Week 06 - Interdisciplinary Insights
New Approaches and Creative Partnerships
Halfway through the module and still so much more to research… I’ve decided this week I need to commit to my initial thoughts on the brief 2 collaboration project.
The aims are to put an outline of my concept ideas wall this week and get feedback from tutors and my ‘design fam’.
Weekly Learning Objectives
LO1: Research – select and deploy appropriate research methodologies to inform the needs within a project.
LO4: Distil – position a creative strategic insight that has been distilled and refined through an informed investigation.
LO5: Imagine – deliver appropriate and innovative ideas that embrace risk, have contemporary relevance and question the boundaries of the discipline.
LO8: Design – realise a final solution that evidences its strategic journey and clear relationship between form and function.
LO9: Communicate – communicate effectively in a range of contexts and situations to specialist and non-specialist audiences.
L10: Manage – demonstrate applied planning and organisational skills to support self-directed project work and inform ongoing professional development needs.
Lecture podcast with Susanna Edwards and Louize Harries
Lecture Notes:
This week’s lecture in podcast form is with former Central St Martins, Masters graduate, Louize Harries who comes from a textiles background.
Louize initially graduated from her BA in the mids 90s and after a stint in various roles from having her own label, to co-founding a textile collaborative craft practice, with shopping yarn ranges, and running her own studio she went back to education in 2016 to study for an MA in Material Futures when she wanted to learn the methodologies and science behind the craft and exploring possible futures with expert collaborations.
She discusses her influences from Bauhaus to Black Mountain College based in California.
Buckminster Fuller - Futurist systems theorist
He decided his life was an experiment to find what a single individual could contribute to changing the world and benefiting all humanity.
His writings are a real example of trans and interdisciplinary thinking.
Louzie discusses her Drone collaborative project with Katie Mae Boyd for Biodesign Challenge, (designer’s version of the iGEM). They created a really thought-provoking, visual piece which addressed the legal levels of air pollution in London. Triggered by a talk with Ian Medway, who’s a lung toxicologist at Kings College, he highlighted the ticking time bomb that Governments are ignoring, that in certain areas of London, they were going to have a shortened life expectancy but nothing is being done about it.
They created an environmentally protest piece like a Biblical plague, with red rain which was visibly striking .
Collaborative piece - Louize Harries with Katie Mae Boyd
They created a speculative piece of an environmental protest piece like a Biblical plague, with red rain which was visibly striking.
The idea was to communicate good science as an idea to the public and the importance of good graphics to get a complex idea across.
My Subconscious Shopper
She also talks about Neuromarketing, where you wire up a volunteer and take their biometric responses to advertising and brands. Their response is subconscious, because what people say and what people think are quite often two different things. So she built EEG headsets, that were aimed at children to read and record their neural data.
She was essentially using this as design for debate - perfectly legal but how do we feel about this? She was able to build this physical headset to record their neural data.
The Design with practical considerations and PCB boards inside the ears
Building a mini EEG with the help of the neuro hack group. Louzie also partnered up with somebody who has a PhD in brain computer interface.
This enables her to make a very 12 simple reading programme measuring the electrical activity in the brain.
Designers on Holiday
A community space in Gotland, Sweden, like a giant campsite where a combination of creative people go to create with tools and workshops. You submit a little written proposal to join the community and there is a lot of community learning.
Notes to check out:
Check out the Policy Lab website and blog as recommended by Susanna. (They explain their methodologies.)
Open cell website - Look at the relationship Graphic Design plays with collaborative networks.
Summary
Communicate your graphics clearly with your message - I think one of the key quotes I took away from this lecture was from Louize stating that you can have the best ideas ever but if you can’t communicate with the graphics the complexity of the idea you are absolutely stuck.
My further research
Links and References
I investigated further some of the lecture material.
Bompas and Parr
I absolutely loved this concept. The world’s first AI-powered dinner party combining science, culinary spectacle, architecture, and theatre. So you can dine with famous trailblazers of the past such as William Shakespeare to Agatha Christie bought to life through state-of-the-art Artificial Intelligence.
Dream Dining made possible with AI
Dine with British pioneers of the past – A fascinating concept of a high-wire act of creative collaboration between art and science.
Policy Lab
This is a very helpful website with the aim of improving policies through design innovation based on evidence, participation and experimentation.
“Our mission is to radically improve policy making through design, innovation and people-centred approaches.”
They aim to do this by:
- delivering new policy solutions through inspiring practical projects
- building the skills and knowledge of the policy profession and wider civil service
- inspiring new thinking through our writing and experiments
I had a look at one of their pieces on Design thinking to explore the cutting edge of policy design practice
Launching our experimental policy design methods
Policy Lab’s experimental methods cards
This example shows a visually impactful a set of virtual cards which describe 11 experimental methods and approaches which we think have the potential to shift and improve how policy is developed, tested and delivered
I thought it was fascinating how these cards and methods are being used to spark curiosity and ask and challenge the way policy is designed and developed .
Open Workshop Network
Another fantastic community concept is this network of open-access workshops across London and the home counties.
They include an assortment of Makespaces, Fab Labs, Hackspaces and Men’s Sheds (!). With a wide variety of interests from ceramics to robotics, and aimed at all abilities from the novice to professional.
Unfortunately nothing close in my area, but plenty in Inner London just a train ride away. (The Clay Room - Orpington)
Read | Watch | Listen
Typo Talk: Andy Altmann - Dinner for One?
Andy Altmann of design practice Why Not Associates discusses
TED Talk: Why we need to imagine different futures | Anab Jain
I have watched Anab Jain before and she has an amazing ability to bring the future to life, by creating tactile experiences where people can touch, see and feel the potential of the future world we're creating and why it's important to fight for the world we want and by visually we can get the message across.
An example of creating something tangible and visual to get your message across
The Government of UAE invited Anab to help them shape their country’s Energy Strategy up to 2050. Based on the governments’ econometric data, they created a large model of the city and visualised many futures on it. But showing them a future model wasn’t enough to convince them to stop using their cars and start using public transport. They were expecting this reaction.
They collaborated with their scientific team in a lab to produce approximate vapour samples of what the air quality would be like in 2030. It was the tactile approach of smelling the noxious aroma that bought home the point of how they needed to action the future before it was too late.
References:
(2022): Bompas & Parr, available at
http://bompasandparr.com/projects/view/ai-banquet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PNgzVDqWPw&t=9s
Policy Lab, available at
https://openpolicy.blog.gov.uk/
https://openpolicy.blog.gov.uk/category/policy-lab/
Open Workshop Network, available at
https://openworkshopnetwork.com/
(2017): TED Talk Why we need to imagine different futures | Anab Jain, available at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYjWLqE_cfE
Design Against Crime at CSM, available at
http://www.designagainstcrime.com/