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Parallel School Between Open and Closeness Robert Preusse Stefanie Rau 3 Why One Internet? Gilles de Brock Benedikt Weishaupt Marthe Prins 9 The Contemporary Openess of Identity Nikos Voyiatzis 13 Facebook Experiment: Having a Fake Online Identity Yaeyoung Park 17 Open My Week Xi Lu 21 U.S. Department of
Table of Contents
Alex Bruno 25 Re:Form and Re:Pair ras+e 27 Undues Ex Machina Elizabeth Herrmann 29 DYNAMO Lillian Ling 30 I AM THINK Lillian Ling 31 Untitled PlayLab 32 Git Chess Alex Harris 34 @Tweets2SVG Alex Harris 36 Wikipedia Random Article Collection Lauren Thorson 37 Pewter Transmutation: A Narrative Transformation of Objects Raphael Volkmer 39 Flying Buttress Dominique Labauvie
41 Terminal Design Patrick Gosnell 44 What if We Speculate? Rogier Bak 53 The History of the Kingdom of the West Nicole Lavelle 55 Collaboration: The Internet as Shared Location Sarah Baugh 59 Untitled John O’Neill 61 Remodel the Model Ian Besler 63 Smart Citizens Make Smart Cities Jedidiah Gant 67 A Bagel: An 8 Foot Occasion Skyler Thompson, Michaela Amato 69 WAS Erika Greenberg Schneider 72 Privacy/Transparency/Honesty Aarati Akkapeddi 77 24/7 Stephanie Clark 84 Open Limitations Kezra Cornell
Editors
Contributors
Sarah Baugh
Aarati Akkapeddi
Stephanie Clark
Michaela Amato Rogier Bak
Designers
Sarah Baugh
YaeYoung Park
Ian Besler
Xi Lu
Alex Bruno Stephanie Clark
Web Design, Marketing
Kezra Cornell
Alex Bruno
Gilles De Brock Jedidiah Gant
Inside Cover
Patrick Gosnell
Kezra Cornell
Erika Greenberg Schneider Alex Harris
Printing
Dominique Labauvie
Zooom Printing
Nicole Lavelle
2042 Westmoreland St,
Lillian Ling
Richmond, VA 23230
Xi Lu
zooomprinting.com
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Yaeyoung Park This publication is supported
PlayLab
by the MFA Program in Design,
Marthe Prins
Visual Communications at
Ras+E
Virginia Commonwealth University
Stefanie Rau Skyler Thompson
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Lauren Thorson Raphael Volkmer Nikos Voyiatzis Benedikt Weishaupt Special Thanks! Brooke Chornyak David Shields
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Information today is available anytime, anywhere. way we interact with information, but also the way we understand that access to knowledge should be free. Such examples include collaborative coding sites like GitHub, as well as online visual and written journals such as Oxford and Tumblr, and shared music programs like Spotify. In addition, the University of Reddit and professors like TED and Lynda are challenging notions anyone connected to the internet. However, what risks stem from openness? When we are too comfortable with private information online, such as releasing credit card numbers, addresses, and the last 4 digits of our social security numbers, we risk being hacked. It is not only our trust in the internet that we should be mindful of, but also in the corporations and governments who can access our online information. When Edward Snowden exposed PRISM, a data collection program enabling the NSA to obtain private emails, individuals were sparked with anger and fear, while others exuded an alarming level of apathy toward governmental surveillance. This publication seeks to understand how open access to other topics such as education, identity, language, open source models, objects, processes, digital or physical landscapes, and openness in accessibility, in general. 9
Editor’s Letter
of traditional educational systems. Opportunity is available to
Parallel School Between Open and Closeness Robert Preusse Stefanie Rau
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Parallel School is an idea for a space that is open for mutual exchange; that allows students from all over to meet and collaborate. Parallel School has no agenda, all it demands is an open mindset towards a continuous process of learning and engaging with others. Parallel School is a network; an evolving group of people who organize workshops, meetings and discussions in the broader sense of art and design.
School Berlin, 2013). Open in sensing the environment and closed in understanding and creating a logic of this perception. In other words, oscillating between the known and the unknown. But again, if we start focusing on details of this of drawing a line between inside and outside, between open and closed. There is always someone I learn with, someone I need to learn from. Yet, I can only learn for myself. It is both. Existing concepts of hierarchy in the context of education need to be rethought. When the teacher is learning and the student is teaching, the roles blur and shape each other anew. It seems that knowledge comes in this oscillation to life; somewhere between an author, a history, a piece of paper, a glimpse of light, an eye, a reader, a letter. The dependence of the two polarities and the blurring of the line in-between always reappears.
The process of exchange and learning requires openness on many different levels. At the same time the openness of Parallel School also requires closeness and closedness. At idea of »open« and »closed« formulates an inherent dualism that can be found almost everywhere. But when we start to look more closely, when and how an environment is open or closed, we recognize the multilayered reality of the topic. At times it can even seem impossible to distinguish between the two.
The informal structure and organization of Parallel School exists of spaces between the public and the private. The self-taught theorist and philosopher Vilém Flusser formulates the idea of this relationship as loosing oneself in the world and loosing the world at home.
When we look at Parallel School as an informal framework for the process of learning, this becomes evident. The process of learning can be described as an oscillation between »open« and »closed« (as Diego Agulló has described it in a lecture at Parallel 1
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universal. This is what it can be: a space where the oscillation between open, closed, and in-between we can speak of a multitude of relationships in transition between openness and closeness?
Maybe it is necessary not only to think of the polarity but also of the frequency in which we move between them. We attempt to understand the process of learning as a frequency of oscillation, something that is fundamentally personal, however
When I am outside all day long I become tired and feel the need to sleep but when asleep I dream of the world. parallel-school.org 2
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Why One Internet? Gilles de Brock Benedikt Weishaupt Marthe Prins
Can we opt for the building of parallel network infrastructures existing for different purposes as a currently urgent matter?
92 days ago a new collective was born, dedicated to a very exciting project: sick dominator meeting,*which, shortly, experiments and questions the possibilities of parallel (mesh) network infrastructures. As we came across both DIY dish building in crisis areas and the tiny Occupy-here server (see post workshop Ruben Pater,
investigate possibilities of alternative networks that have a purpose for existence parallel to the Internet. Through experiments, design, reading, writing, discourse, speculation and creation of scenarios, all questions below will be researched and worked out. And step by step we will add a more comprehensive explanation of terminology on this site.
*
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Please note that when viewed digitally, the title of this project changes upon each viewing.
Internet
two and posed ourselves the seemingly simple question: Why one Internet? From which—as you might imagine—many more questions
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Infrastructure • Do we use one infrastructure for all our communication purposes? • If so; can we speak of a necessity for differentiation of this infrastructure? • Is it necessary to have multiple network infrastructures to enable privacy, freedom of speech and the possibility of a equal level of participation in virtual spaces?
Ideology • Can we build a network infrastructure which prevents itself from being a carbon copy of established power structures? • Can a local network, unlike a global network, endure without law? (Law: national laws being implemented in a global space; internet / these laws did not arrive from cultural development of internet-natives) • Would we want our local network to be ungoverned? • Would we like to break the intangible God-like status of the
Technical • Do we have the skills needed for creating a network infrastructure ourselves? • Can a local network be a self reproducing infrastructure, installable by everybody? • Till what end are we independent from technological skilled people and corporate suppliers to build a DIY network?
• Does a local network infrastructure its users? • Ideology and language/ vocabulary development Scenarios • Are we able to imagine purposes for a network other than connecting it to the internet? Can we create enough interest for the network to survive? • What kind of scenarios could we imagine when thinking of a local parallel network? • • Local communication • Voice calls • Virtual public viewing • How will we test and realize developed scenarios?
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The Contemporary Openess of Identity Nikos Voyiatzis
The following text is built from various drafts of my ongoing research around Distributed Identity. I think it should be read more as a fragmented body of thoughts and references, as its main aim is to raise questions around the contemporary openess of identity.
argue that distributed identities are designed under collaborative design methodologies. Distributed through corporative servers and undersea cables, our online identities represent transformations in the way we perceive, construct, and to explore the transformation of identity and individuality through historical waves; from agricultural to industrial to post-industrial society. Ultimately leading to the networked society but with an emphasis on the historical continuity of control. In the industrial society, as Foucault states, we meet the notion of the self as a defense mechanism related to the administrative aspects of society, thus constructing individuality.1
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First, we should apply the whole discussion around open/free culture to the topic of open identity.
for? Open access to the self? Free construction of the self? Free Exploration of the self? Free market of the self? Free development of the self? Free use of the self? Maybe of culture and the self, and somehow more precise than the term free. However, the interpretations of this openness are multiple and complex.
Administrative control rises in the late industrial/post-industrial societies. According to Deleuze, the individual is divituated, becoming a dividual.2 The self is controled through its fragmentation. In the late post-industrial, more networked era, the database as Mark Poster puts it emblematises participatory control.3 By participating in the database by contributing our own data, we also exercise control over one another.
In contemporary society—the society of networks and protocols— identity and the self become distributed. Distributed identities are being built and managed under due to the collecting, accessing, storing, and organising of information; the latter due to the construction of a narrative approach of the self condition. Furthermore, we could
To return to Foucault and his notion of the care of the self, we should 9
What does open and free stand for? Open access to the self? Free construction of the self? Free exploration of the self? Free market of the self? Free development of the self? Free use of the self?
moved from the greek-roman model of the care of the self and know ) to the christian model that demolished the care of the self and concentrates in the know yourself.4 This makes me think that in our current state we are much more concerned with gaining knowledge through information than We can see this idea with the open self. We do contribute our personal metadata to the database, so not only do we create information collections that constitute ourselves (by collecting, remixing, and curating information from the database) but we also use data and metadata of others in our collecting process. We are able to collect a ton of information on ourselves as well as others. But how
is based on language, or code.
ourselves through our practises?
platform and networking service itself. In other words, the self in the networked culture is entrapped within language more than ever.
Giddens has introduced the concept 5
While our personal narratives are disrupted and fragmented, we need to be able to creatively manage our online information in order to maintain or regain coherence, and be able to understand ourselves. To me this has a lot to do with the care of the self. One of the practises that Foucault talks about around the care of the self and know yourself is the technique of writing.6 Referring to contemporary society, we are largely a text based culture when we talk about digital and net worked systems. Communication and production on the web
Language (spoken and written) is considered to be a fundamental literacy in our society. Though, there is a need for computer and network literacy as well, in order to access the online self. Programming languages that build the web are like icebergs. The presentable information is above the surface. What lies under the surface is the code which still is a language used by a special community. Of course this language is getting broader and broader, but it still is not the most common language 10
Identity
not the ones who write. The database is already written, already
among us. We should not disregard this because literacy gaps among people map the geographical aspects of the online self. While
: the one who is in charge, who exercises power and control.7 On
over Facebook, and that is important as well. In my case, I have been using different Facebook usernames since I created my account. However, when I downloaded my data from Facebook I saw this:
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connections, we do establish a certain methodology of self design and self curating. To me, that also means we could work on the But on which platforms? Maybe through all available self documentation platforms, with an aim
•
our methodology.
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But is there any documentation? Who is the one to exercise it? There is a symbolic sense of the act of asking my data from Facebook. By using this feature which leads to access of a limited amount of data and metadata, I am accepting the fact that they document me and not me
• • • •
Previous names
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Nikos VoyiatzisNikosvoyiatzis
Sokratis PapavasilakopoylopoulosSokratis Papavasilakopoylopoulos
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of my self via corporative services. This reveals that we are not only distributed via corporate structures, but that also we are unable to document our transparency and the process that creates it. Thus, we have to accept these conditions when accessing Facebook and other giant online authorities.
This data underlines the fact that the open distributed self within the social network meets a utopian dimension of anti documentation and can be vulnerable via its documentation. I am not allowed This draws also an interesting connection with the work of Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and his book Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age. His central
Moreover, lets say Facebook decides to ban an account. Then, access to all of the personal data and collections created so far becomes impossible. We have to keep in mind that the very notion of the archive is the exercise of power. As Derrida explains, the word derives from the ancient greek word
much easier to remember than to forget.8
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Sheryl Turkle in her latest book Alone Together, claims that individuals want to customize their lives and to exercise control in every aspect of it.9 Is this the outcome of participatory capitalism? Is the self an open vulnerable territory? Is the self an agent open in and designed for exercising control?
1,4,6. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Vol.3 The Care of the Self. 2. Deleuze, Gilles. Postscript on the society of control. 1995 3. Poster, Mark. 5. Giddens, Antony. Self identity. 7. Derrida, Jacques. Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression.
Our every day life practises share some attitude towards control. People stalking their friends to ensure they make use of all the available information online. The boss
8. Mayer-Schonenberg, Victor. The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age. 9. Turkle, Sheryl. Alone together. 10. Del Val, Jaime & Katherine Hayles. Discussion on Metabody. < youtube.com/watch?v=7ouDNmuQL_o>. 11. Lovink, Geert. Eva Illouz, Facebook and the Crisis of the Multiple Self.
Though, our online practises can have some potential towards the understanding of the self—what we like, what we post, why we post it, etc. Our friends, identities, our interelated interests: they are all there. And fragile is their existence. Their material basis and documentation is far away from us in places we ignore. Is still the a defense mechanism, or as post-human artist Jaime del Val puts it, a part of historical continuity and imperialistic tradition?10 At least, as Geert Lovink of the Institute of Network cultures in Amsterdam writes: “luckily we all know there is not truth self.”11
Additional References Gutman, Hutton, Martin (ed.). Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with M. Foucault. Galloway, Alexander. Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization.
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Identity
his Facebook picture reveals the employee was not sick as said, but was having a nice evening near the sea. People who insist so much on the realistic representation of themselves online in an attempt to gain control of their social and personal image.
Facebook Experiment: Having A Fake Online Identity Yaeyoung Park
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Now we are literally living in a digital world. We begin and end our days with digital devices. We communicate through digital realms. We work with digital tools.
socializing, we need to take care of our virtual worlds. These worlds shift in how we create and experience our own identities.1 By utilizing the internet, I think most people today lead an additional, if not multiple lives. This additional life is the online identity.
This world crept into our life very deeply and quietly. We adopted digital technologies into our world slowly, but inevitably. Each step of digital development trained people on how to adapt digital environments to their lives, but not how to manage them. In effect, the way communication builds relationships has changed.
From my experience, my online identity on Facebook is not very different from who I am in real life. Online, I upload pictures of what I eat, add locations to where I go, post things that I do, and tag who I meet: all from my real life. I enjoy these online activities because when I look
Online social activities are like a living creature; endlessly feeding on information from pictures, videos, quotes, links, hashtags, places, news, gossip, and advertisements. At the same time, it lives in an open, yet personal space, and never closes its doors. In this project, I want to look closely into two different doors of the virtual world. One: to see how much openness is allowed for an online identity. The other: to see how much
shown only what I chose to reveal; experiences that to me, were worth documenting. In the same sense, I do not upload pictures that capture displeasent experiences, or even show I want people to feel envious of my life. Still, my online identity is me, just not completly me. Rather, it is halfcovered or redesigned. Other people also have choices for their online identity; for whom they wish to be, while having many limitations in real life such as family, gender, age, appearance, or nationality.
anonymous user.
mation, we predict what kind of person they might be. The more cool things they have on their page, the more we want to be their friend. For better 13
Tiffany Clark
Real As Yaeyoung Park, I am 28 years old and am also living in Richmond, VA. I am from Seoul, South Korea and am married with no children. I too attend University. I am a graduate student studying graphic design and like to read articles on Korean political criticisms and sociology.
I wondered how deep of a connection I could make with people online; people whom I have never met. In search of this wonder, I did an online experiment where I created a second online identity using fake information.
differ from person to person. level of connection in which two people are comfortable sharing with each other everyday occurrences, photos, and stories, as well as personal feelings like joy, sadness, anger, and embarrassment. From the variety of communication platforms which Facebook provides (wall posts, comments, photos, and private messaging), I believed such a deep connection could be made. To be sure, I shared everything I thought Tiffany might share. Or in other words: I completely opened myself up emotionally to the possibility of an online friendship.
my actual face. Our love will be in virtual space. than reality by far. And if you
Fake Tiffany Clark is a 22-year-old female living in Richmond, Virginia. From Taiwan, she moved with her parents to the United States when she was four. Currently, she is a freshmen in college, and likes to share everything about herself on Facebook.
one, log off and Do You Wanna Date My Avatar, The Guild
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Identity
Experiment Rules • Accept all friend requests, but do not accept anyone who knows me in real life. • Answer back to every comment, message, and post received. • Do not judge without getting to know the person. • Post things that are fake by stealing and reusing posts from my real Facebook friends.
account may not be a big deal to others, as it takes little time and effort. In my case, I simply created a new Gmail account before joining Facebook. However, actually constructing the fake identity of Tiffany Clark was entirely different.
Living a fake online identity as Tiffany Clark was an interesting experience. Since starting the experiment a month all of whom I have never met. Among them, I messaged privately with 26 people. However, making friends at
One friend from Sri Lanka requested a lot of information from Tiffany Clark. Facebook notices like “He/She wants to know your hometown information,” or “He/She wants to know your work information,” made me feel very uncomfortable. How could someone on the other side of the country ask me for all of my information when they could not provide me with the same? Why would someone ask me for my address when I did not even know their real name, let alone his or her gender?
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To begin, I randomly friend requested those who I thought had similar interests, or were in the same age group as Tiffany. The majority of my requests were accepted instantly, which grew to a sudden list of people I had no real connection to. A few days after, I realized I no longer had to friend request anyone because I was friend request. In one day, I accepted ninety-nine friend requests, and conversed with more than four people simultaneously.
Presentation is a form of faking. When page, I felt an added layer of “faking.”
do before on my own Facebook
page involves a bit of tweaking. In the book Alone Together, the author Sherry Turkle was warned by a college senior not to be fooled by “anyone you interview who tells
friend request, who posted endless Being open to everything was no longer a pleasant experience for me. I no longer wanted to be
You make a character.” Social media ask us to represent ourselves in an audience, we feel pressure to con1
experience can differ completely depending on how Facebook is used, and that a digital friendship can take on as many meanings as it can physically. Creating a secondary
From this short experiment, I came to the conclusion that opening oneself too much online is not a good idea, 15
fake or real life. There are other more postive uses one can have using Facebook when one has total control
to talk to him.â&#x20AC;? Not only by having a fake identity, but also a real one, was I facing two different situations about openness on Facebook. Every individual has different guidelines surrounding their online experience. I believe it is necessary to think deeply on their own guidelines for each individual; how to adopt the technologies which force to open oneself. What would be the best guideline in this openness. What kind of an online identity should one have?
relationships should build from layers of trust that come from many different types of conversations, levels of physical interaction, and a general sense of understanding the person. However, the development of technology has caused us to close this physical relationship and open ourselves more to others online. However, I believe technology cannot replace the human nature that is our thirst to be connected.
Identity
Last night, I had a small argument with my husband. It was about the guidelines of accepting Facebook friend requests. I accepted one on my real account, someone whom I never met before, and talked with him. I thought it was safe to accept him because we had many mutual friends within my graduate program. He claimed he used to be a student at the same school as mine and he friend requested me because he was glad to see a Korean student in his old school. He also asked me to say hello to faculty memebers, and told me how he misses his time here. He gave me a lot of good advice on being a designer in America. My husband asked me,â&#x20AC;&#x153; How can you trust someone that you have never met before, even if you two have mutual friends? Does it mean that others are trustworthy to share your information? There is a much safer way, such as e-mail, if you really need
1. Turkle, Sherry. Alone Together.
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Open My Week Xi Lu
I came to the U.S. last August, and began capturing my new surroundings using photography. Due to living in a completely new environment, I found one day that the photographs I took here were very different from those I took back home in China. This observation made me curious about the lives other people were leading such as my family and friends as well as strangers. I wanted to make a project that opened my own life to the public in order to build a platform for sharing my experiences with people.
As a designer dedicated to visual communication, I consider numerous aspects such as open shared resources and openly expressed ideas. My daily photo journal is like a window into my life and my surroundings. I wish to have more and more people participate in the project as well by sharing anything that goes on in their mind. After all, the development of digital technologies and social media increasingly encourages such open sharing. Identity
To begin, I created a daily photo journal to record my interests in this newly immersed culture. I have been taking pictures of my daily life according to a schedule several times a day for one week. I listed all the pictures and categorized them into several groups: study life, casual time, housework, and others. I am interested in the process and the outcome of a small look at my life this study takes up the biggest portion of my life, and entertainment takes up the smallest since it is during the busiest time of the semester. What surprised me most is that I spend so much time using so many technologic facilities and equipment such as the computer, phone, the laundry machine, the treadmill, and the cooking stove. 18
Open Time
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March 25–April 2, 2014 9am–9pm
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U.S. Department of Internet Identification Alex Bruno
The United States Department (DII) was established on January 1, 2018.
(i.e. those who might commit crime, cyber-crime, or terrorism). While both the NSA and CIA employed badged agents dedicated to similar in-house missions, the joint operation was commissioned in an effort to pool resources and increase Federal law enforcement presence over the web. The joint operation also served as a method for accruing greater amounts of funding from the federal budget.
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Introduction Thank you for your interest in obtaining an Internet
information and begin the multiple choice examination below. Begin Test >>
Beginning in 2017 with 20 empolyed agents, this initially small NSA/CIA joint-operation (titled Spectrum at the time) grew to be a substantial operation. Within the span of a year, DII employed approximately 3,000 agents, and was declared
Question #1: An acquaintance gave you a pirated copy of some expensive design software. You: and report him/her to the DII. b. Accept the software, but destroy the disk and report your acquaintance to the DII. c. Install the software on your computer, and report yourself and your acquaintance to the DII. << Prev | Next >>
Security Act (NIIS). Parties that opposed the bill sometimes refer to it as the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Prying Eye Act.â&#x20AC;?
managed to locate and detain 3 suspected terrorists and convict 44 hackers. Agents continued to locate and detain a record-setting amount of potential threats in the latter half of 2017. By this time, they had
The intention of the Spectrum program was to collect detailed information potentially dangerous individuals
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already garnered positive notoriety from both sides of the aisle on capitol hill. In effect, a bill was quickly drafted, evolving the Spectrum into DII.
test on internet-usage rules, regulations, and proper conduct. Those who opposed the implementation of a national internet-user ID system claimed this protocol cemented access to the internet into a privilege and not as a human right. As a result, they formed several small movements in an effort to overturn the controversial DII programs. However, because of public disinterest at the time and lack of support in Washington, the efforts gained negligible traction. A core component of the national internetuser ID system was the Internet (IIDN) service, which generated and maintained a database storing all American citizen
Question #25: Your nana emails you a picture of a baby in a ). The photograph diaper ( PhtoCmpctrâ&#x201E;˘ image compression. You: a. Tell your grandma to cease sending these photos at once. b. Instruct your grandma to use DII mandated PhtoCmpctrâ&#x201E;˘ image compression. c. Alert the DII that your grandmother is possibly committing bandwidth abuse. << Prev | Next >>
The Class D Internet License is issued to U.S.
Question #86: If you were browsing the internet and found 3D
regulations, and proper conduct exam. component for your car, you would: a. Download and render the component with a 3D printerâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;you never know when you might need a spare.
Now a top-level government agency,
viduals, the department had gained federal law enforcement jurisdiction over all connected networks in U.S. states, territories, and embassies. Any computer, cell phone, game console, vehicle (amongst other devices) that connects to the internet was within reach of the DII to investigate and surveil. A section of the NIIS called for the DII to create and maintain a nationwide Every U.S. citizen would have the opportunity to take a multiple choice
vehicle via BitTorrent trackers. c. Report the website you downloaded the 3D a car, would you? << Prev | Next >>
The implementation of the IIDN was a two-pronged approach to internet security. Firstly, it removed internet access from those who could not pass Secondly, it traced all internet activity (even across a multitude of devices) back to a single user. This sometimes led to the wrongful persecution of
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Identity
a unique IIDN, and is required to input this IIDN into a device every time an internet connection is requested.
Internet users must verify their unique IIDN when visiting websites
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dangerous or illegal.
many individuals; most of which users who accidentally left themselves logged into a public computer or who had their online identity stolen. These tracing efforts led to many arrests and restitution lawsuits. The
app which removed color information from images, converting them to low resolution, halftone bitmaps that
The IIDN database became a primary target for hacktivist groups, namely TimBLrs, Cerfers, and Anonymous. While Anonymous had garnered fame over the years for its hacktivism, TimBLrs and Cerfers were newly minted hacking groups fueled by the ideals of Tim Berners-Lee and Vint Cerf, two
substantially as more and more U.S. citizens were denied access from an unbridled connection to the web began to grow. Several large media-sharing websites and blogs withered over the years, as bandwidth restrictions prevented users from uploading or viewing images, photos, animations, videos, and interactive content. The DII developed a suite of
who were strong advocates for net Denial of Service attacks the groups consistently carried out on the DII servers, costing the department about $5 million annually. The IIDN database leaks the hacktivist groups propagated cost the department upwards of $20 million a year. While these groups were
some of which were mandatory for users to utilize upon the upload of any
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thorn in the side of the DII, members were often found and arrested. Some were sentenced to serve more time in prison than convicted rapists and murderers. Processing Results Thank you for your interest in obtaining an Internet
choice questions are being processed and you will receive an email in approximately [6 months, 2 days, 8 hours] notifying you of your unique IIDN status. Finish >>
donations from the private sector.
and more capable communication infrastructure. Others believe it is simply another manifestation of corporate greed. However, for those who desire an open, anonymous, and robust internet: there is hope. Several small communities in Washington, Colorado, and Idaho have begun to develop and maintain community-based ISPs, with neighborhood members guiding the growth of these companies. Infrastructure is steadily being constructed between towns and cities, with a few cables crossing state lines as well. Though,as this new network grows, the governance behind it remains nebulous. Members of the community-based ISPs are hesitant to call this the â&#x20AC;&#x153;internet,â&#x20AC;? as doing so might enable the DII to claim jurisdiction over its operation.
headquarters, built on the former location of the FCC.
Identity
To many, the future of the internet appeared bleak. What was once considered an ideal platform for the open, unrestricted exchange of ideas and information, and a way to drive innovation, had now become a stagnant, heavily policed, neutered form of communication. Dissidents to the DII argued the legislation that created the department would never have been written if the politicians involved were not so heavily
Communication industry experts speculated the widespread bandwidth shortages would likely be much less of an issue, if privately owned ISPs would have correctly utilized funds allocated by the government in
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Language
Undues Ex Machina Elizabeth Herrmann 26
Re:Form and Re:Pair Ryan Shelley + Elizabeth Herrmann (ras+e) 27
Identity
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DYNAMO Lillian Ling
I AM THINK Lillian Ling
Untitled PlayLab 31
Git Chess Alex Harris
Git Chess is a system for playing chess via the Git version control system. Traditionally, Git is used for developing and collaborating on software, allowing developers to track the changes that occur over the course of development. In this context, however, it is repurposed to track the changes that occur to a chess board over the course of a game of chess.
A new game is started by forking (or cloning) the Git Chess repository found on GitHub. Moves are made by contains a text representation of a chess their move. This change is then committed and pushed to the Git repository where the second player can pull it down, view the updated board, and repeat the process for their move. A more graphical representation of the board can also be viewed at any time at /board.html.
Default graphic representation of a Git Chess board found at board.html
Or, a single game can be passed around among many people, each person making only a single move throughout the course of a game. These modes are not inherent to this form; many 32
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Git Chess is a fundamentally tedious way to play a game of chess. It takes a lot of effort for each move. However, the public tracking of the game allows for some interesting possibilities. For instance, a player can create a new branch of a game at any point, make a different move, and follow that path simultaneously. A single game can potentially branch out into any number of variantions. Rather than playing multiple games in a row against a single opponent, you can play multiple games at once, each stored in a separate branch of the repository. Likewise, a third player can clone a game at any point in its history and start playing from that point.
people could play a single game of chess on a physical board, but the potential to track changes, revisit history, and branch/clone/fork games allows for a hyperactive level of competitive collaboration.
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Git Chess itself is also an open source project. It might even be more fun to work on the game than it is to play the game; like spending a day building and painting a chess board, carving the pieces, and then only maybe playing a game of chess at the end of it. Collaborators could add new features, improve the graphics of board.html (even create diff), and anything else.
Plain text board as viewed in the nano text editor in Mac OS X Terminal.
The chess portion of Git Chess becomes almost irrelevant: chess becomes a neutral medium for collaboration, artistic expression, and learning across a new medium of source code and version control.
can even be made during the course of a game, and those changes merge into any other game instances in existence.
The project, along with instructions, is available at gitchess.com or github.com/alexharris/gitchess.
Text board as it appears on GitHub.
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@Tweets2SVG Alex Harris
@Tweets2SVG is an openly collaborative project that creates an SVG image from image paths tweeted at the @tweets2svg handle.
The SVG format itself is an â&#x20AC;&#x153;open standardâ&#x20AC;? developed by the World Wide Web Consortium, an international standards organization.
SVGs are vector images that are comprised of one or many different types of elements such as <circle>, <text>, and <path> that combine to create a single image. @Tweets2SVG works with the <path> feature of the SVG format. For example, a simple square starting at the coordinates (10,10) could be written as:
Although Twitter is a privately managed company, it allows for a very open and public discourse that enables anyone in the world with a Twitter account to contribute to the project. At the same time, however, Twitter is also very restrictive in its 140 character limit, originally designed for compatibility with SMS messaging. In this way, @Tweets2SVG looks at the potential for open and public collaboration provided by a platform like Twitter and open standards like SVG, while simultaneously working within and acknowledging the inherent technical limitations imposed by them. It also attempts to subvert the intended use of Twitter, in order to add a sense of unrestricted openness and creative freedom to an otherwise rather rigid system.
Or, a small green quarter circle, starting at coordinates (80,80): <path d="M80 80 A 45 45, 0, 0, 0,
Together, these would appear as:
twhatever.com/tweets2svg
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<path d="M10 10 H 90 V 90 H 10 L 10 10" />
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List of Tweets
stroke="yellow" strokewidth="3"
@tweets2svg d="M 300 400 L 250 450 L 350 500 L 250 500 L 500 690 z"
@tweets2svg :P
stroke="blue" strokewidth="3"
stroke="blue" strokewidth="3" 35
Wikipedia Random Article Collection Lauren Thorson
Source
Wikipedia Random Article Collection is a growing archive of zines inspired
As such, the entire Wikipedia Random Article Collection and/or individual zines are available as print on demand. The Wikipedia Random Article Collection has been featured in The Library of the Printed Web which was included in The Book Affair at the opening of the 55th Venice Biennale and New York Book Fair 2013. A small sampling of articles are also owned and available for checkout at the Chattanooga Public Library.
random article search function. By clicking once, participants use function to generate endless content. Each zine is inspired by and created from images and text found in the generated article as well as any wikipedia wormhole discovered. The collection supports a web-to-print artistic practice which utilizes search engines and other algorithmic operations as content generators. 36
Petwer Transmutation: A Narrative Transformation of Objects
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Raphael Volkmer
The project focuses on experimental handcraft as a storytelling medium.
The project emerged from a collaboration between myself and two antiquarians who had trouble selling their older pewter objects. The antiquarians provided me wih the raw material. In return, I gave them the resulting object for sale. In a way, they acted like an alternative commissioning gallery. We also organized a maker evening. The antiquarians invited their clients and friends, and I performed the making in front of the audience to alternate their perspective on the process behind the construction of objects.
of traditions, or the ultimate remix of everything that has happened. The inspiration arrived from an old German tradition of casting pewter in water on New Years Eve as a ritual to forcast the future. The production is based on a technique of casting liquid pewter in a mould made out of backing paper held by a simple wooden frame. Once moulded, process of creation and captures the
vimeo.com/44170188
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Objects
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o-p-e-n Flying Buttress Dominique Labauvie 39
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Terminal Design
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Patrick Gosnell
This is the project that never ends. Yes it goes on and on my friends. In an age of endless updates, revisions, and ever-evolving operating systems, it can seem that the work of a designer is never done. ( ) Deadlines exist, but only the
design, the modus operandi has become a never-ending push towardsâ&#x20AC;Ś Better? Done? New? What does it mean for a project to continue forever? Is it the fear of falling short of perfection that drives us to continue
current version. A new decimal point can always be added to the name tomorrow. Of course, this is not the case for all types of design. Many print-related or more artistically inclined projects see their day of completion, never to be touched again. But in the world of interaction and web
motivator? After all, consumers tend to like the newest thing they can get their hands on. Is it not our duty to provide it for them?
In an age of endless updates, revisions, and ever-evolving operating systems, it can seem that the work of a designer is never done. 41
As a lifelong recovering perfectionist, I certainly do not hold the key to letting go easily and bidding a project adieu. It is always a struggle to discern the true â&#x20AC;&#x153;completenessâ&#x20AC;? of any particular design. Should I publish it? Is it good enough? What else could I do? In art school, this perfectionism is usually a championed trait, one that promotes more insightful and well crafted results. However, this method takes time, regardless if the motivating factor is fear or simply a desire to produce work of the highest quality. Unfortunately the more open-ended timetables of academia do not translate directly into the professional environment. Deadlines mean money. Ship dates are real. If they are not met we will gain some valuable experience in dealing with angry clients, but we will not be around too long if it becomes a habit. Yet anyone who has been a designer for more
than a couple weeks knows that the longer we play slave to the deadline, the quicker we become
iterate, to explore, or to take a new pass. The work we begin today, ten years down the road, will likely become our magnum opus. The
As is often the case, the answer comes down to striking a balance—in this case, between completed and open-ended work. For designers, open-ended work usually means a
a design is that we, ourselves, are able to change and bring new personal perspectives to that work. Not only that, but the lessons learned from those deep dives and long relationships better equip
that often does not pay the bills, but instead provides solace from the client-driven deadline. Often these passion projects can lead to successful commercial ventures—as has been the case with many apps and tech startups—although they can simply remain a healthy outlet for our revisionist tendencies.
the completed work we send out the door. Design can always be open, but are you open to it?
Process
Photographers have long been the standard bearers for never-ending projects. In The Brown Sisters series, Nicholas Nixon has composed a striking black and white portrait of his wife and her three sisters every year since 1975. In a more recent trend, photo bloggers have embarked on many different 365 day photo “challenges,” including Dave has documented his daughter, Alice, since birth. These projects exhibit gender much anticipation from their fans. Designers should learn to embrace the open-ended project. After all, our primary material of construction (the pixel) is never in danger of running out. We should feel free to 42
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What if We Speculate? Rogier Bak
“As a designer, you are always working for the future. What now is for tomorrow. Not
Perhaps there is not a term in graphic design that has a more negative connotation than “speculation.” While it refers to speculative graphic design, it has become almost synonymous to “spec work”–a problem of semantics, as the terms refer to distinct exercises in speculation. Spec work is a devaluation of our practice with degenerative consequences to design as an autonomous discipline, and a complete
Karel Martens As graphic designers, do we look for answers we need today, or do we probe by speculating future problems? There is no “true” right or wrong answer to that question, but it does beg to be explored in greater depth. If we look for answers to questions we have today, we engage in how most graphic design practices work: a client poses a particular problem (or we initiate one), and we respond by giving our best advice in the form of a design “solution.”
cannot allow for the importance of design to remain a periphery. Why Speculate? Speculative graphic design investigates and contemplates problems and possible solutions within the context of alternative or future realities and scenarios, often resulting in subsequent questions rather than answers. It not only evaluates design as a discipline, but also the content matter of design. Form, word, image, context, and audience are all investigated through speculation. Why speculate? Because if we did not, we would
If we speculate, we untether ourselves from the restraints of “conventional” commercial practice, and allow our voice and opinion to be much more pronounced in our work.
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our role as designers. We need to understand speculation as a branch of graphic design worthy of exploration; developed and realized to incite debate of current, and speculation of future, circumstances, and accept its value to
graphic design and see how crossing them can expand our field. British design collective Dunne & Raby have been posing alternatives to our societal, cultural, and political norms throughout their oeuvre. They consider their entire practice to be speculative, “especially in the theoretical or hypothetical sense. Even when [they] prototype something and it technically works, [they] see it as a speculation on what could be,
answer. Much like in MFA Design programs—where projects often exist in the (outer) of graphic design—our work may begin with a question that establishes the parameters of a scenario. As we speculate, we should be aware of the scenarios we develop, the criticisms we deliver, and be receptive to both the pleasantly surprising and uncomfortably disturbing results and reactions they may produce. For speculation to be truly effective, it must be allowed to run its course through the design process while being responded to, not manipulated. What emerges from our speculations may not be what we are looking for.
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speaking, speculative design operates on a conceptual and theoretical level rather than a pragmatic one. In the spirit of curiosity and adventure, speculative projects—instead of being discouraged by the limitations of technology—are developed to function within a reality different from our own. This approach allows design to
Graphic Design As A Tool For Inquiry about graphic design is a good thing; we should never shy away from that. As previously established, speculative design poses new questions rather than only trying to answer existing ones in order to incite or advance debate amongst designers, society, and governing institutions. By delivering criticism in the form of proposed alternatives and by questioning or even subverting conventions, design in turn opens itself up to similar questioning; design becomes a tool for inquiry, as well as a tool to be inquired into. What can the lens of speculative design show us that similar endeavors in other disciplines may not? What do proposed scenarios tell us about
establishes a comprehensible image out of which debate can emerge about the implications of our decisions. By challenging the norms and perceptions of society as well as our own, critical conversations can be held with a heightened awareness, “which can help achieve complex, troubled people we consumers and users we are supposed to be.” There is so much to be gained from challenging our own knowledge, searching for alternative approaches to a particular problem, and asking 45
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how we are reading, interpreting, and understanding design? Conducting research and investigations through design is not new. Studios like Dunne & Raby, Metahaven, Moniker, and AMO (the think tank, research studio, and counterpart of OMA) have all been doing this for many years. In the 1960s, studios like Archigram, Archizoom, and Superstudio manifested themselves as visionary collectives with the intent to challenge societal norms with a critically sharp and speculative body of work. Unfortunately, the fact remains that research as a practical focus in
add value to their work without clear sounds interesting and is weighted with associations of profundity and intellect, therefore demanding great investments of time and resources. But slapping a “research” label on your studio doesn't make it a lab: Not every practice is a research. On the other hand, not every research is a practice. If we want to describe how design practice at present tends towards research, way to start is by looking at what it is designers are doing, and how they bring their interest and their obsessions into the work they do, and how their working methods are changing, and how, in fact,
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Dunne&Raby offer an alternative to “conventional” design practice: Design today is concerned primarily with commercial and marketing activities but it could operate on a more intellectual level. It could place new technological developments within imaginary but believable everyday situations that would allow us to debate the implications of different technological futures before they happen.
practice are increasingly hard to draw. However rare graphic design research studios may be at this time, they do exist, and it is clear that designers are appending disciplines andresponsibilities (and titles) to
With a library of technologies and tools so readily available, it should be seen as no surprise that designers are moving away from conventional models of operation into more challenging and provocative areas of
ed to be knowledgeable in a range of skill sets (typography, storytelling, color theory, print production, and web design to name only a few), but some go beyond the expected and invent new ways of approaching, making, and disseminating their design work—invention as inquiry.
a new home within graphic design. However, what needs to be avoided is the term “research” becoming a way for designers to (semantically) 47
A good example of an inventive studio practice centers on conditional design: a term and design methodology coined by Studio Moniker that falls under the speculative umbrella. The practice of conditional design continues to develop by experimenting with the interaction between design(er) and audience through the combined application of technology, rule-based systems, and user input.
examines and questions speculative graphic design—calls this rather passive disposition “an old, antiquated idea.” The will to initiate provocative work, to explore, and to share up the core of speculative design. There must be a level of curiosity about possibilities outside of what is available to us right now. Speculation would be completely useless without the subsequent conversations it seeks to provoke. If we are closed off to commentary, we have no right to deliver any.
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The research conducted through conditional design is inherently ongoing, as new conditions, users, and environments will always Self-initiated work has surged over the foster new results. Studio Moniker past two decades, as a result of describes their own practice as graphic designers gaining control and combining “commissioned design ownership over the tools that were projects while also investing in previously reserved for typographers, projects of an autonomous and experiprinters, and publishers. This availmental nature.” They are essentially ability ignited the (now lagging) carrying out what many designers, conversation about authorship in deincluding Wim Crouwel, foreshadowed: sign, and to what extent the role the designer will be designing systems, of the designer was growing. It is no instead of printed objects or digital wonder that designers (in the early experiences, that allow nondesigners days of the “digital revolution,” still to partake in the creative process. “stuck” in a typical service position) felt the need to become their own Initiative over Commission content-generators, publishers, and Let us supplement “what if?” with “why not?” Why not break out of Daniel van der Velden explains the commercial practice and look outside increasingly autonomous, self-initiated nature of graphic design: Why not challenge current realities Today, an ‘important graphic design’ with proposals of future applications? is one generated by the designer Why not work proactively and not himself, a commentary in the fall back “on the premise that you need margins of visual culture. Sometimes an external inspiration to actually the design represents a generous make a piece of work?” Jon Sueda, client. More often, it is a completely curator and developer of the 2014 isolated, individual act, for which exhibition, All Possible Futures—which
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the designer mobilized the facilities at his disposal, as Wim Crouwel once did with his studio. It always concerns designs that have removed themselves from the usual commission structure
need to be willing to make, if we are not given.
Reality and the Really Real During the developmental process of All Possible Futures, Sueda noticed a shift in the response to the term designer does not solve the “speculative design” over the course of other person’s problems, but his research. When he started his becomes his own author. research in 2007, he encountered a sense of pride in designers, when We have moved beyond the idea that their work was considered speculative. merely the act of making is a form At that point, the meaning of the term of authorship. The designer is now the referred largely to work that lived producer, developer, publisher, and outside of, or in parallel to professional distributor of subject, concept, practice as an ongoing experiment in and form. The designer is an initiator a certain area. Work that could of change, critical thought, and even resemble paper architecture, or the subsequent necessary convervisionary architecture: visionary sation. By looking outside of the work that exists in an imaginative environment. Metahaven remains started to “bring design thinking about as close a one-to-one transinto areas off-limits to the strictly lation of that practice into graphic productive reach of what it is designers do, into a more strategic understanding of what design When Sueda discussed the speculative might become.” Perhaps, in addition to being the producer, developer, “all of the seven or eight people...were and initiator, we are also the agitator. By daring to get involved in issues the speculative.” Sueda admits that, of which we have limited or, better yet, no knowledge or expertise, we totally different; people are super critical of it—I think because the term interesting and valuable perspectives. is having a bit of a revival and is mainstreaming.” We should proudly let our curiosity guide us to unexpected and unfamiliar I was surprised to see some of the environments in which our initiative names on the list of invited and proactivity can drive us right past contributors to All Possible Futures, the boundaries of graphic design into which includes Daniel Eatock, the territory of other disciplines. We Experimental Jetset, and Mevis & should never be afraid to trust our own van Deursen. None of their practices instincts, opinions, and abilities. We really strike me as speculative in 49
(to be read in the
the investigative sense. “Experimental
) of [their work] being speculative; they were saying even the projects they make in their studio for no particular reasons, they consider to be 100% made and real.” While Experimental
represents a designed object that—materially, functionally, or conceptually—cannot presently be realized. More speculative than a necessarily require the potential to ever exist. It is a suggestive form that prompts us to reconsider our assumptions about—or operates as a critique of—existing objects. It may do this by projecting into the future, or into a parallel reality.
duced through speculation interesting (and brilliant), they are quick to qualify their opinion: “we have to adthat word, “speculative.” It just has too many negative connotations to us:
I see this description as an extension
cetera.” Why has the response to speculative design shifted so dramatically in only a couple of years? One possible answer is that designers real, true, and functional in a world turbid information and images. Another is that speculative projects are seen as serving no other purpose than to be contemplated and discussed, and are not considered to be design at all, as they do not function in the “real world.”
If a project cannot be realized, some may argue it is nothing more than a model. It does not work, therefore it is not real; a hollow shell that does not develop beyond fantasy. Conversely, it can be argued that an object that is more “speculative than a prototype” does not necessarily require the potential to ever exist, especially if it is not intended to be fully functional.
In August 2013, the School for Design Fiction, part of Responsive Subjects, a project with the Museum of Contemporary Art Leipzig (GfzK ), taught a “short course in reading objects, environments and messages, stimulated by the curious genre of
We should caution to not let speculation digress too far from our reality
focused on the design of objects that deliver some form of commentary
able to establish a clear connection between speculation and current circumstances is where the greatest opportunity to inspire meaningful
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Process
Designer as Author. If we can consider authorship to be the formulation and development of thought and the communication thereof, then the act of speculation—rather than realization— is a form of authorship as much as writing or designing is.
conversation lies. If we did, we would run the risk of our work losing its
a way to agitate and challenge the passivity with which people exist within our media-saturated environment that has become a direct
Dunne & Raby admit that “ [f]iction is a very important concept for [them],” but that they are careful to “stay away
we are simply looking for ways to challenge ourselves as designers?
may not be intended for application in Who knows? work that functions. In these cases, our time has not yet caught up with the
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What are we looking for? Why do we want to look past the current day? It seems the interest in knowing the future is as old as time itself. The great unknown is and Speculative graphic design does not claim to predict. Instead, it poses important questions through future scenarios. By proposing these scenarios and their potential implito being “a step ahead” as we will ever be.
lation leaves some projects less than functional, their power to provoke critical thought and conversation makes them valuable and interesting. There simply is no be-all and end-all answer to the question, “what if…?” It must always be understood that we will only be able to offer a completely subjective response to a proposition. What if speculation is truly about being self-critical and unafraid to discover the less pleasant sides of our society, culture, and politics? Perhaps it is 51
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The History Of The Kingdom Of The West Nicole Lavelle
The History of the Kingdom of the West is a slideshow of images appropriated from Google image search, stock photography websites,
the cyclical nature of history and the elasticity of time. The lean towards imagery over text encourages a wider read and hopes to engage the viewer in an expanded and engaging narrative experience.
family photo albums. The title of the piece itself comes from an image found via searching Google for â&#x20AC;&#x153;west.â&#x20AC;?
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Boom after boom after boom. The collection is a loose narrative of the dream of the American West over the last 150 years, juxtaposing histories of the gold rush with imagery referencing the parallel contemporary boom of the technology industry.
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Collaboration: The Internet As Shared Location
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Sarah Baugh
Nicole and I have been working together for the past four years. We began collaborating while attending college in Oregon. Our projects frequently take us to new locations.
places like coffee shops, our friends kitchens, or in a 1984 Volkswagen Vanagon. This method of collaboration is one-part thrift and one-part
the residents of a tiny town in Utah and assembled a walking guide to the neighborhoods of Windsor, Ontario, among other things. Our focus on certain geographic locations is primarily driven by curiosity and the desire to understand the unique contexts created by the interaction of natural, built, and social environments. In other words, what makes a place a place?
that allows us to work within new environments. Since our work is often site-based it makes sense that we go to the work instead of bringing the work to us. Additionally, we utilize locative media technologies, such a as GPS, laptop, and smart phone to connect to and orient ourselves within new working locations as well as tools for carrying work in these sites. Last year, we moved to opposite sides of the country, but we have continued to work on projects together. In effect,
We have never shared a studio space, and instead set up shop in 55
our reliance on web apps has greatly increased. In the past, Nicole and I talked through design decisions in person and organized our thoughts spatially with post-it notes. Now, we have face-to-face conversations in Google Hangouts and share
Circuit to answer the question of whether or not the internet is a “ place of public accommodation.” The Greater Los Angeles Agency on lawsuit against CNN for violating the California Disabled Persons Act (DPA) by not providing closed captioning on all of its online content. This court case draws attention to the question of whether a virtual location is subject to the same laws as a physical location. Since DPA was passed in 1968, drawing its boundaries into question highlights the need to address the changing
previous work grew out of responses to our geographic location, and now the online tools we use to continue our collaborative efforts have in effect be-come a shared location—like
This change in our working environment has led me to question my
with The Guardian, Benjamin Bratton says that, “part of the reason that the internet was able to support innovation from so many different places is that it was built on standard
In April 2014, the California Supreme Court has been asked by the Ninth
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when the internet functions as a meeting ground for interaction and dissuasion in ways that are similar to physical locations such as schools,
“place” as the relationship between a person or a group of people to a physical location or environment. But is the internet a place? For us it had become a location to meet and work; a site for collaboration.
platforms and protocols which allowed each point-of-reception to also be a point-of-production.” Platform neutrality has changed content creation and distribution.
was from a writer named Hank from California and he was curious about the role the internet played in our collaborative projects. He wrote, “That you and your partner are located a continent away from each other interested me. One of the people for reasons other than their shared locale.” This kind of happy accident also played a role in our working process. When working together in person, we would meet people while dropping a letter off at for lunch. Some of these people have become future collaborators. These unplanned encounters were often
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These systems have also altered the ways in which collaboration occurs. Not only do Nicole and I use web apps to discuss ideas and produce work, we are able to share documents with others quickly and easily, thus streamlining the process of collaboration regardless of physical location. In turn, this shapes the nature our our work by forming new locations for social interactions to take place, revealing new ways to experience a place.
Recently we received a serendipitous email whose subject line reads, “A Out-of-the-Blue Request for Your
our projects. The email from Hank brought the chance encounter into the digital realm. The internet is indeed a “shared locale,” and a means to explore
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Remodel The Model Ian Besler
Remodel the Model is an initiative that aims to recruit Trimble SketchUp modelers as research participants who would select a building, site, or object in Google Earth that is currently depicted as a photogrammetry mesh model and to digitally hand-make
line between the earth browser rendering and the wealth of publicly available, user generated models that it offered. As Google brings more privatized companies into its digital photogrammetry interpolation process, these messy, geometrical abstractions will disappear from the simulation. Therefore, this response also offers a method for cataloging this shift in the resolution of the constantly evolving digital landscape.
a real building that existed in the
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to Trimble 3D Warehouse with the tag “RemodeltheModel.” In March 2013, Google announced process that allowed the general public to author and submit 3D digital models for display on the “3D Buildings” layer of the Google Earth browser application (3D Modeling for Google Earth & Maps—Google Groups). The company is currently in the process of removing all previously visible, publicly generated digital models from Google Earth.
This initiative seeks to explore how this modeling process might be different or similar to the process of modeling actual buildings or sites, and what can be learned from modeling an algorithmically generated model “by hand.” The effort is a combination of friendly Sketch Up challenge, research exercise, digdecision to gradually remove all of the user-generated models from Google Earth.
The decision sparked a great deal of discussion across online digital modeling communities with opinions decidedly mixed. The digital models that result from this initiative, modeled as if they were real structures and shared to Trimble 3D Warehouse, propose a critical response to the
These process diagrams depict the to Google Earth algorithmic mesh to handmade model in Trimble SketchUp.
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Sanders House Michael Jacksonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Thriller (1982) Sanders House Google Earth
Dietrichson House Double Identity (1944) Dietrichson House Google Earth Dietrichson House Trimble SketchUp
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Sanders House Trimble SketchUp
Smart Citizens Make Smart Cities
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Jedidiah Gant
The development of civic platforms that promote citizen participation through the employment of technology throughout cities will create a smarter citizen, and in turn, a smarter city of the future.1 But are the cities of today implementing the technology to shape how they are inhabited by these smart citizens of tomorrow? As urban populations continue to increase, so does the technology that citizens own and interact with on a daily basis. Smart cities are becoming known as “places where information technology is wielded to address problems both old and new,” and can 2 Our cities are old, but our technology is new.
implemented, these new systems can help citizens interact more easily and be more directly involved within their cities. Smarter citizens will make smarter cities. According to ABI Research, wearable technology is becoming more mainstream and will blossom into a six billion dollar industry by 2018.4 Electronic sensors are also being embedded in buildings, signs, and other aspects of the citizens to communicate and collaborate with their urban setting In a technological sense, cities start to become smarter. For example, urban-based smartphone applications such as Nextdoor, SeeClickFix, Yelp, Foursquare, Urban Buddy, and others are currently connecting smart phone users with their cities
new technologies can make our old President of Design, Jonathan Ive, recently stated in an interview that “when you think about technology and what it has enabled us to do so far, and what it will enable us to do in the
cities can become a big part of how a city communicates to its citizens, giving them a better connection to a place.5 The ability to tap into unused city systems to make the current infrastructure more useful can also increase these connections between the built environment and the now ubiquitous
3
This means that our technological potential is wide open in this new century. By embracing this newness, cities can reach their own 21st century potential—connecting citizens through progressive technological systems and infrastructure. When
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digital world. More information at our
accessible for all of its citizens. For example, SeeClickFix 7 is an independent civic improvement platform that puts free urban technology in the hands of citizens.
source of the information can streamline processes, both in the public and civic realm.
These citizens can then share information with their government and inversely allow cities to directly respond to the citizens and their requests. Citizens can use the SeeClickFix smartphone app to take a photo of a broken sign, pothole or downed power line and tag the location of the issue. The issue is sent
corresponding city departments. The platform and its mobile application seek to empower communities 8 of communication between neighborhood residents and their governments. In 2012, the City of Chicago announced a partnership with SeeClickFix. Excited about the partnership, Mayor that we can work with SeeClickFix to create new ways to improve service delivery, increase government accountability, and improve the quality of life for all Chicagoans.” 9 Since
By putting additional technological systems in the hands of its citizens, a city can connect communities more
brand itself. “Technology has opened up a two-way stream,” 6 but it is the city government that has fallen behind
over 813,881 user-submitted civic issues in approximately 25,000 towns and 8,000 neighborhoods in the U.S. and abroad.8 From small towns to large metropolitan areas like Chicago, SeeClickFix is leading the way in putting civic technology in the hands of citizens.
expanding city technology and infrastructure, and opening up data, cities can make it available for citizens and encourage them to create useful apps, devices and other tools to make our cities better. This also allows the government to be more open and
More and more applications like SeeClickFix have emerged in the past 64
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This goal of streamlining information and accessing it is left to the cities and their government to create these systems and invest in them over the years to come. Without government support, these systems will not gain the traction and funding they need to become not only prevalent, but valid within urban communities. By funding and implementing these new systems, city governments can not only solve many of their current problems, but future ones as well. Creating these systems will also help solve many of the problems that citizens encounter on a daily basis— from paying bills, to using transit and voting. If well orchestrated, many of these issues can be streamlined through technology.
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10 years. But, media theorist William Mitchell claims that “community has come increasingly unglued from geography” through this emergence of technology over the past few decades.10 comments, we can see that being connected in the digital realm is as important as within physical space. Cities can capitalize on this by involving the community in its future plans and facilitating ways to increase participation through technology within the urban setting. This will help build social capital in cities, despite
integration and have a higher success rate of usability. First, cities must survey their digital landscape and map out the technology and systems that are currently available. Building up from scratch will take too long, become too costly, and likely not integrate well with established platforms. Second, they should update older systems and create new systems where there is a need or gap. This strategy will help create a better relationship with current businesses who are already in the digital urban space, and create new opportunities for citizens and businesses in the future.
that citizens have disengaged with their governments and the “continuing erosion of civic engagement” since the 1950s.11 tion, social media has become a large part of technology culture. It has the potential to create new and integrated social civic networks that could be a huge part of bringing back social capital and engagement within cities. From public spaces, to government buildings, to connected transit, public safety, and other
Citizens can create urban culture with technology, but need the support of their government. To make cities sustainable in the digital future, a conscious effort must be put forth to empower the digital citizen and make them more active in the process. To do this, cities must develop the infrastructure and allow citizens to become a part of the process. Using SeeClickFix as a prime example, empowering smart citizens through
zens into our physical community through digital platforms can make our cities not only better, but more of a cooperative experience.
make citizens smarter in the future. By making our citizens smarter through technological improvements, we in create smarter cities that tionship for many decades to come.
The technological systems that cities create—while they do need to be well planned out—do not need to be robust and expansive in the beginning. By nature, technology is temporary and fragile. Therefore, building up a more expansive system over time will support gradual 65
1. Smart Citizen SmartCitizen.me 2. Townsend, Anthony M Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia. 3. Arlidge, John Johnathan Ive Designs Tomorrow <time.com/ jonathan-ive-apple-interview>. 4. Led by the Sports, Fitness, and Wellness Segment, Wearable Wireless Device Revenues to Exceed $6 Billion in 2018. <abiresearch.com/press/led-by-the-sports-
5. Ferzoco, Jeff
6. Newsom, Gavin and Lisa Dickey Citizenville
8. SeeClickFix
9. SeeClickFix Wikipedia 10. Mitchell, William J City of Bits 11. Putnam, Robert D. Bowling Social Capital.
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Mayor Emanuel Announces Innovative Partnership with See ClickFix To Further Enhance 311 Service Reporting. <cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/mayor/ press_room/press_releases/2012/ october_2012/mayor_emanuel_ announcesinnovativepartnershipwith
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A Bagel: An 8 Foot Occasion A Demonstrative Space Skyler Thompson and Michaela Amato 68
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Privacy, Transparency, Honesty Aarati Akkapeddi
The objects we interact with every day have a profound affect on our
This phenomenon is nothing unique a survey published by the American Psychological Association, Pensioners: who grew up with the invention of the black and white television, are more likely to dream in black and white than in color. It is not surprising that something we interact with repetitively should affect the way we think and act in other situations. But sometimes
to characterize how we approach other situations and our expectations. During summer camp when I was twelve, I was on a canoe trip with two other friends. During the entire trip we each vowed to omit one unneces-
ronyms LOL and IDK out loud. It
parent, and available. We want our leaders to be transparent, our lovers to be honest, and ourselves to have access to everything. Though the idea of transparency is only comforting when it comes from someone else. Regarding our private lives or our own children, the acceptance of transparencey changes. We want others to be open because it seems to require them
and none of us were very successful.
preteen girls were actually saying an acronym designed for a typed, visual form of communication; a symptom of the tool. This crossing over from one method of interaction (digital format of AOL instant messenging) to another, more physical interaction of having a verbal conversation was strange. Since we were attempting to break the habit, we obviously felt uncomfortable about it then too.
ability to hide things (a.k.a. privacy) also seems to be something people want to keep for themselves. This contradiction is the Internet, or a value drawn from it at least. The Net (including the ever-elusive â&#x20AC;&#x153;DeepNetâ&#x20AC;?)
But, why?
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from one situation to the next.
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is both a place of unmatched trans-
Every app, every social media site, has some sort of stance between these two open extremes. Tinder for example, links to your Facebook
but when does transparency become surveillance and thus suppression? Perhaps it has to do with intent. When given the option, I choose to be transparent. Once I am forced to transparent, I feel I am being watched. If I am anonymous, I am free to do whatever I please without the judgment of others. Somehow,
as it appears on your Facebook. In light of the transparency, this is some sort of credibility check because it allows for a place where the majority names and photos. But there are obviously ways to get around using your true personal information. Also, many details from your Facebook
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from these outside pressures allows me to act in a way that is more honest to myself. Or, if I am having a conversation with another person in a private, rather than public, sphere it may be more natural or honest.
leaves Tinder open just enough that it becomes your choice to be transparent on it or not, but not so anonymous that it is overridden with trolls or skepticism from timid users. But how does this contradicting,
However, being unrestricted also means that I am free to lie or to act in self and perhaps destructive to others. Tor is a wonderful portal into the
openness elsewhere in life? Well the kind of world we live in today is the world where the President of the United States thinks
the world of search-engine-registered for journalists in places where oppression and censorship heavily reFriday is casual everyday now. One stricts what is published in the public symbol of anonymity that is being sphere. But it is also a place that is noticeably eradicated is that of frequented by child porn addicts and â&#x20AC;&#x153;formality.â&#x20AC;? Formality is a form of replace where babies get sold and shit.â&#x20AC;?
wall between getting to know a person as they are naturally. Formality is often seen, especially by Digital Natives, as a hindrance to intimacy. Thus, casual has been elevated to the status of transparency and honesty. But of course this breeds a
for total anonymity. How could you without some form of transparency?
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form of pseudo casual formality seen in the painfully awkward interaction on Between Two Ferns. Of course, there is also the yearning to constantly
private sphere of communication in order to maintain a sense of honesty is important to us as well. As Internet policy makers and app developers wrestle the issue of privacy versus transparency, we must realize that we ourselves are being
desire to be forever accessible. The tools we have grant us this ability, but also enhance it to be something Alone Together, after interviewing high school students, she notes that “teenagers report discomfort when they are without their cell phones, they need to be connected in order to feel like themselves…[they] share feelings as part of discovering them…they cultivate a collaborative self.” This “collaborative self” is another symptom of the tool.
contradictory values of openness.
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The ability to share constantly diminishes the ability to experience a healthy level of isolation; the comfort of being alone and sharing ideas shairing leads teenagers to seek emotional validation in others online than in the reality of themselves. Also consider the fact that all of us have been in a situation where a for the simple reason that we could Google it later. Constant access to information and validation from other sources creates this new expectation from ourselves in terms of credibility and knowledge. We should know rather than we can know. The openness of this accessibility creates an expectation that we must be more up to date with the world and with each other. At the same time, the concept of maintaining an intimate 76
24/7 Stephanie Clark
â&#x20AC;&#x153;Today, technology means
designed to make use of, or provide service across all 24 hours of the day, seven days a week. Using the internet as a space for constant access, a 24/7 working environment is now more possible than ever before. With email, skype, google docs, and google hangout, we
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available 24/7. And, because everyone demands instant
done. This also means the virtual
and instant connectivity, there are no boundaries,
With emails to read, meetings to schedule, ideas to share, and information to obtain, the pressure to be productive never ceases. Though, the same can be said regarding entertainment. With Facebook, Tumblr, Youtube, and
1 perpetual distractions can compromise our productivity at work: one possible reason as to why our work life permeates our home life to begin with. This continuous connection which allows us to be accessible regardless of location is the reason we are no longer
David Solomon, the global co-head of investment banking at Goldman.
available in a morphic environment of constantness; an environment which many companies and clients are happy to take advantage of.
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But is this a sustainable environment?
sometimes appearing at 11pm or 3am. With such unpredictability, creativity often feels like a constant state of mind, never shuting off. Wondering what kind of environment would supported such a mental state, I moved into my studio space for a week.
Hard work and productivity have typically been measured quantof businesses, banks, and law hours of work a week.2 However, the combination of sleep deprivation, isolation, and lack of exercise (with unhealthy eating habits) is a formula more for depression than productivity. Constant stress from overworking oneself brings to mind the anecdote of a frog in a cooking pot. When originally placed into cold water, the frog does not recognize an immediate danger. As the temperature gradually rises, the frog continues to This ability to adapt is what ultimately kills the frog, and is used as a metaphor for the unwillingness of people to occur gradually. While this may seem like a drastic comparison to working on a Saturday morning or responding to a client in the middle of the night, it is a foretelling story of someone choosing an over worked life. In Japan for example, the ultimate consequence of being overworked is so common they named it karoshi : death from overwork.3 As a graduate student studying visual communications, the idea of karoshi does not seem impossible. For me, creativity never clocks out at 5pm, and rarely shows around 9am.
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To begin, I divided my studio space into halves. I kept my work related materials on one end, and my homely belongings on the other. Attempting to keep the two places as separate as possible, I questioned if I could live a healthy and balanced lifestyle despite how accessible my work area was. I also questioned if a constant environment supported productivity in a positive way such as increased creativity, or in a negative way, i.e. would I be the next boiled frog?
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Under the stress of close proximity, a visual and experiential synthesis formed from these two environments. By living where I was working and working where I was living, I had no problem rolling out of bed at 2am to work on a project. I also felt I had more time to work on my projects because all I had to really worry about was literally right in front of me. With having to be only in one place the entire time, my focus strengthened, allowing me to accomplish more. For example, before moving into the studio, I only had a certain amount of time to achieve things. Once I went home, I was no longer supported by an environment that allowed me to physically create. This pressure for time unknowlingly lead me to seek solutions which were easier in their familiarity. But without this usual daily timeline to worry about, I felt more freedom to explore ideas and less
ducive to constant productivity. However, I started to miss the small my home and the studio. Living constantly in one space eliminated any chance for the unexpected. By standardizing my personal life, I inevitably standardized my creative process. And by eliminating the unexpected from my personal life, I inevitably eliminated such unexpectedness in my work. In the marketplace, employers also notice in their employees the negative effects of spending Realizing the health of their workers equals the health of the company, employers began mandating breaks as little as four weekend days off a month. However, this gesture does nothing to stop employees from working secretly at home. According to former Goldman associate
reacting, I began exploring. However, after a longer period of time I noticed I began standardizing parts of my personal life in order to enhance my working habits. One example of this was my decision to simplify my wardrobe. By only wearing black workout clothes, I hardly had
ternal rules that force [people] to cultural system.â&#x20AC;? 4 So instead of keeping the two environments separate, companies began experimenting with the idea of merging areas like productivity and dedication with downtime and play, to see if their employees could live a balanced personal/work life. A key aspect of this environment was the freedom to nap.5 While eating poorly and avoiding exercise can have its negative effects, nothing saps a productive day like lack of sleep.
suitable for working and comfortable for sleeping. I also conformed my schedule to those working around me. As the studio was shared with eight other grad students, my day (7:30 am) and continued until the last person left (3 am). 79
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Many students used the space to recharge from an all-nighter, while others used it as a quick space to laugh, share stories, and hang out with friends.
not the only one working late at undergraduates until 4am, and by noon the next day, every student walking in the halls looked like a casted extra on the set of The Walking Dead. In support, I moved my bed out into the hallway for everyone to use.
The simple act of laying down in a bed has the ability to transport a student Nothing else besides a potted plant the act of napping as a striked balance between excessive working and relaxation. Companies like Google as a tool for constant productivity. Studies show napping has plenty of motor skills, memory retainment, and
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independent workers in the technology and consultancy sectors, hardly get a break. Their 24/7 accessibility fused with them being available 24/7, making them especially prone to such an invasive work life. Though, people like Amy Webb, CEO of Webbmedia Group (a digital strategy agency focusing on near-term emerging technology trends), have In fact, Webb sees technology as access to solving a problem, no matter what time of day. In an interview with Debbie Millman on Design Matters, Webb claims she prefers to sleep next to her phone, stating that, â&#x20AC;&#x153;like it or not, technology is a permanent part of our lives.â&#x20AC;? 81
On one instance, a client woke her in the middle of the night worried over a vendor meeting the next day. “Rather than stating an expletive and going back to bed, [Webb] got up, made a cup of coffee, went down to her
alarms that automatically set for Finally, the phone's built in clock counts down to the end of that
strategy with him for more than two hours.” 7 Separating access to each mode are levels of playful true or false questions. These serve to make it a challenge (but not impossible) to switch between modes, further allowing the user to focus on where they are at that time, and not on what can distract them.
On the other side of the world however, some countries recognize this imposement as a threat to an independent workers were recently unprotected by the 35 hour work week and 10 hour-a-day limit, until federations and unions fought against the “entire cultural system” with a newly signed, legally binding labour agreement giving employees the “obligat[ion] to disconnect.” 8
However, being constantly available comes down to a personal choice. Employers, collegues, and clients
In response to this, I explored a second, oppositional project. One where constant access by mobile device was limited by personal choice. Similar to the airplane mode, there would exist seperate modes for the
decide when to be reached. Just because we have the opportunity to be available 24 hours a day does not mean we have to be, or even should be.
interface readjusts to entertainment apps providing the user access only to relaxation. Calls, emails, and text messages from clients and colleagues are completely blocked, leaving your evening with friends and family uninterupted. But when switched to work mode, these emails and missed calls are imediately presented, and in turn block such calls
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access to wherever we are, but
1,2. Surowiecki, James. The Cult of Over Work. New Yorker. <http://www.newyorker.com/talk/ surowiecki>. 3. De Boer, Joop. <http://popupcity.net/power-nappingaround-the-world/>. 4. Michel is currently a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania, and has published nine years of study on two big investment banks where he found people spending up to a hundred and twenty hours a week on the job.
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5. Delo, Cotton. Why companies are cozying up to napping at work. CNN Money. <http://management.fortune.cnn. com/2011/08/18/why-companies-arecozying-up-to-napping-at-work/>. 6. Markowitz, Eric. Sleeping on the Clock: Should Your Employees Take Naps? Inc.com. <http://www.inc.com/articles/201108/ sleeping-on-the-job-should-youremployees-take-naps.html>. 7. Amy Webb. Interview by Debbie Millman. Observer Media: Design Observer. <http://observermedia. designobserver.com/audio/amywebb/37813/>. 8. Anderson, L.V., Alison Griswold, and Abby McIntyre. No, France Did Not Just Ban Workers From Answering Emails After 6 P.M. Slate Magazine. <http://www.slate.com/blogs/ moneybox/2014/04/10/debunked_ france_did_not_just_ban_workers_ from_answering_emails_after_hours. html>.
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Open Limitations Kezra Cornell
limitations by giving myself a set of rules in order to inspire freedom.
are created from o-p-e-n.info. I was inspired by the movable, outlined shapes In the end, I created ten different versions. I noticed I began falling into production habits which include +
and accessibility, but I would argue there is freedom to be found in structure, rules, systems, and constraints.
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undo, and hitting the space bar to pan.
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