weekly update
posted 10/24
reading: Society of the Spectacle (Debord), Expressive Processing (Wardrip-Fruin)
working on: happiness hat, finishing, documentation
thinking about: Michael Kontopolous/Casey Reas pointed me toward the work of Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, Noam Toran, their term “critical design”, and some of the other work that came out of Royal College of Art and Chris Csikszentmihalyi’s Computing Culture group at the Media Lab…had seen most of this before, but cool stuff.
Casey also brought up a good point about use, refinement, and documentation. Just because a project is “made” doesn’t necessarily mean it’s “finished”. The way it is actually used, the degree to which it is refined, and the way it is represented through documentation and display are parts of the piece and can add context and depth. Important to think explicitly about the choices I’m making with these things and what they mean.
So basically, what I’ve been thinking of lately are various ways my projects could function as a way to reconcile my behavior and the general discomfort I often feel in many social situations with society’s expectations of “normal” interaction behavior…while also trying to question these expectations and their purposes. This could mean tools that help one adapt to fit in better with society, projects that attempt to mold the world to fit better around the individual, or maybe projects that attempt to change or question both…exploring altogether different ways of interacting. Thinking about a touch/conversation piece right now, more to come…
to do this week: finish up the happiness hat (for reals), start on this next project, think of another shorter series of experiments maybe, ooh and a hardcore software project would be really fun but I haven’t thought of anything along those lines really yet…also start thinking about the topic of my paper for my media history/theory class – roughly 10 pages on anything within this topic, could really help to think through what I want to work on and why… oh yeah and carve pumpkins and go trick or treating!