NM Week 2.1 – Design Fiction Panel Discussion

One very interesting concept from the ‘Design fiction’ panel which warrants further examination was a question about whether creativity should drive innovation, (think of something then find ways to do it) or whether innovation should drive creativity, (find out what we know how to do, then think of ways to apply it)

I wasn’t sure whether the distinction really held, due largely to the fact that I don’t believe there would be a systematic way to apply one or the other. Creativity drives design just as design drives creativity and has it not always been so? Applying systems of human thought to theoretical design futures is all very well and probably necessary, but between the realm of accident, necessity, creativity and commercial viability, don’t we see a constant intermingling of these two modes of thinking anyway? To me, the catalogueing of these various approaches to thinking is interesting and useful, but doesn’t seem to provide any revolutionary new way to think about the innate human drive to invention.

 

NM Week 2.2

‘As We May Think’ is an article by Vannevar Bush and addresses the ways in which information can be processed, transmitted and stored by electronic and or mechanical devices. Vannevar mentions how, over time, we have come to entrust machines with more and more responsibility in the realm of tasks that were previously the domain of humans. However, he offers the caveat that, within the limits of present technology, machines are as yet unable to think for themselves. In other words, they can understand a process and perform the necessary operations, be they simple or highly complex, but the process must be defined by a certain level of predictability and uniformity. “Whenever thought for a time runs along an accepted groove, there is an opportunity for the machine”. One could easily ask a machine “What is the square root of 5684?” and if it is equipped to answer, it will say 75.392. The same cannot be asked of most normal human beings but these same humans might be far better able to explain why piece of music is so fascinating, a task as yet beyond the faculties of even the most advanced computers.

Although I caught the gist of most of what was said in this article, it was for the most part, too technically advanced for a 41 degree day. An interesting notion that I was reminded of is the idea of available surface area being a large determining factor in the processing speed of machines. Nano-computing has promised millions of atom sized processors but ultimately, these will reach the limit of their usefulness. Making machines that speak in a binary fashion, while perhaps the only realistic option for the time being, is still symptomatic of what Mason and Argyris call “single loop learning” or simply, tinkering with the existing structures. The promise of ‘quantum computing’, is a way to potentially change the rules as they are.

On Singapore

Nothing brings tropical heat into focus like air-conditioning. Forged on a peninsula of British colonialism, Singapore sits, a chrome alligator of efficient, totalitarian harmony. Behind a wall of liquid-crystal, broadcasting an animated version of the ‘Twelve days of Christmas’, cavernous luxury mall-spaces are held in atmospheric equilibrium. At the climax of the song, five golden rings of power bid us seasonal goodwill and ‘Lord of the Rings’ merges with caroling at that unselfconscious juncture between corporate self-promotion and the season of giving. Risen in ivory hues from the swamp, Singapore is the world’s most successful pursuit of technocracy. A vision so singular,  it could only be satisfied by futuristic rainforest domes. These self-same domes, known as the ‘Gardens by the Bay‘ are worthy of any mythic Mughal and leave one perplexed and uneasy before the slack-jaw of democratic freeway construction. Singapore has a hard-earned reputation for best-practice in anything practical and this can-do-attitude was bequeathed first hand to Lee Kwan Yew, as he watched Japanese invaders shatter the myth of British invincibility in a matter of minutes. The resulting carnage from what amounted to a betrayal by the British, served as a lasting lesson in the necessity for self-reliance.

The pale ghost of Singapore’s first patriarch, Sir Stamford Raffles, is given what seems undue deference as he stares back dashingly from every note in the Singaporean currency. Lee himself, not yet immortalised in note form, is modest to a fault but in the way that we all become our parents, remains just as starched and inflexible as a Raj-era dinner jacket – Singapore is famous for its almost comically draconian laws. Upon returning from Malaysia, expat school children have been known to be searched for chewing gum and pirated DVDs. What Raffles left behind in the sweaty hedonism of old Singapore, Lee has bulldozed into amnesia, erecting Singapore’s climate-controlled puritanism as a talisman against the languid spirits of the equatorial jungle.  Lee would have been well aware of and most likely affected by the prevailing myths of Orientalism. Raging against them with the purpose of an abandoned lover, decadent, Western ideas of personal freedom were curtailed for a common purpose. But, as I shovel Hainanese chicken-rice into my face, RnB Christmas jingles serve as an ever-present reminder that efficiency comes at a price. Want to make money? You can do that here. You can do anything here, except this and this. And this. Here is a chaste life of noble productivity. Don’t waste your time with frivolity like art and music. Learn to do something useful, because the only way is forward, and citizen, we are required to do these things together.

Singaporean law has attempted to inoculate against satire and although no one is going to shoot you for it, (bad for business) please put your hand over your mouth, as these things can be contagious. For its elegance, Singapore is not known to be the life of the party, yet it whirs away pleasant and oblivious, during a time when democracies face an almost uniform crises of public confidence in their ability to put the interests of society before those of its campaign donors. Lee, an unashamed elitist who once described Australia as “the white trash of Asia”, maintains that the role of the elite should be in serving the interests of society, rather than plundering it for their own benefit. (See GFC/bailouts/HSBC scandal et al) So, despite his deep love of capitalism, Lee understands that people can not always be left to their own devices. Like it or not, captured in the city is an expanse of topiaried understanding that eclipses those subject to the whims of opinion polls and rag tyrants. Would I trade it? No. Grime validates my self-involved, Western illusions of authenticity – but give me a couple more years of Tony Abbott and I just might.

Unlike many parts of Asia (Malaysia I’m looking at you) the Singaporeans recognised that valuable tourist dollars are bound in the walls of antiquity. They did thus a fairly decent job of preserving a semblance of that which can be filled with shops where people are willing to pay a premium on quaintness. One old building sits proudly amid the trees beneath 70 stories of luxury apartments. On the side of the building is a sign that says, “We buy and sell antiques. Some fools buy, some fools sell”. Against this simple, condensed, stoic, Asian-capitalist-socialism, one can’t help but find the place both humbling and slightly terrifying. Singapore can be called many things, but complacent is not one. Build up, you can fit more people in that way, it’s not all about you. Here are the rules for not wrecking the place. It’s not all about you. We are strict but we’re sure you’ll find us accommodating if you stay between the lines. All are welcome. Make your way, you are not owed. Now build a rainforest in a dome.

NM Week 2.1 – Design Fiction as Pedagogy

Matthew Ward says ‘all design is fiction’ a phrase though seemingly obvious, was at this point, unarticulated in my own mind. However, in the context of design fiction, “a testing ground for reality”, we are not asked so much to think of next-season’s fashion, as it were, but rather make an extra step into a world of practical and aesthetic possibility, while simultaneously making rational and informed decisions about the real-world implementation of the idea. To put it in an old cliche, ‘Imagine the World of Tomorrow, Today’, though include the caveat that if you want the world of tomorrow, make sure you can pitch it as a convincing powerpoint to those with the money.This represents a curious doublethink that is necessary to engage with design fiction. On one hand, let your imagination run wild, on the other, make sure that your idea is grounded enough in possibility to be attractive.

Ward makes a few more good points about how to approach design fiction and that one of the central ideas to DF is the idea of storytelling. “What world will this invention be a part of”? Ward goes on to say that good ideas do not in themselves create narrative, so there is an extra impetuous placed on how we are to go about embedding the idea in people’s imagination. In an oblique acknowledgement of the importance of narrative, sci-fi writer Neal Stephenson, mentioned in the last post, works as a consultant for a high-tech firm, specifically in the context of being a fiction-writing designer.

As humans are faced with the very real likelihood of having to do more and more with less, there seems to be a very real future for design fiction.

 

NM Week 2.1 – Design Fiction

Bruce Sterling says in an interview that ‘design fiction’, (thinking up new ideas for technologies and trying to find ways to bring them to life) could foster a new wave of problem solving around the world. Sterling’s idea is an interesting one as he asks us to move away from totalising theories about the future, to leave behind the grand, apocalyptic designs of the 60’s, in favour of small-scale practical solutions to everyday life. This kind of atomised, independently-driven thought, asks questions like “how do we solve this specific problem and what steps do we have to take to bring about this change?” instead of “how do we solve every problem simultaneously?”

Sterling believes this more modest approach to thinking about change could prompt a new wave of interest in futurism, most likely due to the way that things will somehow become more manageable, instead of merely being put in the ‘too-hard’ basket. Design fiction does have a few illustrious champions already. Maven sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke was the inspiration behind the first satellite and Sterling also mentions how a version of the modern “i-pad” appears in that epic Clarke/Kubrick collaboration ‘2001’. Unfortunately, Clarke’s ‘space-elevator’ has failed to materialise. Perhaps he was thinking too big?

Sci-fi writer Neal Stephenson, in his novel ‘Snowcrash’, alludes to a system that resembles for all intents and purposes what we now know as ‘Google Earth’ and was, according to the creators, the direct inspiration for that self-same program. Orwell’s ‘telescreen’ sounds perilously close to Microsoft’s controversial addition to the x-box and once quantum computing makes its way into households, why not upload our consciousnesses into hard-drives ala William Gibson’s ‘Neuromancer’? Still, all this comes back to thinking versus doing. Perhaps by looking at problems individually and practically, rather than all at once, real change may become science-fact, rather than science-fiction.

NM – Week 1 Panel Discussion

The panel discussion was useful for condensing the readings into their most relevant parts, which I summed up in the previous post. One further related and important point arising from the discussion is the idea of setting realistic expectations for output and workload. Do a little bit all the time, instead of trying to do a lot some of the time. Naturally, everybody must work in the way that suits them best but the more ‘shortcuts to cheating’ we can find, the easier things will get. Work smart, not hard, but as my Year 9 physics teacher so joyfully pointed out, you cannot avoid work, only distribute it across different planes to make it seem like less.

For instance, how many words do I write before checking my Scrabble games on Facebook? Some. 

Here are some thoughts from my friend and classmate, Stacey. http://www.mediafactory.org.au/stacey-katsaros/

Networked Media Week 1 – Reflection on the Readings

The Mason and Argyris readings reflect common themes of ongoing, flexible and critical evaluation regarding works-in-progress. These kinds of ideas are becoming central to modernist conceptions of organisational theory and encapsulate the idea of the ‘Knowledge Worker’, a fluid and adaptable individual ready to meet any challenge that is put to them. However, actors can be constrained by workplace and market pressures, timidity, lack of ability or any host of reasons that create disparity between the espoused, ‘what is said’ and the actual,’what is done’. In any case, the main point that Argyris makes is that instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, by being aware of our own biases and ways of doing, we might be better equipped to find more creative solutions to problems. Mason refers to a kind of active participation in observing and doing that in theory, will assist ‘experiential learning’. This is an ideal, to apply measured and dispassionate assessment to problems in order to find best-practice solutions, but as Argyris alludes to, knowing something and doing it, can be hard to reconcile.

Argyris has formulated the idea of “Single Loop” and “Double Loop” problem solving. ‘SLL’ involves trying to solve a problem using the existing rules. ‘DLL’ refers to a more thorough process of attempting to redefine success from the ground up. I don’t know if there is a better example of the pitfalls of “Single-Loop Learning”n and lack of attention to ‘experiential’ problem solving than our current approach to traffic, which is now manifesting in Melbourne as the East-West link – a project founded on the false idea that building more roads will ease congestion. In our imaginary, ideal and experiential world, we would simply apply “Double-Loop Learning” by modifying our underlying assumption (more roads = less traffic) and build a vibrant and affordable public-transport system.