Aleksandra Łukaszewska - portfolio 2020

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PLASTIC FANTASTIC: REIMAGING WASTE

ONGOING RESEARCH THROUGH DESIGN

The research aims at understanding the life cycle of plastic product, mainly happening locally. Moreover, it’s a process of collecting infomrations about local plastic network, processes as well as material and resources themselves. It’s a first step towards creating a Presious Plastic-based educational work space, focusing on hands-on workshops and experiences with children, teenagers, teachers, parents and other parties interested.

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WASTE ME NOT: FUTURE FOOD TODAY

ONGOING RESEARCH THROUGH DESIGN

WasteMeNot is a project inspired by @theawwwesomes vegan cooking challenge aiming in recreating recipes from Space10’s “Future Food Today”. The project aims in shifting the perception of what future food means and how it may look - shifting it from sci-fi tasteless pills visions to vibrant, colorful, tasteful plates that are dictated by nature and made in harmony with Her. WasteMeNot is a challenge to follow the recipes and instructions, use alternative or forgotten techniques of producing or processing food, sourcing seasonally and locally while staying elastic and open for changes


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WEAK SIGNALS: PLANETARY THINKING

ONGOING ROJECT

COVID-19 has been a global occasion to discuss how we should design our society of After-Corona. ‘Planetary Thinking’ is a space to face the facts and reflect them in order to think collectively/critically/radically about the futures of our society. A world where many worlds fit. ‘Planetary Thinking’ is a series of written pieces that culminates into a larger body of work that takes the form of a research report. Each week, we will introduce, frame, unpack, and explore a different signal of change that has emerged during Covid times from a design point of view. We are MDEF alumni, currently experiencing „the new reality” in 5 different countries - Poland, Spain, Brasil, Australia and Japan. Weak Signals is the frame on which the Master of Design for Emergent Futures course at IAAC was based. A weak signal is an indicator of a potentially emerging change, most often problematic and seemingly quite random, which may become a significant issue in the future. The project looks at the signals we described two years ago and re-analyzes them through the perspective of a new covid reality. It is also a manifesto against market-driven trend reports and research and towards social literacy and bridging this perspective of trends towards people, getting them to be aware of external pressures.

ATTENTION PROTECTION | DISMANTLING FILTER BUBBLES | CIRCULAR DATA ECONOMY | TRUTH WARS | REDESIGNING SOCIAL | CLIMATE CONSCIENCE | INTER-SPECIES COLLABORATION | LONG-TERMISM | CARBON NEUTRAL LIFESTYLES | FIGHTING ANTHROPOCENE CONFLICTS | TECHNOLOGY FOR EQUALITY | FIGHTING AI BIAS | IMAGINING NEW JOBS | MAKING UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME WORK | HUMAN-MACHINE CREATIVE COLLABORATIONS | MAKING WORLD GOVERNANCE | RURAL FUTURES | PICK YOUR OWN PASSPORT | REFUGEE TECH | WELFARE STATE 2.0 | NON-HETEROPATRIARCHAL INNOVATION | IMAGINING FUTURES THAT ARE NOT WESTERN-CENTRIC | RECONFIGURE YOUR BODY | GENDER FLUIDITY | DISRUPT AGEISM


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ROBOMADE Project was made in cooperation with Manufactura Bolesławiec (famous for their hand stamped pottery). The goal was to introduce a robotic arm in a handmade-fouced work space. What an imperfect human hand ­cannot make is at the same time the basic movement for the robot - ­arc motion and parallel lines and that was team’s start point. The series „Robomade” was created to show the imperfection of an „arm” of a robot - which is there just because of human’s mistakes. The robot itself is not only a machine responding for a code repetitively, in this case it is more a creator of final effect. team project

During this project I was co-responsible for interviews with painters from the workshop, documenting this part. Together with a team member, we analyzed hand movements, decomposing them into prime factors and translating them into the language of the robot. I was an active participant in the process of idealization, prototyping and understanding.

Steve Woolgar, a British sociologist, in his deliberations goes to the statement that the machines set the parameters of human activity as an individual, that is, the history of society and its development is nothing but the history of programming the users by machines. Charles P. Snow speaks equally radically about technology in society, claiming that the society of the 20th century is divided into two poles between which it is impossible to build any bridge - on one hand we have intellectuals, meaning values, emotions, human action, on the other - scientists whose scope of research is everything that does not come from a human being. Snow argues that these two worlds use two completely different languages. Thus, one can notice the same discourse between the human hand and the robot’s grip and hence - what is handmade and what is produced industrially. A lot of positive values are usually given to what is a handmade product and negative ones to what is mass produced. The appearance of the robot in the production process completely changes the reception of the product and yet even folk handicrafts are rarely made only with the use of primitive tools. Can the fact that the human hand has direct contact with the object be postponed beyond the ability to teach the robot the movements of intangible heritage and embodied knowledge, which will not be the same but may be new? When we learn to ride a bike, we do it with body, not thoughts. The same body acquires knowledge, learns movements and remembers them, putting everything into experience, gathering them, creates “intuition” from embodied knowledge. But the analysis of these movements, grasps and meaning, and later translating them into a programming language does not mean departing from what is human. Today, the design process is aimed at replacement, while the essence should be design for cooperation and integration - a man with a machine, a machine with a product, a product with a human being. Designing can not therefore be design for exclusion, but just for creating a new type of bond. My essey, written for the catalog presenting the project.


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KUKA TATTOO ​”kuka tattoo” is a translation from craftsmanship to industrial robot’s language. The project runs through choosing a craftsmanship, analysis of hand work, finishing at parametric ­description, ­designing a tool and ­finally - teaching the robot how to tattoo. It is an interpretation and modification of handicraft for exploring the field of possibilities that are given from the usage of industrial robots.

Clue of the project - designer can have a huge impact on the process of ­products’ realisation or solution, not only on the final results. team project: In this project I took care of the research side. I talked with tattoo enthusiasts, interviewed tattooists while also contributing to the making process.

An interesting aspect of this work was the scale of reaction of people, both craftsmen and „clients” - some of them declared their willingness to take part in an experiment for a tattoo with a history, to have a „tattoo made by a robot”, even if a simple line; others expected a refined pattern and process first. On the other side of the scale were all those who accused such a process of lack of relationship and relation between the participants, claiming hat’ was the gist.


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KNOT OF HAPPINESS „Knot of happiness” is an answer to a question „Mr Kawasaki, can you knot?”. Analysis of nodes, ­bindings, knots - from laces, through ties to ­sailings knots - led us to chinese knot of ­happiness. We translated the ­precise work of human’s hand to the motion of robotic arm. Final effect changes the popular image of robotic movement as straight and inelegant: Mr Kawasaki has turned out to be ­agile, smooth and ingenious.

Additional goal was to go through the whole process, meaning ­designing a product, working on a tool and ­producing 100 pics within a cost less than 3 PLN per piece. All in all, we were working with almost 25 prototyped matrices to understand the mechanism of knotting and to came to the final, completly working one. team project



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_BOIDS _boids is a form-finding project, exploring the curved surface that later will be used as a base for pavilion; the surface is created by a parametric script imitating birds boid movement; Three rules that are creating ­natural swarn motion are translated to Grasshopper script and then later the form is developed.

POSSIBLE TRAJECTORIES


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PARAMETRIC MACHINE Parametric Machine is a summer ­i­nstallation based on ­Grasshopper script in Castle Park, Pszczyna, ­Poland. In a public space, it has been a ­physical trace of The Theatre ­Machine V (­Teatralna Maszyna Pszczyna V). This ­festival is known for exploring ­undeveloped, abandoned urban ­spaces and constant or temporary ­interference in their character. Contemporary form of a bench is set up in a contrast for English-­looking park. Builded up on the main path,

a­ llows to observe monumental ­architecture from today’s design point of view. Surprising and causing further reflection was the moment when the children visited the sculpture. Eventaully becuase of the material amount limitation we had to hange the final scale of the building, and so the structure was reinterpreted by the children, thus hanged its function - the pavilion became a hill, a castle, a slide and a fort.

The structure is an effect of ­Parametric ­Architecture (tutors: K. Radziszewski, ­A. ­Krężlik) workshops.



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PARAMETRIC SUMMER SCHOOL The subject of the workshop was a design of an independent shading structure. We wondered: For whom is the shadow important? How should shading be shaped in our climate? When is the „bubbler” positive and when it has a negative impact on people and the environment? The goal of the project was to generate geometry to maximize the number of hours when it improves thermal comfort around itself. The assumptions of the model in

Grasshope included the hours of the greatest heat stress and the potential use of space by the inhabitants. Design parameters were not aesthetic but environmental factors. The system consists of longitudinal elements and transverse construction elements. The position of the collar and their angle of rotation were determined in the optimization process in which the algorithm based on „model-based optimization” searched for the best solution.

The structure is an effect of ­Parametric ­Summer School (tutors: K. Radziszewski, ­A. ­Krężlik) workshops.

STRESS LEVEL


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SWING MORPHOLOGY The projects aims to create the space which will create playground for adults with swings of different sorts, create comfortable park seats for the users of all ages and serve as a social-mixer for multiple users and their needs, ­allow for different activities like ­sitting, laying down, snoozing, observing, ­reading books, swinging on the swings and hammocks etc, create elegant and inspiring space. ​ The MEDS participants benefit from ­taking part in this workshop by ­exploring the aesthetics of nets and string

in art and architecture, ­dealing with ­complex structure based on extracting data from parametric ­model, studying the topic and ­challenges of designing urban furniture, ­getting to know the technique of making string ruled surfaces, practicing team work and ability to work within the ­framework for the design as a whole, having great time doing cool things.

I joined this project in its final phase, contributing to the process of prototyping the swing before the start of the workshop, to research on materials in practical terms. During the trip and the workshop I was responsible for communicating the project to a group of participants, supervising the process and timetable.

project held by [winkle] team


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EVERY OBJECT TELLS A STORY What do the objects hide inside? Isn’t their structure more valuable than mere appearance? We are seeking an answer to ­these questions. Disassembling, distilling and resynthesing objects is what we do to uncover mysteries ­usually ­hidden ­inside an idealized shell. ­Exploded views overwhelm with ­immensity of troubles that a designer is to solve ­before putting a product into ­production to minimize expenses and to avoid falling into disfavour with the engineers. Such process and way from an idea to an actual product is a crucial part of industrial designer work. team project

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BIT - ATOMS - BIT We 3D scanned a statue (ATOMS), transferred to a mesh model (BITS) and than 3D printed it. The object was than used as a model to create a plaster mould for porcelain casting (ATOMS). The casts where painted with engobe and glazed. The whole process was also a ­debate on what do we earn going through such a change - from atoms to bits to atoms - and if it is reproduction, ­processing or maybe a creation. team project


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BACHELOR PROJECT: POD-45 To make the city livable, or, on humans and their sensorium in the urban space.

I decided to focus my project on exploring the mobility, urbanisation and human being as three seperate but always connected agents. I took a look at those three aspects and notcied how they work being put togeter. The most common way of describing a city is to look at it „from the top”, from the population point of view, from archtecuture perspective, as a whole huge organism. In this work I take different attitude and watch urban experience from the perspective of one person that always remains in motion but als the persepctive of how the city is percived with the senses.

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CHANGING PERSPECTIVE MOBILITY AND URBANIZATION: TWO INTERTWINED SOCIAL PROCESSES A mobile object is an item that can be easily moved. The English synonym of the word „mobility” is „changeability”. Being in motion, we change the position, speed, travel time of a given road. The perspective also changes. Movement and changes are combined. The city has its own system of movement, its own system of constantly changing perspectives. It is a living organism, on one hand limiting movement, on the other hand created by this movement. There are particular urban solutions and maybe even dreams that shape cities - in the past those were shopping centers, stations, highways. Today, cities are shaped by the dreams of removing the side effects of urbanization: the lack of smog, traffic jams and noise, and the ease of passing through such an area. Bearing in mind all that the question is what factors will shape cities in the future.

Transport as a system is not a temporary medium. It leaves a material trace - it is visible nowadays even in the remnants of the Roman Roads on which cars moves to this day. The development of transport have been influencing the development of the city - and vice versa. Those are processes dependent on each other. They have been shaped over the years. With the change of the means of transport, the perspective of perceiving the city by people also changes. At the beginning, the city was adapted to the pedestrian perspective, with time it has changed to the perspective of a person moving with a steam engine (distances increased), a tram (larger distances, shorter sections) to finally get to the car - private space where we move on any distance, unlimited sections and for undefined time.


ENVIRONMENT

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SENSORIAL CITY EXPERIENCE With the change of perspective, the way of experiencing the city also changes. I asked myself what is the city experience seen as the sensorial experience, as the city can be touched, smelled, seen and heard. The city is more and more crowded and hectic. It is caused by rapidly changing images, discontinuities and variations. The city creates such conditions and provides such impressions and thus sets the rhythm of social, economic, professional and sensual life. It is a kind of machine that produces a very specific sensorial experience and forces a person to blunt the senses.

ONGOING

EXTENSION

PHISICALISATION

DENSITY

NETWORK

2045 - SCENARIO NATURAL ENVIRONMENT - Rains are rarer but much more intense. Many old residential areas have changed into wetlands and lakes or deserts that can not be settled anymore. The migration movement is intensified, as societies are gathering in larger groups. URBANISATION - Cities are overcrowded and therefore very dense. The landscape is really high, full of blocks of flats and skyscrapers. The chaos of sounds and lights prevails. CITY EXPERIENCE - The day is no longer divided into nighttime and daytime and cities have become clock machines. Society lives non-stop. As the results of density of population and llimited upward growth, there is a new dimension of city growth - the underground. Many of the city’s functions are transferred there. With time humans have learnt to adapt. Additionally, senses are redefined - the space is no longer seen by the eyes, but it must be perceived with the body. The feeling of duality of the day is even weaker compared to that on the surface. For example, there is no experience of waking up to natural sunlight

The city is a living organisms that somehow attacks people’s senses. But poeple don’t give up. They are trying to protect themselfes from a bad impulses of the city. In the past, man fought with nature for survival and livelihood. Today it is a fight against a city for a human, that is, a fight with the effects of a man being in a city, like smog. I put forward the thesis that in the future this fight will turn into a fight for the senses.

PEOPLE - Interpersonal experiences are replaced by digital experiences simulating such contact. The boundaries between the physical and the digital blur. To optimize the time things are done online in the network. Urban life acts as an organic system that connects all actors and integrates them, communicating them with each other and optimizing their work - like a mycelium that links the biological processes of the whole forest. WORLD - Hectic world calls for people to be always ready, focused and on the move and because of this the human senses are invaded. There are continuous stimuli coming from everywhere - from the city, mobility, other people, networks of connected actors. Humanity is unable to be offline. With this constant hum and noise both physical and digital - man needs to find a way to give relief to his senses, as the senses are the basic tool for understanding and experiencing the world. One needs to find own tranquility.


* The design process consisted in analyzing the interrelationships between mobility, urbanization and human in the context of changes that have occurred in the past, the activities of the present and finally in the context of visions and future scenarios. An important part was the study of how the senses and the body are being used in the metropolis and understanding the parameters that these practises are described with. Metropolis is extensive, high, and some of its functions are transferred underground. The city never sleeps. That is, it is round the clock, so there is no clear differentiation between day and night, which means that it is re-stimulating the people. The user is in constant motion. Rides can take a long time, considering the size and extension of the city. One has a home, private owned space, but expects some privacy and the ability to calm down while still being in the city. Public transport is used, although the definition of the vehicle is different than what we know today. The capsule is private in the meaning that it recognizes and adapts to its user. The pod moves in an organic system in which all elements are connected and interdependent - vehicles recognize other vehicles and know where they are. Other city actors are also included in the system, such as public transport and its elements - eg. stops, bicycle transport, pedestrians, lamps, monitoring and other emerging media. It is autonomous, that is, it moves without a driver and does not require constant attention, but it has a controller that allows one to take the steering - mainly for the pleasure that comes from driving. It accommodates two people. It is not a mobile office to work with, but does not deprive the possibility of „connecting� to the ubiquitous network, allowing the use of the front dashboard as a workstation or mobile office.


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GRADUATION SHOW 4: EXHIBITION top photo - fast prototyping models, form checking by 3D printing bottom photo - final form printing

That’s how Krzysztof Meisner, polish designer and futurologist, descriebed his projects and that is how I see the one I did. I feel it is appropiate to finish the project and research not with the fixed form of capsule but rather with open quesstion about how the senses will change in the future and how it is to see the world, especially the city, through the eyes of human who is always on the move. WHAT IS NEXT? To develope the „POD-45, or, on human senses” project further, I plan to deepen the topic of biomimicry and the nature’s way of moving and transporting. It is a huge oportunity to get inspired from the nature and get from her solutions rather than steal from her. Organic methods can bring way more effective and efficient answers to the questions that are bothering the society nowadays. On the other hand, I want to ask myself what if the future word is bringing us no cities and and is going back to primitive way of construction tribal societies.


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MAKE HERE Make Here is a project to create a community around local production to share knowledge, information, ideas and recommendations in a city or neighbourhood. We want to connect people who make to people wanting to make. Make Here started as an one-week project by students of the Master in Design for Emergent Futures (MDEF) @ IAAC - inspired by Make Works and Fab City. We want it to spread globally. We initially mapped information about maker-spaces, material suppliers, workshops and other creative

PLATFORM www.instagram.com/makeherebcn WEBSITE www.makehere.gitlab.io/make-here-bcn

spaces in Poblenou, Barcelona. The concept is: anyone can go through the same process, developing this project in their own cities through the aid of the toolkit. A global network can be developed in which these different communities learn and thrive off each other. Therefore, laying the foundations for change towards a more circular economy, and rethinking our relationships with local production. #makehere #opportunist #makersmovement


Start from someone you know! If you don’t know creative spaces yet, we recommend you to find a FabLab in your city and visit it.

Here are some questions we usually ask that get our makers talking: What is your story? What is your skill / background?

Talk to people working there and try to interview them about local producers, makers, workshops. Explain the concept and try to connect to those places. No FabLab? Find a design school or open-minded craftsman. Arrange a meeting, talk with makers. Document your visit to create the content for the platform. But mostly - spread the word and engage people!

We recommend taking a camera, a phone for recording audio, a smile and patience - people may be busy but usually they’re kind enough to take the time if you ask politely.

What technologies do you use?

To continue, let the makers guide your visit to new places! Ask them for recommendations to where to go, with whom they collaborate for projects and by that, decide which new places you will explore.

What do you do with your waste?

What materials do you use? Where do you source your materials?

How do you envision that students could interact with your space? How do you interact with the existing community? (Suppliers, other makers etc.)


Starting Out

To be able to share the information with others about the creative You can find the whole template for it in our gitlab page: https://gitlab.com/ makehere/make-here-bcn. For the website, we suggest some topics for creating content. Create your own narratives of the journey, people and spaces. Below, we have some suggestions on content categories and keywords that can guide topics to be written about.

Content Insights / Profiles / References / Quotes / Artwork Keywords Skills / Story / Tech / Material / Interaction.



MAKE HERE WARSAW, POLAND

One of the most interesting aspects of the idea, modeled after the FabCity concepet, is its scalability and the ability to translate it into another city - part of the initial project was to create a toolkit that would kick start an undertaking in any city.

I have just started such a process in Warsaw.

As Poblenou in Barcelona has its unique atmosphere and characteristics, the question I asked myself at the start of the project is: what value does Warsaw have? What characterizes it, what is its essentail quality? And finally: what is the identity of Warsaw? The answer to these questions will be a series of interviews and visits to makers: craftsmen, creative communities, open workshops, fablabas and more. I also want to find out how open(minded) they are to all kinds of cooperations with students, creators and others - I will map activities and crossreference them, trying to create an atlas of possibilities.

Work in progress.

Warsaw’s Craftsmans a map by „Miasto jest nasze” Foundation


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MASTER IN DESIGN FOR EMERGENT FUTURES

„The aim of this master is to provide the strategic vision and tools for designers, sociologists, economists and computer scientists, to become agents of change in multiple professional environments.” (www.iaac.net)

EXPLORATION

INSTRUMENTATION

REFLECTION

APPLICATION

During the first trimester, we went through 12 weeks and 12 different courses - including Biology Zero, Design for real digital worlds or Designing with Extended Intelligence. The entire program focuses on designing interventions that can take a different form - physical product, platform, social action or software. Through exploration, instrumentation, reflection and application, we learn tools that will allow us to transform manifestos and judgments into real visions and become agents of change that our world needs. By touching many different issues - artificial intelligence, digital fabrication, robotics, synthetic biology, handicraft, education and many others - I become much more sensitive to the global developments (both micro-worlds of small communities and globally). Such a hybrid approach teaches me to work on the borderline between disciplines and asking questions not about the aesthetics of the issue, but about its social, ecological or educational aspect. BIOLOGY ZERO, introduction to synthetic biology, DIY-biology and biohacking movement, to making creative decisions and constructing logical frameworks for study and production in the field of biology.

DESIGN FOR THE REAL DIGITAL WORLD, digital fabric wation and trash hunting, that is, using industrial waste found in the trash to creat new things and give them a second live.

EXPLORING HYBRID PROFILES, most of the jobs opportunities and future challenges that will arise in the next years still don’t exist. Instead of seeing it as a thread, we look at it as an opportunity; On the photo: workshop by Sara de Ubieta, architect who works as a shoemaker and material researcher.


The below fragement comes from the weekly reflection on the master courser it is a response to a week of lectures and conversations about changes in the natural environment, political capacities of designs and navigating through so many changes that cause uncertainty about the days and years to come.

WEEK05. Navigating Uncertainty The uncertainty principle is one of the most famous (and probably misunderstood) ideas in physics. It tells us that there is a fuzziness in nature, a fundamental limit to what we can know about the behaviour of quantum particles and, therefore, the smallest scales of nature. Of these scales, the most we can hope for is to calculate probabilities for where things are and how they will behave. Unlike Isaac Newton’s clockwork universe, where everything follows clear-cut laws on how to move and prediction is easy if you know the starting conditions, the uncertainty principle enshrines a level of fuzziness into quantum theory (Alok Jha, “What is Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle?”, The Guardian). If even the smallest scale in nature has the described rule of ambiguity and the only option of “predicting” is to describe the probability of occurrence, then the scaling of this phenomenon (not numerically described, but talking about what we humans call the future) gives the assertion that the world is unpredictable and uncertain - just like the molecules that build it. The designer must find himself in this uncertainty. On one hand, it’s a simple survival instinct - not get lost - but on the other, creating a framework allows for more reliable navigation through unknown, and thus

asking more relevant questions, conducting more accurate research, and finally, I hope, creating solid projects (although of course “solid” in in this case has many meanings). Because first you have to realize that you are lost before you start asking for directions. Futures My favorite examples of trying to “preach” the future are visions from, for example, the ‘50s or ‘60s - if only because many of them talk about the world after 2000, so I’m in this (privileged?) position to verify them, in a way. Some of them are still hot topics nowadays - like electric, driverless and autonomous vehicles. Others seem completely recalculated, like a weather control machine. The next ones are interesting because they didn’t make it today in terms of form but some part of those visions are happening in modern times, such as mail not delivered by a man - is this not a story about drones from Amazon? Some of them from today’s perspective seem a bit funny, maybe even exaggerated, but if you look at those ideas closely, then despite having missing the reality (for example, the operation of some systems, the development of robotics, or rather its level of domestication) it seems that they gave very specific questions and therefore seek to identify challenges that await us (or in that case our ancestry) and identify the actions that must (have been) be taken to meet these challenges.

THE WHOLE TEXT IS PUBLISHED HERE https://bit.ly/2sFNBpC


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MASTER PROJECT JAKTO LAB: BIODESIGN IN CHILDREN’S EDUCATION

Our education systems are stuck in the past. It’s time to shake up the system with a bit of design and innovation, and build skills relevant to the 21st century. Public education was created back when the interest was on building skills for the 19th century: the industrial revolution. While this system includes skills that are still relevant, it’s no longer enough. IXDS.com

UNESCO identifies 21th-century skills as, to name a few, critical thinking, problem-solving approach, team-work, creative thinking and communication. Nowadays school students’ mindsets are theoretically formed, being used to learning by heart, memorizing and preparing for tests and exams, where at the end there is either a good or a bad answer. It is quite a binary system whereas the learning experience should be focused on empowering students abilities instead of pointing out the weaknesses.

So if the swimming pool is sterile, would it be possible to have a glowing swimming pool? Armau, 9 years old

Science is an ever-changing process of exploration and learning that inherently unpredictable path is followed way more often than straightforward one. By teaching science and its fluidity we empower people to use it as a tool and implement it in the decision making process. Doing that with children can have positive outcomes, especially in the context of the jobs of the future, which is unclear and far uncertain, but full of challenges. JAKTO LAB aims at the gap between today’s tools and the skills of the future. By including biodesign in children’s education, cross-curricular possibilities can be introduced. A multidisciplinary approach is crucial in order to face different issues we are already dealing with, starting from the environmental crisis through lack of equality to exclusion. Today, the rift between disciplines is narrowing by necessity so I believe that by widening student’s skills set we can give them the tools to learn. And because kids learn through hands-on experience, experimenting, cognitive process introduced in a playful way, they are able to explore their own natural, “built-in”, curiosity, which should be the strongest tool to be used.

Did you learn something? Yes! That they can glow! And that they need the conditions of the ocean. Queralt, 13 years old


LIVING LIGHTNING Living Lightning Starter Kit contains basic necessary elements to perform the first experiment, which can be carried out at home or used as a starter to conduct workshops. Most of those objects can be “hacked�, used for different goals or customised which leaves the whole set openand possible for future use.

Students will go through the whole process - from theoretical knowledge, through the preparation of a lab station to preparing the medium and algae for growth - learning through hands-on experience. During the hands-on exercise, a kid or any other older user learns about the organisms that are used for this activity - the algae - and about its natural habitat, living conditions and processes that may occur, like photosynthesis. Additionally, some extra pieces of information apply, like the fact that some of the algae could be edible. Secondly, the child gets to learn a bit about biohacking communities (through objects like the microscope) and following, about bioethics. The user may tickle the experience of biodesigning, facing the concept of the possibility of working with bioluminescence organisms and interspersing them into objects of everyday use exists. And last but not least, the user familiarizes with lab procedures and equipment.

01 starter kit includes Pyrocystis lunula, an aquatic algae, artifical salt, medium, basic tools, instruction


GLOWING ALGAE ON MY TABLE THEY ARE ALIVE!

02 starter kit test play run: 13 years old and 9 years old students using the starter kit and starting the algae cultivation


Aleksandra Ĺ ukaszewska hybrid designer & researcher lukaszewska.o@gmail.com +48 502 914 180


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