© 2013 ellathompson

A CHANGING WORLD

HELLO WEEK FOUR!

This week’s lecture was the beginning of the symposium-style lectures. It was pretty casual, pretty cool. Tutors said stuff – again, I preferred to listen to what Adrian had to say because he has far more knowledge/experience/wisdom (actually I also liked listening to Brian) – and students asked questions. Good questions. Really good questions. I was surprised. I think this model works very well. Yay.

 

The lecture involved going through questions – the first question (I think it was the first…) concerning the area of design fiction that remains rather vague for me. The practicality of design fiction. The professional uses of design fiction. Who, what, how, when, why? Of course, it wasn’t answered in such specific detail. Because this course is about broad, vague answers. Nah, I kid. Sorta. But I did get a slightly better understanding. Some professional areas were mentioned – medical practitioners, scientists, architects. We’re getting there, little bit by little bit.

 

The tutors had really different opinions with these questions, which was great. They had different views of design fiction as well.

Brian spoke about design fiction having motivating qualities, since it isn’t really evidence-based. A certain sense of play is associated with it. He also described design fiction as “humble”. It is not ‘solving all the world’s problems in one go’. It is done in small, incremental scenarios, and it never pretends it holds the perfect solution. I thought this was a good point. Brian also suggested that design fiction may be too technologically-obsessed – that we should shift our focus to the impact/effect on society.

Adrian discussed how design is currently “fashionable”. Businesses bring in ‘gurus’ for design-managing. What I found really interesting was the explanation for how Google runs its corporation. Google employees are allowed to spend one day per week on anything they like. Playing. Coming up with ideas. This leads to major developments. Part of me sees this as a really clever/brilliant/awesome/cool/modern/exciting way to run a company, the other part of me wouldn’t really like my own ideas to be owned by a corporation. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that part – whatever the employees come up with is Google’s. So I’m conflicted. But I do really like the new concept that work = play.

Adrian also introduced us to the ‘wicked problem’. First I thought I’d misheard him. Wicked? An evil problem? Doesn’t sound quite right. Or was it ‘wiki’? ‘Wiki problem’? So I spent the whole lecture assuming he was saying ‘wiki’, even though it consistently sounded more like ‘wicked’. But I’ve looked it up, and it’s ‘wicked’. Wicked. These problems don’t have an answer. No wonder they’re evil.

Adrian also stressed to us the importance (in design fiction) of understanding the people who may be using your stuff. By stuff, I suppose he meant product/service/you get the gist. “Know your users” – that quote from one of the readings instantly entered my mind. I had not quite grasped its meaning before, because of the vagueness of its delivery. This increased my understanding a bit. Still wouldn’t be able to explain the specifics of how all this is done, but I do have a general idea.

What was really fascinating was when Adrian talked about his experience in the humanities field. A humanities person is “trained to talk about dead things”. Design is a future-oriented practice. Designers look behind, but work to make a change tomorrow. Of course, I had heard the word ‘future-oriented’ in regards to design fiction so many times in the weeks prior, but this placed it in a new light. Trained to talk about dead things… Great way to phrase it.

He also discussed how print literacy changed our minds, and now online literacy is changing our minds. For one, it is affecting our memory – our recall pathways. It is more difficult for us to remember something, but easier to recall how we found it. I feel like this is because we are adapting to the conditions where machines do the remembering for us. So it is only necessary for us to remember how to get there. Circumstances have changed. We are simply adapting to them, to necessity.

 

Adrian emphasised the fact that the models which currently exist are changing dramatically. He asked us the daunting yet fascinating question – what do we think our job will look like in 2020?

He used the brilliant example of filmmaking (what I am hoping to get into). He asked questions. How will we make money? Who will pay us for making films?

He then chose the more specific example of cinematographer (one of the major areas I am interested in), explaining all that we must think about – what hardware will be used? Where will we work? Who will pay us?

We’re so used to modelling our future plans to suit the current way of things. We overlook the inevitability of change. The way we see the professions we want to get into now will not be the way they look when we are finally ready to work. We need to train ourselves for the future of this profession, not the ‘now’ of this profession. We need to learn to anticipate what is to come and how it will affect us. It’s our imediate instinct to work by the idea that life is static – that the world is stagnant, unmoving, unchanging, forever as it is. That the future is waiting for us. But the future is actually developing alongside us. We need to anticipate and prepare for the unknown world to come. That’s what the lectures, classes and design fiction has taught me.

 

What else did I learn?

  • Content producers are the bottom of the food chain. They are plankton. Don’t aim to be a content producer. Aim to be a knowledge creator. Don’t aspire to be plankton.
  • Adrian had to read Bordwell and Thompson’s Film Art: An Introduction when he was at uni. Whoa. That’s what we have to read now. That’s crazy that it’s the same book (I mean, I know there are different versions, but still). Does that mean he studied media? Or cinema studies? What we’re studying now? Haha.
  • The scarcity that once defined access to media-making and knowledge is gone.
  • These days, we can make stuff and build a reputation in our chosen area very easily. And this reputation will be noticed.

One person asked a really good question near the end – what’s the point of doing this professionally if you can just do it full stop?

We all have this in the back of our minds. Well, at least I do. Why pay to study it when you can just study it yourself? The conclusion I have come to is a vain one. The degree looks good. Well, that’s actually not the only reason. Learning discipline. Learning about what I didn’t know I needed to learn about. Opportunity to learn from some great teachers. Access to far more resources. Opportunity to make more contacts. And just the general fun of going to uni – friends and such. So I answered that question for myself, but I can see how others may not have for themselves. Adrian said that it’s experience. Experience is what makes us look like we are worth paying. But there is a problem with this. People can gain their own experience. For example, filmmaking. A person could go and make some short films or docos or music videos, educate themselves online, find an internship, and probably gain more experience than RMIT Media students during the three years. It’s a difficult question. A wicked problem.

 

Adrian ended the lecture by telling us that mobile phones are the key thing to pay attention to / design for. Kay. Good to know. (Why does everything I write sound sarcastic?)

I think at some point during the lecture, someone said something about The Wire – asking us if we’d seen it. The number of times I have been told to watch this show is incalculable. Well, like 4 times. But it keeps being brought up. I WILL WATCH IT. EVENTUALLY. IF UNI ALLOWS ME TO BREATHE FOR A SECOND. IT IS ON MY TO-DO LIST. HAVE FAITH.

 

GOODBYE FOR NOW, ELECTRONIC FRIENDS

 

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