Future Talks¶
09/01 Audrey Desjardines¶
Autobiographical Design, Approaching failure, Revealing Tensions in Autobiographical Design
Reflection:
During this talk with Audrey Desjardines, she shared with us her experience with first person methods of design through autobiographical design, autoethnography, and duo ethnography. She shared her experience in “Living in a Prototype,” where she converted a van into a living space and continued to iterate and update the van while living in it. She talked about this design experience as having reciprocal shaping, growing uniqueness, and being consistently unfinished. Through autoethnography and first person design, it is less about the end product and more of the journey and documentation towards your findings and adaptations. The design is constantly evolving and shaping, because it is your own journey it makes it unique to your own needs and discovery.
Some takeaways and tips from her talk was to commit to a form of documentation and have it be something that is simple and enjoyable. Also within this to set a specific time frame so that the task can be constrained, while still leaving it flexible for change. I appreciated that she documented her journey on Instructables as a way for her to share her findings and open her design process. It also allowed for input from others who had similar experiences or were facing similar challenges. Audrey also shared examples of people documenting their process through a reflection template that stored photos and specific data, and also a pre-made book “Rep(air)” that could be used to fill out.
23/01 Laura Forlano¶
Auto-ethnography - Living as a Disabled Cyborg
Reflection:
Laura Forlano talked about interactive machines and reclaiming what it means to be a cyborg. She mentioned Donna Harraway as someone who reclaimed the term cyborg and re-imagined this term positively through a feminist lens. Laura talked about how we can look at machines in the care industry and how the internet community can come together to talk about medical issues and rare diseases. She asked the question if AI can be disabled? This was interesting because there is the myth of technology being perfect when in fact it has many biases. It brings up the ethical questions about AI and who it is excluding or leaving behind.
This talk made me question how designers could work with data collection as a way to collaborate and improve medical systems to be more ethical and sustainable. The vast amount of data and feedback we could retrieve from people using medical devices could be used as real time feedback as these devices are being designed. I wondered how she might use this data to communicate with those designing and engineering these products. It seems that there is still a disconnect of information we are able to collect and how we can implement it. Especially for the medical field which has many regulations depending on countries and companies.
30/01 Fred Van Amstel¶
Monster Aesthetics
Reflection:
This talk brought up how colonization impacts our own body, its effect on design as a whole and relationship with politics. It made me think of the importance of recognizing how design and politics are related and to continue questioning how design involves our own privileges and biases. Is there a way that we can design with communities especially of minority or oppressed groups, that is not a form of extraction or another form of colonization? He talked about this contradiction that we have within ourselves and we are to balance these two forces. We should question our role and positionality as we continue with interventions and collaborations with others.
https://fredvanamstel.com/ https://designjustice.org/
20/02 Julia Ballesteros and Milena Rosés¶
Tierra de Arcillas
Reflection:
Julia and Milena shared their story of questioning how clay was made and finding clay back in their hometown of Íllar, La Alpujarra. Through questioning the resources they were using in industrial ceramic making and talking to locals back in their hometown they learned how to source their own clay, run workshops, and find meaning in their ceramic making. There was an emphasis on the interactions with local and older generations that hold knowledge that may be overlooked or dismissed. When it comes to making with local resources and community it takes questioning and seeking from all around you in order to co-create in a meaningful and respectful way.
Their journey was very inspiring and a reminder to look at inspiration of your own past, hometown and those around you. The people and places around you all inform who you are and can be taken for granted, especially on this journey of finding your interests and meaning of work.
https://tierradearcillas.com/en/