It seems this reading touched on an idea from last week, kind of in a round about way, but it made me once again think about why some things in design fiction don’t get created or don’t become widespread. Because the real world can be difficult like that. Economic factors etc. mean some inventions are delayed, or never come to be. However, this article explains that that was more the case in the past, nowadays, we can create and advance pretty much anything and reproduce it like crazy. Pretty empowering, it seems the more humanity advances, the quicker it advances also. Each big new invention has less waiting time then the last, and then suddenly a new thing will come up,  because science has become so…awesome. And scientists have for the most part, banded together to get the ball rolling, but as the article explains, physicists have branched off somewhat and have been forced to become more creative, which is cool. It kind of breaks my mindset of science being all about what I learned in Chemistry last year, and more about innovation and doing something awesome for humanity. Badass.

Design fiction, sounds fun, interesting. It is clear that the most important aspect of this process is speculation. Imagining  what things could be like, what could happen, what we could do. Does this mean sci-fi things become less fictional as time goes on, as our world looks more similar to theirs over time? I wonder, how far it can go? It seems we will keep imagining and inventing things, but will there ever be a time when we are so advanced, it will become more and more difficult to impress people in design fiction. I mean, who would be impressed now at a device that can call anyone in the world, not many people, considering we have already invented it, but there was a time when it seemed impossible. How long will it be until we are unable to say ‘hey wouldn’t it be awesome if we could do this?’ It would be difficult to think about what more we can come up with once we live in a world like The Jetsons or something, but I suppose I have to assume we will never stop needing stuff, and thus, never stop inventing. Still, it seems like this would have to be finite….But that is definitely a tangent thought I had.

The actual reading is rather straightforward I found, just expanding on the idea of imagining and speculating being a big part of design, as well as testing out creations in fictional space.

Argyris… I don’t understand. I mean I do, but I don’t know if its what you meant. What I got from the text, is that double loop learning is when you don’t have to trial and error, as you can kind of think about these things in your head and reflect on what would be best as you go. For example, if your initial approach to dealing with the problem didn’t work, you can think about alternative solutions rather than continue to trial things similar to that one. Perhaps this is wrong, either way I think it is a good skill to have, if nothing else its a time saver.

It seems that double loop learning or “model II” are the ideal types, more creative, able to change and reevaluate when required, so what if I am a single loop learner? what if I fit model I? Is there a way to change this? Or is Argyris just encouraging me to try my best to change this however I can?

I also read Adrian Miles’ “Blogs in Media Education” and the thing I have most definitely taken away from it is, yeah, if this wasn’t a hefty part of this subject, chances are I wouldn’t invest any time into it. Being part of Gen Y, I have obviously been forced to create blogs for class in the past, where teachers set up something one week then forget about it the next, meaning I have a large supply of blogs out there dedicated to English and Humanities that have just been forgotten about, most likely because we were never encouraged to post in it ever. So my biggest concern is, after this part of this subject, and until I need this blog again for another subject, will I just slack off? Because I am excited to be actually blogging for the first time in my life, but is the driving force behind it the hope of a high mark? I hope not.

Yep, you can tell I did art…

The metaphor of the boat in the ocean of ideas reminded me of something I heard a while ago ( I am starting to see a trend here, first the Dan Brown video, now this? whats going on with your nostalgia Jackie?) anyway, it was the way my art teacher in high school explained how to keep a visual diary to me; because, being the perfectionist that I am, I felt uneasy about documenting ideas that I knew I would never use, or could never be bothered actually doing. But the point wasn’t to add these ideas to the diary so that you could remember or use them all, it was just to have an ocean of ideas to expand from. You may use some, but most of them, you will just notice, and let them float away, which is completely fine.

Like an artists visual diary, the network is an ocean of ideas, not just my own, but other peoples as well. I don’t have to only make posts about important things that I think my tutors will like, because floating around and dipping the oar into other ideas can’t hurt, and will just enrich the experience and end result of the idea over there that I seek.