc. would communicate its potential and complete the process more successfully.
EXPLODING PROCESS: Having said that flooding our final outcome with different results would complete our process. I feel that our process had gaps that I’d like to explore. With that in mind I will try and do this also. The two developments should work hand in hand... 119
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TERMINOLOGY SITUATION: ANY SPACE, OBJECT, CIRCUMSTANCE, IDEOLOGY, PROJECT, MATERIAL, MOMENT, DOCUMENT, WORD, EXISTING NARRATIVE PERFORMANCE: ANY TEMPORARY NARRATIVE THAT ADDS TO THE SITUATION. PERFORMANCES ARE USED TO LINK SITUATIONS AND CAN BE A CULMINATION OF THINGS FOR EXAMPLE THE RESULT OF THREE WORDS CROSSING AT THE NODES AND WORKING IN A TRIALECTIC.
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LINKING EXISTING NARRATIVES
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Take different routes from A to B to create different journeys. Travel at different times, with varying items, audio,, restrictions etc.
This narrative told the love story of Romeo and Juliet through Oscar Pistorious and Reeva Steenkamp putting another perspective on the murder trial, and the main character- Oscar/Romeo. Putting Shakespearean dialect through a modern device creates irony and an alternative way of considering both original narratives, This would have been a rewarding space to explore in more depth during the project as there are limitless narratives that already exist pulling them together to create new ones could really bring new ideas to light.
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Oscar and Reeva: A Tragedy Excerpt from the “Oscar Pistorius Indicted For Murder in Killing of Reeva Steenkamp” court case- 18th August 2013 14th February 2013 Reeva Steenkamp Valentine card to Oscar Pistorious: “I think today is a good day to tell you that, I love you.” Oscar involved in incident when a shot was fired in a restaurant the year previously. Reeva and Oscar send mostly loving messages to one another using WhatsApp.
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CREATING A SYNTHESIS WITHIN EXISTING PROJECTS ESCAPE : LOOP
SUPERMARKET
THE SHININ ALWAYS GET LOST DESPITE EVERYTHING BEING IN THE SAME PLACE AS BEFORE.
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QUANTITATIVE VS QUALITATIVE
COLLABORATION Jean-Luc Ambridge Lavelle, Agne Alisauskaite, James Barclay, Georgia Syropoulo, Hugo Volrath 09.11.15 133
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DATA FOR DEVELOPMENT: SENEGAL The brief asked us to examine a set of data sets that were the results of a previous project based on analysing mobile data about Senegal. We were then asked to design in response to what we found. For example: Designing information services (tablet, posters, SMS campaigns, social networks ...) that could be applied to transform the way decisions are made at a localised level in Senegal. We were asked to focus on either: HEALTH AGRICULTURE TRANSPORT/URBAN PLANNING ENERGY EDUCATION - in particular poverty and literacy rate EXTRACT FROM ACTUAL BRIEF The outcomes from the Data for Development Challenge Senegal generated a number of key opportunities that could significantly improve development in Senegal. These ideas are diverse and range from identifying areas with poor literacy, better disease management and develop new and complementary ways to produce poverty indexes (faster, cheaper, more accurate and completely new). Orange wishes to continue to develop these innovative ideas in order to support better decision making in Senegal and accelerate development. Orange would like the support of Goldsmiths Design to examine the results of the D4D contest that was carried on Orange Big Data from Senegal and design an information service that combines results of this contest in order to support better information to the mid and small size communities in small cities and villages of Senegal. The objective is to help them take actions to improve their life. The work should bridge the gap between the needs of the population in rural communities and the data analysis available of the D4D Challenge Senegal, completed possibly with additional sources that you could suggest. This is an important piece of work for Orange and outcomes from projects could feed into a real proposal to be implemented on the ground.
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HOW CAN WE UTILISE THE RELATION BETWEEN QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE DATA FOR ARTICULATE SOCIAL INTERVENTION? METHODOLOGY Our project was based around a designed methodology. A new belief of how we thought big data should be used: in conjunction with small data, and who has the rights to this data: everyone. For this document of our project I will explain our process, the presentation of our design we delivered to Orange and then I will explain our design. This is to demonstrate the experience Orange would have been given and to question again the clarity of our final delivery.
TERMINOLOGY QUANTITATIVE - HARD DATA - BIG DATA- FAST DATA - Data based on quantities obtained using a quantifiable measurement process. QUALITATIVE - SOFT DATA - SMALL DATA - SLOW DATA -information about qualities, difficult to actually measure.
INTRODUCTION The above question was our proposal question for this brief. We essentially began by questioning the concept behind the brief- big data. Big data is something that I am quite frightened by and I was excited to know more about it. It scares me that big corporations- such as orange, use big data for development from a distance. The Orange offices in Paris are 2,557 miles away from Dakar in Senegal. I was intrigued to know how large scale development can be implemented based on this quantified data but also how it is then implemented in smaller localities, especially when we consider how broad the areas the data sets concerned were. There is also the question of ownership- whose data is it? The CEOs that collect it, or the people it concerns?
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INVESTIGATING BIG DATA//
BIG BANG DATA EXHIBITION Our lives are becoming masses of data. We record our daily lives on our treasured pocket devices, contributing to the wider network of internet-connected individuals. This year we celebrate Twitter’s 10th birthday- the fastest growing social media platform that allows all users to have their voice heard/read. Our snapchat feeds play tribute to Kardashian data, connecting us with our celebrity cyber-idols. We are living in an age that has seen a rise in the use of Big Data to aid design. An age that has conditioned us to believe in numbers as evidence of who we are. An age where capitalist power is put in the hands of those with the means of collecting, controlling and commodifying our quantified lives. I am as terrified as I am fascinated by the increasing use of big data in design. We can make sense of the world through data and use it to analyse and understand our lives.
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1950 punch cards Always used a quantifying process, data has always been present.
1990 Horst Adeneit- “Cold Rays” polaroids of invisible rays “archive of everyday info- order in a seemingly chaotic world”
2012 Phillipp Adrian #oneSecond - communicating a story of the internet through giant books of all data generated in one seocnd on twitter. 2014 ‘Dear Data’ Giorgia Lupi/Stefanie Posavec Using data to communicate daily lives . Quantifying what they noticed, uncomfortable topics became distant as they were now “just data”. (see 1) 2016 Twitter’s 10th birthday
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ANALYSING THE DATA SETS//LOCAL SCALE
BUILDING PROFILES OF LOCAL AREA: SENEGAL- KOUNGHEUL To understand what could be known just from the data, we decided to ignore the Senegalese culture for the time being. We analysed the raw data we’d been given, attempting to build a profile from the information of a small locality on the map. We targeted a town called Koungheul. Each member of the group had 10 of the data posters to analyse and build small profiles before collating a larger profile of Khoungel.
PEANUTS ZONE EXAMPLE
WHAT THE ‘LIVELIHOOD ZONES’ DATA TELLS US 1. Situated in the livelihood zone of ‘SN08 Agropastoral: Peanut’ 2. Between the months of January and July, little mobility is made from Zone SN08 ( where Khoungeul is situated) and the rest of Senegal. 3. There is the least amount of rainfall during June and July; this is when the mobility from Khoungeul to the outside of Zone Sn08 is at its peak.
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WHAT THE DATA LETS US ASSUME
WHAT THE DATA DIDN’T TELL US
Alot of the data sets cover a national scale often making it too vague and broad to identify what that data meant for a small locality. The data itself was quite cryptic leaving a lot of room for us to assume the reasons.
To consider the accuracy of the data we did a bit of further research into Koungheul- via google maps, websites, forums. From our research findings we foung a lot of our initial assumptions from the data were inaccurate,
PEANUTS This data could suggest that during January and July Koungheul produces less peanuts so little mobility is made to and from the zone. The rainfall may not affect travel as there is similar amounts of rain during second half of the year when mobility rises.
PEANUTS The mobility rates are in fact due to an influx in migration into khoungeul for workers on the peanut plantations.
ENERGY Although a large road does pass directly though Koungheul, and bypasses other major cities it is used far less. This is probably due to the train track which passes through.
ENERGY Although after examining google maps the majority of vehicles utilising the road appear to be lorries/ vehicles distributing goods and there is no sign of a train station.
THE DATA GIVEN IS ABOUT A BROAD SURFACE AREA MAKING IT DIFFICULT TO IDENTIFY SMALL LOCALITIES WITHIN IT. LEFT GAPS FOR ASSUMPTION WHICH WERE INACCURATE.
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BIG DATA//SMALL LOCALITY
BUILDING PROFILES OF LOCAL AREA: HACKNEY- HAGGERSTON Our first exploration into quantitative vs qualitative developed on our Koungheul research exercise. We wanted to build a profile of a small locality that we could investigate first hand. We chose to gather data from Hackney to build a general profile of the borough. We compared these with our own findings in Haggerston, a smaller area within Hackney.
QUANTITATIVE DATA : HACKNEY 50.5% are Female 20% off 25-34 age group 36% are ‘White British’ 38.6% are Christian 57.5% are Single (never married) 73% of accommodation is Rented 75.9% speak English at home 69% rate of Employment
QUANTITATIVE CHARACTER PROFILE Gender: Female Age: 28 Ethnicity: White British Religion: Christian Marital Status: Single Tenure: Renting Main Language Spoken: English Work Status: Employed
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BIG DATA//SMALL LOCALITY
To explore the accuracy of the character profile generated by the big data collected about Hackney we compared this quantified data with our own findings that took place ‘on the ground’ in Haggerston, a small locality within Hackney. We stayed in one location for 30 minutes at 4:00pm on a week day, asking those who were passing if they’d answer these questions: 1. What language do you speak at home? 2. Do you own or rent? 3. Where are you from? 4. What do you do? 5. Where do you shop for food? Adding the last question threw the interviewees off, and gave us the potential to investigate what this means for the area. 5 MINUTES DOWN THE ROAD FOR 5 MINUTES We also observed the high street about a 5 minute walk away. It was clear even within one small locality there was major diversity in the people you saw at that time. Demonstrating that we cannot make generalisations about a whole area. We encountered a problem with sample sizes and situation, as these can really effect the data that can be collected. However the exercise had proved that the big data online did not correctly represent everyone.
OUR RESEARCH ‘ON THE GROUND’ DID NOT MATCH UP WITH THE QUANTITATIVE DATA ABOUT AREA. NEED QUALITATIVE DATA TO BUILD A MORE AUTHENTIC PROFILE.
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1. English 2. Own 3. Essex 4. Sales Rep 5. Sainsburys
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NEW KNOWLEDGE//
DESIGNING A METHODOLOGY Reflecting on our project so far we were already building a strong case for the need for qualitative data in this design process. We were expressing our doubts about using quantitative data to design. We decided that despite the brief asking us to design to improve/develop Senegal in response to the data sets given we would like to offer an alternative methodology that could facilitate this process.
DESIGNING TO BUILD A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DATA A design for improvement doesn’t always have to be a solid solution it can be a system that is set up which then, in turn with its growth and expansion will improve its surroundings. We wanted to set up a system that would collect Qualitative data whilst making it work/ link somehow with quantitative data. We believed that sincere and successful improvements would develop through a design that created ‘New Knowledge’. This creation would involve - Identifying what is known (the quantitative data), -Identifying what we can know (qualitative data), - The gaps between these two - Build a relationship between these two -this will create ‘New Knowledge.’ This new knowledge would be the result of the design we were aiming to create.
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QUALITATIVE DATA
QUANTITATIVE DATA
FINDING GAPS
NEW KNOWLEDGE
Information in hands of those it concerns, social interventions on local scale, on the ground projects.
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DESIGNING FOR NEW KNOWLEDGE//INITIAL STEPS
BUILDING A PROFILE OF SENEGAL FROM A DISTANCE
2,676 miles
Our first presentation with Orange, a Senegalese woman called Meriame Jamme was present, She is working with the D4D campaign, she specialises in helping technology companies get a foothold in Africa. Her advice to us with our proposal for a design to create new knowledge was: - To Build a profile of Senegal from a distance- like we did with Hackney, speak to members of the Senegalese community - Prototype in London but we shouldn’t get too concerned with making it work for London. Should aim to design something that anyone from anywhere can benefit from. Test it in London, - Don’t completely abandon Senegal and its culture, Take snippets from the culture use them as inspiration, can’t be completely disconnected but find cultural trai
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SO MANY STORIES ARE NOT HEARD. LET’S HEAR THESE. LET’S INVERT THE MEGAPHONE. LET’S GET THE INTRICATE, HUMAN DATA BEFORE WE BEGIN TO DESIGN INTERVENTIONS IN SENEGAL.
credit: http://thediagram.com/12_6/triangular.html
‘THE INVERTED MEGAPHONE’ Health warnings and advice about health when there is an outbreaks of diseases are often distributed across Senegal through someone on a megaphone driving through. We wanted to take this idea of this information being bellowed at people and invert it, hear the whispers of the people who will be affected by that problem. We based our initial exercises around health issues. GRIOT : STORY TELLING We visited a Senegalese restaurant in Clapton. The owner of the restaurant is a member of ‘The Griot’ He told us that the Griot is a west African tradition, they act as story tellers and advisors of their people. It is their duty to tell the story of the people and share the knowledge of their history. We were enthused by this knowledge gained about story telling. We began explorations in how we could use story telling as methods of communicating problems. We purchased a Senegalese basket that we then sat around to begin our experiments into storytelling and sharing problems we were facing.
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STORY TELLING//ANONYMITY
WOMENS’ HEALTHCARE: SENEGAL We undertook further research into the health care in Senegal to understand how a structure already set up dealt with issues. This would in turn give us a better insight in how the culture may target intricate smaller problems on a personal scale. Health care was a helpful area to look at as there is a lot of information, research papers out there. in the South and East; Louga, Koalack, Tambacouda. Where there are biggest distances to hospitals and doctor per patient ratios are lowest. It is important to note that in Senegal there are only 20 fully fledged hospitals, 7 of which are located in Dakar. The data sets Orange provided us with showed that the mortality rates were higher in areas furthers away from hospitals. We discovered that common issues across Senegal include child mortality rates and Maternal death, which is often related to Female Genital Mutilation. Other women’s health issues due to FGM were prevalent too such as urinary tract infections. This proved a big problem as women feel uncomfortable in their well-being but uncomfortable going to a doctor to speak about these issues.
ANONYMITY Taking elements from the findings from the Senegalese culture we conducted and designed exercises that would increase anonymity and create a situation where everyone would arrive as equals- despite gender inequality.
LIKE MANY CULTURES, SHARING PROBLEMS AND ISSUES IS NOT COMMON IN THE SENEGAL, THIS PROVES PROBLEMATIC WITH WOMEN DUE TO HEALTH CARE.
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1. Each participant writes down an issue they are currently having. 2. These issues are then placed into the anonymity basket. 3. Each participant then picks out an issue and identifies the problem. 4. Participants then carefully address the issue infront of the group, one bye one. 5. The entire group will have eventually discussed each issue in thorough detail allowing everyone to have a say.
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STORY TELLING//GROUP MEETINGS
“MY FRIEND HAS A PROBLEM” Telling someone else’s problem opens up a lot of room for discussion. We tried this amongst ourselves. It quickly became easier for everyone to talk about each others issues pretending to be them made us sympathise with that problem. Some of us found it easier than others to give advice to your own problem (through someone else). We then tried this exercise with someone from outside of the groups problems. Imagining a scenario which would encourage people to talk to someone if they could go and get the advice for you. This proved interesting as some of the issues raised made room for people to begin discussing similar problems they were having. This made us question whether this a way we’d all communicate our problems in the future. Although it was interesting and we felt comfortable this might be different if we weren’t all good friends, or if the issues were bigger problems on a larger scale,.
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EQUAL GROUND Attempting alternative ways to make people arrive as equals to the conversation. This exercises symbolises this quite well. When both participants are in the same position (naked in a cardboard box) they are more inclined to discuss their issue. This was one of the deeper conversations that occurred in the project and it was clear the boys felt comfortable knowing speaking to each other when they both looked a little bit silly.
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STORY TELLING//GROUP MEETINGS
ROLES Based upon the information gathered about some of the different roles that people traditionally have in Senegal: such as The Griot. We decided to take on different roles to gather different perspectives on the situation. This proved difficult as it was difficult to imagine ourselves as Teachers, children, parents etc.
DISTANCE FROM PROBLEM
6. CREATE A COLLECTIVE CHARACTER a. each tell a story from a different stage in your life or a period of a time. b. Collate together and build a collective story and profile of this person
OBJECTIFYING ISSUE a. Choose an object that you have a distinct memory with. Tell this memory. b. Now imagine this object is you. Tell your objects story.
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BACK TO BACK a. sit in a circle back to back and converse. Alternatively close eyes.
CHANNELING SOUND a. Make a sound repeatedly that represents your current feeling in response to the issue. b. Repeat collectively
ABSTRACTING EMOTIONS
MONOLOGUE a.Prior to discussion: each take a song that you feel represents your current feelings. b.One by one recite the lyrics of your chosen monologue. Be expressive.
Although some of these exercises brought to light interesting issues and highlighted alternative ways to make each other feel comfortable, by distancing ourselves from the problem we were focusing too much on story telling. It was difficult to test how these would work for people who maybe didn’t know each other very well. It was clear we needed to build something that could accommodate for people feeling uncomfortable about being at the meeting not just about talking about a problem. 155
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FIRST HAND RESEARCH//QUALITATIVE
CONVERSATION WITH NOUKA
Nienio- similar to tegue, but make the tools for farming, Laobe- The boat, sail the boats and cutting trees… women make lingerie.
DAKAR/RURAL AREAS
Guewe (Griot) - they are the talkers, the communicators,
Nouka moved to London 18 year ago, before that he
story tellers too.All roles that make up population of
was in Paris studying at university. He is originally from
Senegal both men and women.
Dakar and has never been outside of Dakar but he has friends and has heard many stories from rural areas.
WOMEN
He says it is very different from Dakar a big difference
Men are responsible for their wives. With man’s per-
he says is the gender gap. In Dakar women have rights,
mission women can attend meetings with one another.
they have same jobs as men and they have rights over
Occasionally men attend these meetings but women
property, children and can divorce their husbands. In
don’t attend male gatherings. Women are often left doing
rural areas this is very different. He believes this is a big
cleaning and looking after the house and the children.
problem- he doesn’t agree with the men ‘behaving like
“to be honest men are kings over there, in the house
kings’ but blames this on lack of education and commu-
they don’t do much they eat- I say no its not ok”. This is
nication across Senegal (from ‘deepest Senegal’-rural
changing with in cities however.
areas to big cities and urban spaces) . Another major problem is the lack of energy and electricity in rural
Food is a great source for getting people together how-
areas.
ever there are still some places where men and women eat seperately.
RESPECT AND POWER
Encouraging something as simple as men and women
As a population, Senegal do not respect politicians. Lis-
eating together could change this is. This could only
ten to radio (Diamalahi fm radio- orange run this?). Often
be done by communication across all locations of
broadcasts are done by politicians so don’t always trust
Senegal…
everything they hear on radio. Couple years ago politician used the radio station to broadcast his campaign-
COMMUNICATION
every time anyone turned on to that station a message
Communication is power but there is one way hearing as
was heard straight away from him. So some radio
not everyone speaks the same language. Often people
stations are sometimes seen as political and people
in rural areas do not understand what is being said.
don’t trust them. Respect Marabou- high up religious
Rural areas are also not heard because people in cities,
guides, they have most control. ‘All information’ (and
in the government, the imams, don’t understand their
money too) trickled down from followers to Imams then
language, or even if they do, they do not understand their
to the Marabous and transferred to Government who
way of life. The ‘people in cities’ think there is no way the
also respect Marabou. VERY RELIGIOUS country, even if
rural lifestyles will change as they are so deep rooted in
people are starving they will give last penny to maribou-
their religious culture.
to Islam. Deep set religious values in their culture. Use religion. Take quotes from Qur’an to show Senegal ROLES/TRADES THAT MAKE UP MIDDLE CLASSES
that this is not what prophet muhammad wanted. For
Griot- ‘the bag with words.”
example he did not want inequality between neighbours
tell them your family name and they will tell you all
so why is their gender inequality. It is very difficult in
about your family, trace your history. but for money.
deepest Senegal to get women and men together to
“everyone in senegal wants money…”
speak about issues.
Tegue- jewellery, bags Woudeh- shoes, bags, wood
Snowball effect. People keep their problems to them-
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selves- if you tell a friend everyone in the area will find out. You say someone is your friend that friend will have another friend and suddenly the whole village will know. Everyone is friends? news travelled fast and news travels through story telling. everything is spoken found out through speaking with each other. Beans story. Taught in Senegal if you have a problem to not say it to who you call your friend, keep it to yourself. This is changing in cities. People are speaking more, perhaps in decade or more everywhere will speak about their problems. Potential Solutions Listening is key. Radio is where it’s at- depends what radio you use though. People don’t always trust because of Political broadcasts. Avoid this. Senegal perhaps need communication everyone can trust across all locations. All information is first heard through radio or television so should use this. But also use this snowball effect, everyone will know through speaking to each other, word of mouth. posters do not work- people do not read them. Symbols can work but need the yes of Marabou (religious influence controls advertising and visual communication) and will the rural areas understand these- would mean teaching a whole population a new language. So use power of listening communications to hear peoples problems.
I MET UP WITH A SENEGALESE FAMILY FRIEND OF MINE. THE KEY POINTS THE GROUP TOOK FROM THE CONVERSATION WERE: SHARING PROBLEMS WITH ONE ANOTHER IS NOT ENCOURAGED OR ADVISED PRIVACY IS DEEP ROOTED IN THE CULTURE. -WOMEN ARE NOT EQUAL TO MEN IN RURAL AREAS, ASK MAN PERMISSION TO GO TO A MEETING ETC. - SHARING PROBLEMS IS NOT IN THE CULTURE’S NATURE - EVERYONE LISTENS TO THE RADIO, - TARGET THE RADIO
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RADIO EXPERIMENTS//
With Nouka’s advice we began working towards building a radio station that would collect Qualitative data in response to Quantitative data. Our prototypes were based in London, within our means as we were still aiming to create a design that was universal and could be used by anyone anywhere. In my head I wanted this radio to give a voice to women in particular, as it was clear from our research and findings that women are culturally suppressed in Senegal, like many parts of the world. This could be helpful in many countries as a country only begins to fully develop when women are considered as equal to men as you are then considering half the population. The design had to be plausible not practical, we knew that a radio station can be accessed through any mobile set device so our challenge would be to figure out how this would logistically work.
ANONYMITY THROUGH VOICE DISTORTION Our explorations for the radio began with testing voice distortions in anonymous conversations to increase the anonymity in the voice. If we were going to create a radio station on a local scale, listeners may recognise the voice and the whole essence of the radio concept was that it would override the inhibitions that are embedded in cultures toward sharing problems. 1. Each participant arrives separately and is blindfolded and headphones are put on. 2. Mediator asks everyone to think for one minute of a health problem they would like to discuss. 3. Mediator then choreographs who speaks when. Each participant shares issues 4. Participants are encouraged by mediator to give advice. The whole exercise felt really unnatural and forced. The voice distortions could still pick up on accents and some participants felt the voice distortion was very distracting. Having a mediator created a hierarchy as there was something controlling the situation with human judgement.
HUMAN JUDGEMENT SHOULD NOT DECIDE WHOSE VOICE IS HEARD.
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PROTOTYPING AT GOLDSMITHS
68% OF STUDENTS AT GOLDSMITHS ARE FEMALE. DOES THIS REFLECT YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE OF GOLDSMITHS? To prototype our design for the radio we told the narrative of ‘The People’s feed’ through a student at goldsmiths. The data set on the People’s Feed was about goldsmiths. We focused on an issue about gender inequality as this had been prevalent throughout our research into Senegal, We asked around goldsmiths for people to record their responses to this statement creating a ‘feed of voices’. This would be the metaphor for our final design. We then prototyped an example of the kind of conversations that could come from the feed. Outside of the design. This was a Skype conversation amongst some of the group about the data set. We worked together to find a solution to the conclusion that the data was irrelevant as even if there are more female students there are still more men in jobs in the design industry than men. We decided that we’d all spread our new knowledge and create a campaign to have more female practitioners come to talk and more female designers in our lecture series. This is where our group really lost its communication. There was a divide between who thought what part of the prototypes were a design and what were a metaphor. Half the group were split in thinking the discussions were part of the design. In my head the Skype call was something separate from our decision, this was a potential discussion that could come from the feed, once a momentum of voices sharing is established. A metaphor of the smaller localised conversations that would take place in response to the opinions collectively heard on the People’s feed.
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FINAL PRESENTATION
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For our final presentation to Orange we wanted to represent the concept and initial question that ran through our project: Qualitative vs Quantitative data. We wanted to show the problems we had with Quantitative data and how we had worked hard to create a system which collected Qualitative data as our projects explorations had lead us to strongly believed that no design should be based from just big data, the knowledge that comes with the combination of both human and non-human data was stronger than just big data. We also believed that all data should be accessible to the people it effects. The brief had asked us to use the D4D data Development information provided to design systems and innovative designs. This was a premise we felt very uncomfortable with. We could not go to Senegal, we are not Senegalese so how can we speak for these people. The data about the country left gaps- giving whats but no whys. The numbers but not the facts, not the stories of the people our designs would effect. From early on in our process we had decided that our project would not answer the brief exactly but it would provide another system that could utilise the data and be used by Orange to advance the D4D project by creating stronger, more authentic knowledge of the spaces targeted.
We presented our process through a data system which ran and pulled the most poignant points of our process out and showed these on screen with a robotic voice over saying the conclusions of our explorations. Our final design presented a platform for collecting data. A radio feed which anyone can call up and submit a recording to. We told the story of this through a light-hearted animation. We chose to locate the story that ran through our design at Goldsmiths and chose a data set about female tutors and whether this reflected people’s personal experience of Goldsmiths. **I have purposefully tried to reiterate the feelings Orange would have had of our presentation: confusion.
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THE PEOPLE’S FEED
HOW CAN WE USE THE RELATION BETWEEN QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DATA FOR ARTICULATE SOCIAL INTERVENTION?
Quantitative data gives a broad representation, which neglects to represent unique communities and individuals that fall as outliers and anomalies to the data. The quantitative data leaves gaps for assumptions and disjointed correlations to be made. In order to establish a more compre- hensive understanding of a population, Qualitative data should be introduced. An audio submission platform can be set up through which a structured loop of voices can be heard through a hand-held device. The distance of the call increases ano-nymity and security. New issues may surface that then can also be discussed. potential discussions can be set up via the platform by the voices heard. These aired interactions will trigger other exchanges within communities. The system moves on an axis between social media and radio - a platform for free (in all sense of the word) input and broadcasted audio that is widely accessible and does not rely on literacy to be heard. The system has been tried and tested in a specific community, the design should be adapted to every environment where installed. There is a fear that the voices will be exploited and the system hijacked to boost profits i.e.: commercials, qualitative data used to aid company’s profits. If system is respected, with the encour- agement to speak there will be a platform for new voices to be heard. Qualitative data will be collected and used by communities to further their knowledge for their own advancement.
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live, Q vs Q PRESENTATION SCRIPT 1.So, I’m here to tell my story. I am a student at Goldsmiths and I have been undertaking some research into the history of radios for resistance. These radios were motivated by freedom of speech and presenting the unspoken opinions of the masses. 2. I came across a similar radio called ’The People’s feed’. It is an automated system reliant on opinions of a body of people. 3. It diminishes a hierarchy by providing the opportunity for everyone’s voice to be heard individually. Topics of interest are based on quantified data about a specific area. The residents or those within the connectivity range have the option to call and submit their thoughts in response to the statement. This will allow local areas to be characterised by their own qualitative data as oppose to generalised big data- the eventual motive being, that this qualitative data in conjunction with the quantitative data could provide new knowledge and a better understanding of the area and it’s population for their own utilisation.
7.
5. Hello and welcome, you have reached The People’s Feed. Please listen carefully to the following options: To listen to the current live feed press 1 Today’s topic of interest is [How can we utilise the relation between quantitative and qualitative data for articulate social intervention?]. to submit a recording in response to this topic press 2 If you’d like to add any information you feel should become a topic of discussion on the feed press 3 To listen to any of the topics aired in the last 24 hours press 4 To hear these options again press the hash key 6+7. I personally feel like there is gender inequality at Goldsmiths...[voice joins cloud of voices of the People’s Feed. 8. This infrastructure has meant that my local community has been able to benefit from hearing about the previously discussed topics, in turn; allowing them to establish their own intimate network of knowledge.
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The way that it is structured means that everyone is able to discuss previously stigmatised subjects without having to disclose their identity. Creating a local, yet universal, source of information means we are now more likely to discuss these subjects with each other and eventually those within a larger locality.
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REFLECTION CONCEPT Our concept was based around the problems and dangers of using quantitative data alone. I feel as though we gave ourselves a relay big challenge in following this through because in a way we had to redesign our own brief to fit around the one we’d been given. I had no problems with this though, I really enjoy questioning briefs and feel this is a key part to my design process, it makes me more interested and passionate if I can clarify my understanding of a subject. We were working along side the brief to offer an alternative methodology to designing for development, setting up a system that collects qualitative data in response to quantitative data. I honestly think this is a ground breaking design and the concept behind it is fuelled by passion. I am aware that there was definitely confusion among our team as to what our design was but we were all on the same page as the intentions of our design: to hand over the data to those who it concerns, to hand over a platform to which everyone has the chance to submit their feelings, to make use of the quantitative data by using it in conjunction with qualitative. The feed acts as a social media in that there is no mediation or human judgement deciding whose voice is heard, creating an uncensored democracy.
PROCESS The beginning of our process had a lot of momentum fuelled by on the ground explorations into the accuracy of data, this informed the rest of our project. Experiments in increasing anonymity and releasing inhibitions helped us understand the circumstances under which people within our community would be more likely to share their problems and stories. We were allowing our theoretical research and explorations of how to collect intricate qualitative data directly from people to guide our next stages. However the final prototype and working up to these stages were losing the essence of our initial experiments. I feel we were beginning to force experiments to back up our design -gathering data around goldsmiths whilst we were creating the animation of the design. I’ve realised this is not a way I like to work and it feels very unnatural for me, I was more comfortable with the way we working in the first half of the brief: passionately exploring our surroundings which would in turn in form our next steps.
RESEARCH Choosing to initially ignore the Senegalese culture helped us to determine how we could use the data. I was trying to get my head around big data as that was the concept behind the brief. I was interested in quantitative and qualitative and how these compare and could potentially cross paths. I’d have to get my head around this before anything else. From our initial research with Hackney-Haggerston we were understanding that big data sets leave gaps. These informed the rest of our project and we built on these ideals. We took snippets of research into the Senegalese culture later. We spoke to people who had left Senegal and now lived in London. Speaking to Nouka a family friend of mine, prompted us to look into radio as a platform as he claimed “everyone listens to the radio in Senegal.” He also told us the story about sharing problems and everyone is afraid to in-case “the whole village will then know.” These prompted our designs but we realised these concepts were things that occur in most cultures so could therefore be classed as universal reasons to create our radio platform. We worked hard to make a design that we ourselves would use, refining and editing the parts we didn’t feel worked for example the voice distortion exercises to increase anonymity. Our work stayed true to our manifesto. We did not want the research into the Senegalese culture to underline our project as although these findings are genuine they don’t apply to every single person, we did not want to force our design on anyone and tell them this is what they need.
live, Q vs Q
PROJECT ID Building a project identification for a radio programme was originally a difficult thing to visualise. We didn’t initially have a symbol or a motif to base our design around. Near the beginning we had found this quite difficult and briefly attempted to find something within the Senegalese culture to attach our designs to, a mascot to guide us. However finding something within their culture would defy the whole concept and integrity of our project. We didn’t want to make assumptions. We didn’t want to tell the Senegalese culture what they needed. We didn’t want to try and say we knew their circumstance as we knew a part of their culture. We had that their is a tendency to not share problems with one another, especially outside the family, and especially about health, however we agreed this is something that occurs somewhere in every culture. In every culture there is someone who needs a voice and in every culture there are people who will listen. With this in mind we began building on the ‘inverted megaphone’ idea. This stemmed from A motif captured by the notion of large problems being filtered through a system then heard from the smaller voices in society. 169
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MANAGEMENT We put a lot of time into the style of our presentation. We spent a week animating the story of our process and ‘The People’s Feed.’ The final outcome was too conceptual and did not communicate clearly enough. Animation was perhaps the wrong format to deliver our design through. I feel as we were trying to design something ‘human’ and qualitative’ there were no humans in sight and it was completely computer generated. We poorly managed our time in this last week; where we could have been refining our design we spent making intricate animations that took an hour for one quick recorded piece of audio. The delivery of our design was naturally a mash up of what everyone individually thought the final design was, depending on what part of the animation they had worked on. I feel with better communication across the team and a focus on clarity over cryptic style our final presentation would have been way more successful.
COMMUNICATION Orange found our project one of the most conceptually rich and intriguing project yet the hardest to engage and understand. The animation story of The People’s Feed would have been a lovely piece to help get a feel of the design but we did not explain any of the reasons for making the decisions or what lead us to this design. The design itself was not yet clarified amongst us making the delivery and story of the design very unclear. The process shown in the first part: The Quantitative/inhuman section was very confusing. This project has taught me so much about communicating a project to someone outside of the context of our course. Being conceptual and abstract is a really amazing way to explore a project and often leads to more enriched designs and outcomes, However when communicating these projects to those outside of the context of the Goldsmiths Design course the projects may have to be reeled in a bit and communicated very clearly. This is also a good method to use even on the course, sometimes layman terms can help people affiliate with your projects- sometimes projects can seem daunting and overwhelming. Perhaps this one did as although there was passion in our work it became quite closed and cold in its delivery.
live, Q vs Q
OUTCOME I feel as though we were resisting giving up all our designs in our outcome. As the project had lead us to really question Orange and the Data for Development project and we were still quite wary of the often assumptive nature that can come by just using Quantitative data. Although I appreciated and admired the fellow Goldsmiths for D4D projects, I did feel as though they had done exactly what our group did not want to do; in the sense that they had made designs in response to assumptions based of cultural findings. In that way I am proud of us, as we designed something universal, that can be used anywhere. We followed through with our original speculations and resisted the urge to just design using the big data. We had investigated our initial complex concept throughout and had arrived at a place where we were all comfortable in talking about what we felt towards the project. With this in mind we should have made the most of our passions and delivered and clearly communicated presentation with live commentary instead of our pre recorded.
DEVELOPMENT We all agree that the delivery of our design let us down, we were otherwise were very proud of it. We have been offered the chance to develop our design and represent to Orange as they felt our design had real value and potential. I find this fairly ironic considering our whole project was based of questioning the validity of their brief. However I think this did give our project passion and despite the cryptic presentation an earnest manifesto of resistance shone through. I think it would be an opportunity wasted to not take up their offer and a perfect chance to consider what we have learnt about communication to those outside of goldsmiths and really test our improvements. With that in mind i have refined our design to what I feel it is and re-communicated it for my development.
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THE PEOPLE’S FEED
live, Q vs Q
D A platform which allows anonymity and security as it occupies an non-physical space. A platform which attempts to break communication boundaries and ignorance from rural to urban locations within a country. A platform which attempts to give a local voice and judgement of big data which characterises their area. A platform which creates a secure space to speak up about stigmatised medical issues, or challenging cultural norms within society. A platform which seeks to provide a wider view of cultural norms by allowing listeners to hear opinions from contrasting places. A platform seeking to cumulate new knowledge as tools for innovation, and human rights.
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The People’s Feed is an audio feed that gives everyone a chance to have his or her voice heard. The feed can be tuned into across the country by a mobile phone device at any time of day. There is an option to listen live to the current feed and to submit your own opinion on the topic. The feed is unmediated and is run by an automated system. Overriding human judgement on whose voice should or shouldn’t be heard.
live, Q vs Q
Topics are based on existing data sets on a large regional scale but also smaller localities- covering the whole region equally. When the current topic is specific to a certain localities the system will prioritise submissions heard by people within the connectivity range of that area. Data is collected and submitted by genuine quantitative articles. Based of Orange Data for Development findings for example in Senegal. There is a stress on broadcasting data that the public otherwise wouldn’t be able to access. Those submitters are asked to respond to the data based on their personal experiences. The topic will be announced at the same time each day and will last for 24 hours. Previous submissions are deleted when a new topic is announced. Submissions heard are on a first come first serve basis from when they are submitted. Topics are part of a stream, which the system picks from. The system will select a varied range of subject matters, ensuring there is a balance between topics and how often similar topics are aired. It is broadcasted as a radio show, in that it is audio based but it acts as a social media platform in the sense that everyone has the initial freedom to say what they like in response to the given topic.
It is not censored so will undoubtedly provoke further discussions outside of the feed. Realising these are issues will bring the issues to light, become data to fed back into the feed for example: keywords related to sexual violence. The amount heard that week could be quantified, aired and then these will be opinionated. Underlying aim is to promote further discussions outside of the feed.
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CRIT. REFLECTION Collating this booklet together has been one of the most useful, thought provoking and by far the biggest moment of realisation in the course so far. I have been able to go over each project with scrutiny and decipher exactly what it is I have done successfully, what I need to improve on in my practice and where I would like to take my future designs. I have also been figuring out what this whole year means for me as a design student but also as a responsible human who is going to design for a world outside of a degree course. I was concerned that getting close to the projects again would lead to me over analysing and ruining them for me but it has only made me love them more. Now, with the distance I’ve had from them I can really understand them, realise exactly what we were doing and what this revealed about the world and my own individual design practice. My year started with a very successful project that I feel I worked really well on making me excited to talk about and to share my ideas throughout. I have naturally used the Escape project as a pinnacle for the standard I wanted my other projects to achieve. We drew a circle (how convenient) around the projects process with a strong outcome that encased the process within it. It felt finished and it was a strong outcome but this year I have found myself comparing other projects to the Escape project (Loop) unable to exactly pinpoint what it was about it that ensured I worked to my best abilities. With this in mind I have opened up the process again and analysed where the room was for more exploration from what the final outcome revealed and to remind me what it was that worked with me so well on it. I know that I do work very hard and I do put the time in but I don’t always do it in the most effective way or a way that I am proud of. I have
realised that for me this is all about balance and creating a synergy across areas of focus that I can sometimes struggle to create an amalgam between.
SPACES FOR SYNERGY BEING CHALLENGED// CHALLENGING Throughout each project I’ve undertaken this year it has always started with a question. A question regarding the brief itself. Escape we were asked to plan an escape route- we asked but what is escape? what does it mean to escape? We ended up demonstrating a concept of escape. With the ‘isms’ project I questioned but what is an ideology? What do they mean? How can you design yourself to believe in something? We ended up designing a system that could essentially create ideologies at the same time as attempting to eradicate them. In the final brief for orange we began by questioning the data sets, but what is big data? How reliable is it? How can you design anything without qualitative data? We ended up offering an alternative method of using big data by collecting qualitative. Going straight for the big questions can sometimes leave me feeling overwhelmed and out of my depth. This was the case with the Ism project, we had questioned such a large surface area that we got too bogged down in our research, we tried so hard to find a meaning for a project as we were rejecting the concept of ideologies. In the end this became the basis for Hectolectics which is a tool and design I appreciate now in my process. I could have taken isms with a pinch of salt, ignored what Ideologies meant as a whole and designed a belief system that I felt completely disconnected from. This however would feel unnatural for me as I have realised my undogmatic approach to design is what leaves me engaged and asking questions, its just about finding what I can explore within my
capacity for theoretical understanding! THEORY // PERSONAL EXPLORATION I often find myself getting too overwhelmed by the amount of theoretical theory I do. I can’t make sense of it all at once yet I still carry on finding more as I find it so interesting. This is a good thing as I can often back up my points and places of interest with theory but I can’t go that one step further in proving its interest by applying it to my own process of first hand explorations in the world. I often find really interesting snippets of research that I really appreciate and know I should explore but often I can’t connect this with my actual explorations and designs. In the Escape project we made a really conscious effort to create a synergy between our first hand and second hand research. We were sometimes ridiculous with it - repeating every word 10 times in a sentence, trying to make 100 cups of tea to put around the studio to obstruct peoples movements and then obviously the examples in this book like turning our selves into shampoo foam monsters. These were not wastes of time they were very beneficial to our project. They were all informed by second hand research into repetition and helped us affiliate and understand our project more. I feel that the most ridiculous and bonkers explorations often lead me to the more interesting places, I just sometimes find it difficult to think outside the box and perhaps often its about finding something visual to work with from the interesting things I’ve read. The visual identities for projects , can often come from the little exercises or the big experiments. For example in the Orange live brief project there was the example of a megaphone being used to broadcast health advice, though this is very effective and a really good source of spreading vital information, it seems quite barbaric and insensitive. In every culture there are people who feel uncomfortable talking about their problems, in particular their health issues, when you put these two notions together - the loud booming voice of health advice and the unheard voice who needs to question that health advice, there is an image in there. An image of an inverted megaphone. For synthesis like this between research and explorations, my personal explorations in the Hectolectics system has really helped me begin to create these synergies. In the Hectolectics project our research got so heavy and ‘wordy’ as we tried to apply mean-
ing to our project and build an ideology we ended up actually designing a process tool- a system to fill in the gaps I mention that can occur when you are stuck with a project. Helping to bring together your existing ideas and findings. I really enjoyed using this tool to explore the areas in a project I felt could be synthesised and created bizarre performances to link the situations. On the surface they may just seem random and bizarre but they all came from the same projects and they did end up revealing other things that I hadn’t considered. Which leads me onto my next space for synergy: CONCEPTUAL//REAL WORLD Although I thought Escape was my most successful project when we were given the opportunity to develop our projects I really wanted to find a place in the world where our project was a reality. I wanted to find somewhere that made a synthesis between routine and architecture, repetition and space. With some more theoretical and first hand research I discovered that prisoners experience a world similar to Loop through their daily routines, that span out into years and the repetitive architecture they arenít allowed to go outside of. Where chess games aren’t best of 3 they’re best of 55 and everyone’s room looks the same and can be seen from every angle creating a looping pattern of monotony. I am concerned yet weirdly enthralled that there is a purposefully designed space that advocated the purgatory we demonstrated in our project. Applying a conceptual understanding to a real life situation, particularly a social structure really excites me. Using an abstract basis to explore something larger and socially aware is something I’d like to do in my future design projects. MICRO//MACRO I am fascinated by the most taken for granted aspects of human existence- routines, habits, journeys, stories- the micro patterns that make us human. I am fascinated by how these expose that we are all products of the same society that we all shape whilst it shapes us. Using the micro -in the form of shapes such as a circle in the loop and a hexagon in the ism project really helped me engage and guide my understanding of the project but also using these to explore and make sense of the bigger and wider situations and circumstances. Taking the every day mundane and blowing these out of proportions, using them to
understand bigger unconsidered or unrealised areas of my own situation and surroundings was one of the most engaging aspects of the Escape project. My interactions with the world through design are predominantly visual and shapes and drawings often guide my connections with projects. ME //AUDIENCE One of the biggest challenges for me this year has been creating projects that will then be communicated to those who have not seen it or are not in your head. Stripping things back to layman terms has been sometimes hard, sometimes really fun. This is something that needs to be worked on. I feel as though maybe as I am not always very certain of my projects until Iíve had some space from them I can really full explain them to someone else. In Escape we did this successfully and had a lot of fun with it, involving the audience in the process. For the ism project there was audience participation but we didn’t fully run anything through our process so it was difficult for the audience to engage with the potential of the design. With the Orange project this is where our project fell down quite a bit. We were very aware of it though so know what we have to do from now. Hectolectics is beginning to make me think about the world in a different way. I’m now constantly looking for these moments that contradict each other or don’t quite meet and finding that space/thing in between that can be used to link them. I have done this throughout this whole critical reflection: identified where there is space for a synthesis and I am really impressed by this realisation that I have put a lens over the year with one of my projects. I have used this // anywhere I feel there was a synergy between the two things that worked well. The People’s feed (live brief for Orange) has taught me so much about the technicalities and complications with big data, I am still
terrified by it but it has reassured me that enjoy working in areas I find challenging, often confusing and I’m enthused by creating an understanding of a place I feel I don’t agree with. Of course the escape project is still over my over all favourite project and my most successful, I feel that it was every way I like to work and the opportunities it opened up for further explorations I hope to see through.