Applied Prototyping and Critical Practise.
Prof. Karel Dudesek
MA Interactive DigitalMedia and MA Network Environements
Ravenssbourne College of Design and Communication- Kent United Kigdom
e-mail: kdudesek@rave.ac.uk
Student projects of the
postgraduate courses in Ravensbourne, contextualized in applied prototyping and
critical practise,
or how to avoid reinventing the
wheel again and again in art and design.
Abstract
This paper discusses the
experiences made when starting to work with new students from Europe, Asia, South
America and Arabic courtiers on a postgraduate course (1Year), in context of
new media. It discusses the different approaches, successes and shortcomings in
teaching this subject by presenting some projects of last years courses. My
motivation to choose this subject came from, last years discussions at the
Generative Art Conference addressing design and identity in context of a city
or society, which I had the feeling led to nowhere. On one hand the terms have
been used like art, but ignore the historical process of art related to
identity. We have a western history from Dadaists, Situationists, Viennese
Actionists, Fluxus and Happening art to Performance art or the process in media
art from video –computer, TV-Radio, net art to software art. Most presentations
showed the involvement of intensive software skills but lacked the understanding
of contextual issues in art and design. The reason for this may have something
to do with the time and energy investment left for the project or the self
positioning as specialist in a chosen subject not looking beyond the borders of
software driven – visual related outcome.
1. Why to teach critical Practise
Students coming from non Western education systems have little
idea about media history, media theory or even a critical approach towards
using media at all. My impression is that students coming from Western
education systems have each year fewer and fewer understanding of the above
mentioned areas. It seems that in western colleges the theory side of teaching
disappears more and more. So the status is that non western educated students
do not know for example Mc Luhan and western students may know the name Mc
Luhan but have very limited understanding. My argument is without critical
approach to society, to design, to architecture there will be no process just
stagnation if theory teaching is not included in the curriculum. It is not
enough to change the form and propose different aesthetics but it is necessary
to propose a very personalized unique and individual idea grasping the beat of time which can lead then to new
patterns and expressions.
We all know how crucial it is to keep a balance between practise
and theory teaching on a postgraduate course, the research and the works of
students can very easily slip to either become a some how good dissertation but
a not so interesting practical project, or a some how interesting project but a
weak theory based dissertation. This is a lot depending on the interest of the
teaching team, or the strategy of the department. Do they want to have
academically well formatted papers not to put much emphasis on visual or
contend related output, or is the emphasis on practical projects which are not
likely to be seen academically proper in our educational system?
Why we teach critical practise is to generate awareness about the
important relation of critique and innovation. Students have to know the key
achievements in the media art or design related fields. The tendency if they
are not aware of processes and thoughts from the past is that they are
reinventing the wheel again and again. Through media theory teaching and critical
practice we try to avoid this. Students have to evaluate there
idea/project/argument against the current status of society and against
existing thoughts in the same subject, thus evaluating and understanding what the
difference they are proposing is.
Other usual reactions are that I can’t change anything,
designers/artist are primarily not here to change something but to show an
example, a scenario, to make a proposition how things could be. Most of the
time projects from students are far too big just to be implemented into real
life; they would need a floor filled with programmers, marketing people,
bankers and lawyers. So the emphasis here goes also for minor proposals or
slight changes which can make the big difference.
2. How we teach applied prototyping
The process from idea, concept to object is very difficult and can
often fail, because of the fear and obstacles of the physical space.
It is sometimes far easier
to keep things in written form rather than building a “house”. The mistake in
general is to keep projects very long in the theory level and leave just too
little time for experiencing the theoretical idea in practise. We emphasize and
support students to move fast back and forward from theory to practise and back
and forward again.
We call this applied prototyping
The process leads from
1. Text based proposal, research finding facts and figures,
2. First sketches, to collages and pictures.
3. Video prototypes
4. Spatial prototypes – experiential design
5. Final project proposals
The duration of this process is limited to 2 days; students have
to come up with a project presentation at the end of these sessions. I am sure
this is nothing new to you, but my findings are that this exercise succeeds and
fails with good and experienced staff. If you assign the wrong staff to this
form of teaching the entire outcome can fail. The ability of abstract
combination and response techniques is very important, leading the students to
other styles and genres of expression. Mostly students’ tendency is to present
“political correct” ideas, if you ask them to make the opposite they come up
with references from bloody computer games. The understanding of non conformist
thinking, the importance of creating discrepancy, subversive and non mainstream
motivated ideas is widely unknown and ignored. Interestingly it is wide spread
in the art and design area that the opposite to main stream and political
correctness is the aesthetic of war, so mainstream is “nice peace” and non
mainstream is “ugly war”, I do not want to go deeper here because that would
mean a second paper, but this is an interesting subject.
3. Examples
Generative
art approached from a different angle.
Jee Oh
GORI.Node
Garden is physical & ambient data visualization as a network garden in
which each plant grows up fed by communication data. It has plants with
blossoms and roots which retrieve data to feed the garden during 'watering
time' when each plant vibrates, similar to how plants move when the breeze
blows on them.
GORI.Node Garden approaches a different aspect of Information Aesthetics. It
visualizes a node within social network using visual metaphors in order to
explain the concept of 'Information Ecosystem'. The project also aims to be
presented in a living environment, getting out of screens and sharing space in
which we are living that people feel more familiar with the idea of
'Environment follows data'.
*GORI means 'an open hook' in Korean and it is often used to represent human
relationships. Here it is used to express the image of 'fastening or loosening
the relationship at your will'. Here, GORI is presented as individual mobile
number which identify person.
Daniel Miller
http://www.corrugationstreet.com
Corrugation
Street-- is an experiment in collaborative and generative storytelling
and networked narratives. It’s a soap opera that you can help write. Get
involved in making the story. Be a co-author, co-illustrator or a researcher.
Change the subject of the story, the mood, or the look and feel. Create your
own unique version of the story, told in your own personal way. Your selections
decide how each scene in the story will look. The subjects and search terms you
choose decide which pictures and RSS feeds are pulled in live from the
Internet. It’s impossible to predict what results you’ll get, but your choices
will have a big effect on the story. Add your own RSS feeds if you have
particular subjects you’d like to add to the stories, and you know the RSS
link. If you’d like to add your own image, whether on the internet or on your
own computer, add the URL or file path to include it in the story. When you
click the ‘Make my story!’ button, the generator script gets busy. Text and
pictures are generated from the Internet, processed and mixed in with my story.
Shan Ying
Shanyin.Hun Farmer Brows Journal
Farmer Brown's Journal
Farmer Brown's Journal is an online community aimed at the flattening of food
supply chains. In Kent, the "garden of England", local farmers'
markets are an example of decentralised food supply chains and the preservers
of local tradition.
By providing an online space with direct communication between producers and
consumers, Farmer Brown's Journal tries to build links between local consumers,
producers and the public. The goals are to help local producers/ farmers sell
their produce outside the grip of supermarkets, give consumers real choice and
understanding in what they buy, and help them find quality local produce. The
data extracted from users will be visualised on a map of Kent as an indicator
of the growth of community. The figures present the social relationship between
the user and local markets; and also reveal the possibility of business.
Kalle Korman
http://keikei.manme.org.uk/projectblog/
http://www.browsedelicious.de/
browse.delicious is visual browser
that let users explore and browse through a sample data-set of del.icio.us (social bookmarking
system), to see and understand the connections and relations of its entities.
The sample data-set consists of 150 persons, their tags, and bookmarks. Through
browsing, the relations of each selected entry and its related entries are
shown. This shows where the chosen tag, bookmark, or person is situated, and a
person's interests and connections can be seen.
4. Applied prototyping Examples
http://wiki.maidm.com/index.php/ElevatorVideoPrototypes
5. Conclusion
Without knowing the history and without a critical approach there’s
no innovation, and without applied practise there’s no experience in real life.
The question is how to find identity, firstly to look at yourself
and then view the outside, observing traces on the skin of the city, then listening
to the sound of a city. Students have to find their own method to transcript or
map this process into form and function. This is the identity of the people
which are inhabiting it, your facts and finding will lead to new art and design.
But if you as an architect will find someone who pays for it is another
question.