shifting realities
Design objects before and today
I am wearing this old-school retro watch. I have no idea how it works. One day I pressed some buttons looking for the lighting option so I could check the time in the dark, and by mistake I set the alarm clock, which now wakes me up every morning at 8:40.
Maybe it was set already at this time by the previous owner, my friend who gave it to me as a gift. Maybe it was a complete randomness, from the sequence of buttons I pressed.
The thing is, that I need to find a manual, or play around and tinker with it. It is a mystery to be resolved and discovered. It attracts my attention and makes me feel nice.
Nowadays
While in other design objects, more contemporary, the design is supposed to be more intuitive, mapping human cognition into handles and buttons. It's supposed to be more straight forward and no need to tinker or anything, only if the designer wanted to. (Too much controlled? maybe)
For example, a device, that is mobile, has thousands of functions, in one body, a small one. I look at it, and I get a million information in one instance. I got no time to mind wander. If I do, I will forget about it as soon as the next piece of information occurs. Pervasive technology.
But the contemporary designers seek to create artifacts which will drag the target-user from the nose, like the smell of a good food and get the delicacy straight into her plate. With forks and knives and all the necessary tools. No need to worry about anything. The bed is set, the clothes are clean, the whole kingdom is there to please you my master.
Making choices
narrowing down the spectrum ? setting down a road ?
Creating a concrete path or opening up for tremendous possibilities?
Once it was wise to find one's path in life, the sooner the better and pursue it with constant fight and work. Walk straight to the final goal. The upper goal. The end of the tunnel. Paradise.
That might seem a bit silly when there are so many things to try in the gardens of pleasure. Why not enjoy Eden and at the same time shuffle through Dante's Hell with the press of a button? So many interesting things to see, and experience, that staying only in one path feels insufficient for a life.
Now the way is not just straight but includes a lot of turns and twists, and to be lost is normal. To expand instead of narrowing it down is the expected and expected to get a lot of pleasure out of it. The brain is plastic. It can perform well under whatever task is being subjected to and chooses.
Dat' info
I cut one head and 10 grow out of this gesture. The broadening of the field is constant. Or is it an illusion?
On the information point of view, or data, as my friend would very strictly call them and finally I agree.. There are a lot out there. But it's just a skill to learn. To be out there and above, be able to see and combine. Act beyond the form, see the functions. There is a noticeable difference in that. And the difference is separated and/or connected at the boundaries or connecting points or the medium of the experience. The flow of input and output of information or data. Virtual or Real #World. Things are getting blurry out there.
What I initially wanted to say is that, Doing a lot! is ok. We are a product of our society and culture anyway. And it's a matter of survival. Darwin.
A continuum
How is the above connected? Well, everything is. It's a continuum. Past present future. Yeah, there is no time, but the Human Cognition evolves slowly with the centuries. It's just another part of the equation.
It's all a collection of relations, push and pull, and eventually doors will behave accordingly, or windows. Even walls.
I am glad for my watch.It's a point of reference. For the people and things that made it work and for the moment that I see it working or not. and the funny ways it may work, and the unexpected.
I am wearing this old-school retro watch. I have no idea how it works. One day I pressed some buttons looking for the lighting option so I could check the time in the dark, and by mistake I set the alarm clock, which now wakes me up every morning at 8:40.
Maybe it was set already at this time by the previous owner, my friend who gave it to me as a gift. Maybe it was a complete randomness, from the sequence of buttons I pressed.
The thing is, that I need to find a manual, or play around and tinker with it. It is a mystery to be resolved and discovered. It attracts my attention and makes me feel nice.
Nowadays
While in other design objects, more contemporary, the design is supposed to be more intuitive, mapping human cognition into handles and buttons. It's supposed to be more straight forward and no need to tinker or anything, only if the designer wanted to. (Too much controlled? maybe)
For example, a device, that is mobile, has thousands of functions, in one body, a small one. I look at it, and I get a million information in one instance. I got no time to mind wander. If I do, I will forget about it as soon as the next piece of information occurs. Pervasive technology.
But the contemporary designers seek to create artifacts which will drag the target-user from the nose, like the smell of a good food and get the delicacy straight into her plate. With forks and knives and all the necessary tools. No need to worry about anything. The bed is set, the clothes are clean, the whole kingdom is there to please you my master.
Making choices
narrowing down the spectrum ? setting down a road ?
Creating a concrete path or opening up for tremendous possibilities?
Once it was wise to find one's path in life, the sooner the better and pursue it with constant fight and work. Walk straight to the final goal. The upper goal. The end of the tunnel. Paradise.
That might seem a bit silly when there are so many things to try in the gardens of pleasure. Why not enjoy Eden and at the same time shuffle through Dante's Hell with the press of a button? So many interesting things to see, and experience, that staying only in one path feels insufficient for a life.
Now the way is not just straight but includes a lot of turns and twists, and to be lost is normal. To expand instead of narrowing it down is the expected and expected to get a lot of pleasure out of it. The brain is plastic. It can perform well under whatever task is being subjected to and chooses.
Dat' info
I cut one head and 10 grow out of this gesture. The broadening of the field is constant. Or is it an illusion?
On the information point of view, or data, as my friend would very strictly call them and finally I agree.. There are a lot out there. But it's just a skill to learn. To be out there and above, be able to see and combine. Act beyond the form, see the functions. There is a noticeable difference in that. And the difference is separated and/or connected at the boundaries or connecting points or the medium of the experience. The flow of input and output of information or data. Virtual or Real #World. Things are getting blurry out there.
What I initially wanted to say is that, Doing a lot! is ok. We are a product of our society and culture anyway. And it's a matter of survival. Darwin.
A continuum
How is the above connected? Well, everything is. It's a continuum. Past present future. Yeah, there is no time, but the Human Cognition evolves slowly with the centuries. It's just another part of the equation.
It's all a collection of relations, push and pull, and eventually doors will behave accordingly, or windows. Even walls.
I am glad for my watch.It's a point of reference. For the people and things that made it work and for the moment that I see it working or not. and the funny ways it may work, and the unexpected.
“The 3.2 billion units of human genome. Manhattan phone books, stacked to the ceiling in spirals, 140 volumes worth. Bunched together in 30.000 genes. How natural it seems to imagine nature as information and information as nature. […] All of nature comes from codes. Pure and applied. Physics and engineering. Biology and natural selection. Logic and computers. Now that information is a form of property, all things seem to have the properties of information” (Wark, 2002, 14th June 2001)
ReplyDelete“Let’s face it, the computers on which this work was made could be doing anything. They are, after all, universal machines. They can process any data into anything. Here’s the rub: not just digitizing some datastreams, in-formatting the world, but create new abstractions that add to this world’s capacity” (Wark, 2002, 20th April 2001)