Thursday, September 3, 2009
This is EXACTLY what we were talking about today!
This article (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20090903/pl_ynews/ynews_pl888_1) is a perfect example of what we were talking about in today's social design class. Frankly, it really pissed me off to read this. HOW can people think a speech will "brainwash" their children and why would they want to? Plus, what he is talking about (staying in school, doing well, ect.) should be something that is indoctrinated into our children! What is so wrong with convincing a child to pursue their education! I am wondering if it boils down to the fact we said today, "no one can ever be happy" with the government. I think they are taking offense in this speech just to take offense to something. I personally want to applaud Obama for the courage of making a speech to such a broad audience with such different levels of maturity.
What IS Social Design?
I was asked for my Design class to define "Social Design". So, I began my research like any college student would-- wikipedia. To my dismay, I found wikipedia to be as clueless as I was on the subject: (and I quote wiki here) "Social design has many definitions and the term is put to very different uses across the globe. Some definitions exist within the design world and refers to design in its traditional sense, meaning the shaping of products and services. Other definitions refer to social design as the creation of social reality; design of the social world" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_design).
The last statement got me to thinking. When I think of "creation of social reality" I can't help but get images of Adolfus Huxley-esque Utopian societies. How can one engineer society? I also realized, that my original perception of social design being a "community- centered" principle might have been short sighted. If social design is defined culturally, or even the definition of culture itself, it seems hard to pinpoint what social design truly is. I think in order to determine a definition for social design one must determine what definition they are looking for: personal, regional, or global.
From there I continued my search and I found a site called osocio.org which linked me to a youtube video called "We Cannot NOT Change the World!" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_V-zuDbO-k&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fosocio%2Eorg%2Fmessage%2Fwhat%5Fis%5Fsocial%5Fdesign%2F&feature=player_embedded#t=89 ) This was actually quite helpful. It interviewed various social designers and have them define what social design meant to them. This video is very informative in almost a scholarly way about the principles of their definition of social design; however, I still felt it was very ambiguous as to what "social design" was. So, I decided to look at the social designers featured in the video in more depth.
Illegal Beauty (http://www.illegalbeauty.com/)
Illegal Beauty is an organization that follows the stories of "people without papers". Basically, they have set up an awareness campaign about the life illegal immigrants face when they come to a new country. Illegal Beauty works in many different mediums from songs and fashion to full installations.
Retired Weapons (http://www.retired.jp/)
Retired Weapons is an art project dedicated to ending violence and sadness. They publish images of silhouetted weapons with flowers growing out of them to spread there word of peace.
From those two sites alone and the video I have started to come to a conclusion about the definition of "social design". To me, social design is about caring--caring about anything really. Social Design is art, ideas, or actions devoted to social betterment and change. Social Design seeks to right wrongs at home and globally. Anyone can be a social designer, they just need passion and drive towards fixing something in there daily lives. I still feel that I am lacking some information about the true meaning of social design but, I feel I am approaching a definition. I will update as I find out more.
The last statement got me to thinking. When I think of "creation of social reality" I can't help but get images of Adolfus Huxley-esque Utopian societies. How can one engineer society? I also realized, that my original perception of social design being a "community- centered" principle might have been short sighted. If social design is defined culturally, or even the definition of culture itself, it seems hard to pinpoint what social design truly is. I think in order to determine a definition for social design one must determine what definition they are looking for: personal, regional, or global.
From there I continued my search and I found a site called osocio.org which linked me to a youtube video called "We Cannot NOT Change the World!" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_V-zuDbO-k&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fosocio%2Eorg%2Fmessage%2Fwhat%5Fis%5Fsocial%5Fdesign%2F&feature=player_embedded#t=89 ) This was actually quite helpful. It interviewed various social designers and have them define what social design meant to them. This video is very informative in almost a scholarly way about the principles of their definition of social design; however, I still felt it was very ambiguous as to what "social design" was. So, I decided to look at the social designers featured in the video in more depth.
Illegal Beauty (http://www.illegalbeauty.com/)Illegal Beauty is an organization that follows the stories of "people without papers". Basically, they have set up an awareness campaign about the life illegal immigrants face when they come to a new country. Illegal Beauty works in many different mediums from songs and fashion to full installations.
Retired Weapons (http://www.retired.jp/)
Retired Weapons is an art project dedicated to ending violence and sadness. They publish images of silhouetted weapons with flowers growing out of them to spread there word of peace.
From those two sites alone and the video I have started to come to a conclusion about the definition of "social design". To me, social design is about caring--caring about anything really. Social Design is art, ideas, or actions devoted to social betterment and change. Social Design seeks to right wrongs at home and globally. Anyone can be a social designer, they just need passion and drive towards fixing something in there daily lives. I still feel that I am lacking some information about the true meaning of social design but, I feel I am approaching a definition. I will update as I find out more.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
For my Jewelry Majors
Last year I was surfing around the web looking for inspiration for a sculpture project in my 3D design class and I stumbled upon the work of Jennifer Miller. She runs a small business called "Featherdust Studios". I am usually not very interested in jewelry, but, her work has such a whimsical feel to it. I honestly recommend everyone to check out her work. I prefer her jewelry over her illustrations but, both are quite nice. http://featherdust.critter.net/
Right: Tidal Swirls © Jennifer Miller
Below: Checkerboard Smokey Quartz © Jennifer Miller
I really like the way she twists the metal around the stones to incorporate them into the peice. All her works are handmade and she sells each peice she makes. Also, you can find short videos on her website about how she makes them and how they reflect in the light.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Jury Duty for the Digital World
I got to reading an article today in the New York Times about how jury duty is becoming a hardship to those serving (article can be found here http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/us/02jury.html?_r=1&hp). This is a fact that I have never spent much time looking into, but it does make sense. For me myself going to school and working on the weekends part-time in retail, a month or so away from work would pretty much leave me broke. How do they expect people working from day to day to make a living to take a month away from their job to serve on a jury. If I am not at work I am not getting paid, which is true for most of the people in society in today's world.
This got me thinking about the way we handle jury duty in this country. It is a digital world, why are we still expecting people to show up for jury duty? With all the technology we have, it seems so primative to expect people to drive downtown to a courthouse. While I realize court is not supposed to be "fun", why have we not brought these courts up the the 21st century!
That's when I got the idea! We have digital conferences for large businesses were people all over the country meet to swap ideas. So, why can't we do the same for courts? If they set up trials over the internet, like in the form of a streaming video for the jury it would eliminate a lot of the hassles associated with this article. It would be like CourtTV but for the jury members. To me it seems so simplistic an idea, that is seems almost idiotic we have not set up a system like this already.
I have thought about the more practical aspects of how you would monitor these jury members to make sure they were actively involved in the trial. There would have to be some kind of system involved; however, I think there is an easy solution to this. If there was a device made like a net book for jury members to use during the trials I think it would solve this. This "eCourt" as I have named it, would basically be very limited. It cannot access any web browser or allow any personal information to be entered onto it. Basically it would be little more then a small portable dvd player that would stream the trail live to the jury members home. The jury box would still exist but in a different way. Instead of 12 chairs it would have a neat row of monitors. The monitors would display the jury members webcam located on the top of their "eCourt" laptop. These laptops would be distributed to the jury members prior to the trail and collected at the end.
I know this all seems very far out there, but these are tough economic times. Everything else is going digital and it is only a matter of time before something will have to change in the court systems. Why not make them digital now? It will save time and resources later and make the jury duty process more streamlined and convinent for all those involved.
This got me thinking about the way we handle jury duty in this country. It is a digital world, why are we still expecting people to show up for jury duty? With all the technology we have, it seems so primative to expect people to drive downtown to a courthouse. While I realize court is not supposed to be "fun", why have we not brought these courts up the the 21st century!
That's when I got the idea! We have digital conferences for large businesses were people all over the country meet to swap ideas. So, why can't we do the same for courts? If they set up trials over the internet, like in the form of a streaming video for the jury it would eliminate a lot of the hassles associated with this article. It would be like CourtTV but for the jury members. To me it seems so simplistic an idea, that is seems almost idiotic we have not set up a system like this already.
I have thought about the more practical aspects of how you would monitor these jury members to make sure they were actively involved in the trial. There would have to be some kind of system involved; however, I think there is an easy solution to this. If there was a device made like a net book for jury members to use during the trials I think it would solve this. This "eCourt" as I have named it, would basically be very limited. It cannot access any web browser or allow any personal information to be entered onto it. Basically it would be little more then a small portable dvd player that would stream the trail live to the jury members home. The jury box would still exist but in a different way. Instead of 12 chairs it would have a neat row of monitors. The monitors would display the jury members webcam located on the top of their "eCourt" laptop. These laptops would be distributed to the jury members prior to the trail and collected at the end.
I know this all seems very far out there, but these are tough economic times. Everything else is going digital and it is only a matter of time before something will have to change in the court systems. Why not make them digital now? It will save time and resources later and make the jury duty process more streamlined and convinent for all those involved.
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