Back to the Futurecraft

Core77, interview with Donald Norman

“The DIY Future: What Happens When Everyone Is A Designer?”

Make a Macbook look-a-like (laptop) that has stationary goods inside to help manage notes, to-do lists, etc. throughout the day (portable desktop)

This will question the use of technology in everyday student life. Sure, you might need your laptop to do solid modeling or run some simulations, but how necessary is it for more mundane, trivial tasks? Also, what sort of reactions does the form and appearance of a laptop evoke? In class, some professors prohibit the use of laptops because it implies that you aren’t paying attention.

After various uses of this object, an infomercial/documentary will be made.

Link to Proposal

NY Times article featuring DIY project that was mentioned in class

http://www.adafruit.com/

For this week’s assignment, please refer to Paulina’s blog for what we did.

I’ve been doing some additional reading for this class, to start thinking about my final project, hopefully relating to my graduate research. I am planning to study the role and behavior of people in the process of product design. This can refer to the designers/engineers or the users for whom the products are being made. This class has been a great source of information and inspiration in areas I wouldn’t get through traditional design engineering.

In Hertzian Tales, Anthony Dunne, from the Royal College of Art, explores the idea of using electronic objects and products to draw out behavior and possibilities that are not normally afforded. It is not the purely functional electronics nor the purely visual and abstract art.

“The designer becomes an applied conceptual artist, socializing art practice by moving it into a larger and more accessible context while retaining its potential to provoke people to reflect on the way electronic products shape their experience of everyday life.” (Ch.5, “Real Fiction”)

In Shaping Things, Bruce Sterling talks about how the notion of the created object has changed over time. This goes along well with our talks on the notion of green design and upcycling.

At the end, he describes three options of technology to move towards:
1. “materials and processes are biodegradable, so it’s an auto-recycling technology”
2. “artifacts deliberately built to outlast the passage of time”
3. “full documented, trackable, searchable technology … when its time inevitably comes, it would hve the grace and power to turn itself in at the gates of the junkyard and suffer itself to be mindfully pulled apart” (this is what he describes in the book)

(Get your hands on a copy of the book. At the very least, it has interesting layout and book design.)