Week 4 Fashion, Modernity & the City: Professor Vicki Karaminas

In this week’s lecture, Dr. Vicki Karaminas, Associate Professor of Fashion Studies and Associate Head of the School of Design, spoke to us about ‘Fashion, Modernity and the City – The Spaces and Places of Consumption’.

Karaminas opened with the quote; 'An amalgamation of seams and textiles- an interface between the body and the environment.'

The sites where we gather information are simultaneously sites for production and consumption of commodities and thoughts. Vicki gave the example of the opening of the Bon Marche development store, 1952, and the Au Printemps in 1865. These sites became the major source for production and consumption.

The most inspiring quote during this lecture came from Christopher Breward's book, Fashioning London:

‘like the metropolis itself, fashion is marked by the complexity of its many-layered meanings, … It is a bounded thing, fixed and experienced in space – an amalgamation of seams and textiles, an interface between the body and its environment. It is a practice, a fulcrum for the display of taste and status, a site for the production and consumption of objects and beliefs; and it is an event, both spectacular and routine, cyclical in its adherence to the natural and commercial seasons, innovatory in its bursts of avant-gardism, and sequential in its guise as a palimpsest of memories and traditions’ (2004:11).

Vicki spoke to us about the complex relationship between modernity and fashion, and the city in which we live. She spoke about the representation of fashion in the city and how both places and spaces of consumption, such as window displays, show the vital role that fashion plays in patterns of consumption and the overall urban environment.

During our design lab we learnt about device parsing and how different devices work. The lecture linked in well with this class, as working with electronics and technologies is central to the ideas of consumption and production.


Device Parsing involves the taking apart of various electronics to analyze and learn about the different elements within the device. The pictures below show the speakers we took apart and its various components.



Mind Map of relevant people and issues within The Cross



During our group discussion we spoke with George about who we could interview and we came up with a variety of answers. We brainstormed the different stakeholders, users, police, transport workers. Below is a list of people we wish to interview and possible questions. In the next few days we hope to further develop these questions and interview key people.

Ipod Speakers we used for device parsing

During Bert's lecture we focused on designing for interaction, which was extremely important in regards to our interaction group project due later in the semester. Bert spoke about understanding the problem space, and exploring the problem completely before posing solutions.

Bert emphasised the importance of interviews and questionnaires when exploring different spaces. Daniel and Alex, 2 of our Escape Kings Cross group members took pictures of our problem spaces, Kings Cross, during the day and night. To check out these pics, visit Daniel Mazic's blog at http://danielmazic.wordpress.com/.

Rundle Lantern Launch from Fusion on Vimeo.
Check it out!!

References:

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/08/30-dazzling-and-interactive-media-facades/

Week 3 Futures: Dan Hill

By 'making the invisible, visible' citizens are able to interact with systems within their environment. Through 'Sensing the City', Hill developed a wifi network for the Brisband library environment. He spoke about this addition to the space and how it further developed the function of the library for users. Hill traced the wifi signals of the user sto make data patterns, to monitor where the users spent their time in the library and possible reasons why- example strong internet signal. 

My favourite line from the lecture was- 'Data is an important way the city manifests itself'. I agree with this because interconnectivity has developed everyday life by the way people interact with their environment.  

Hill showed us examples of moving bus shelter seats, talking traffic lights- and I found the projects thoroughly interesting. My favourite was his metro proposal- which consisted of real time location of the trains on a map of sydney. He explained how building interactive communications into the environment allows for both art and interface design- - both significant to our interactivation lab.

Group Work:

Our group came up with a variety of ideas, before we decided to do further research into the tourism area. We then spoke about the issues associated with tourism, and transport was considered a major issue. Bert told us to explore the idea of planned travel vs spontaneous travel. During the coming week our group is going to explore similar problem spaces, and the ways in which the community has solved the prevailing issues. Since then, we decided to develop our idea to not only benefit tourists but also locals who also face transport issues.

Therefore, we have chosen to combine urban Media with graffiti for our upcoming project. We have chosen to explore the area of Kings Cross because we all recognise there are transport issues associated with this area.

Below shows the issues and consequences assosicated with night time transport within Kings Cross.

Dan Hill spoke about his work with ARUP- an independent firm of designers, planners, engineers, consultants and technical specialists offering a broad range of professional services.

He showed us examples of work hes done on web page design and interaction design which was extremely relevant to Bert's lab. His work mainly focuses on the interaction between buildings and spaces.

Hill outlined the 3 most important concepts when designing for the city- understanding, strategy and behaviour. The most intriguing part of the lecture was when Hill spoke about context and problem spaces when designing for the city. He commented that as designers we must understanding who and what we are designing for, how best to achieve this goal and how our design will expand the possibilities of the city.

Week 2 Memories: Prof. Peter McNeil

This week’s lecture given by Prof. Peter McNeil investigated the city over a 200 year span- paying particular attention to who owns the city, the people of the city and their influence upon the city. McNeil commented on the role of fashion in the city. The example he provided was Bryan Boy- a fashion blogger, who has followers from all over the world. His opinion is extremely influential and he is responsible for current and emerging fashion trends all over the world.






Bryan Boy


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


The 200 year delve into our history explored the city as a space, experience and a body. McNeil highlighted the concept of the 'city, progress and aspiration'-- which immediately related to designing for the city as it is constantly changing and being recreated through our design ideas, the combination of new technologies and new aspirations. I took a lot away from this lecture, but most importantly the idea of context and by forming the correct research questions first we can ensure the most appropriate design ideas are put forward.


After discussing the lecture, our group presented our research and design ideas from the previous week:

‘How can we use advanced, distributed technology to enable everyone to pay their fair share for parking?’- MX 30 June 2010

As a group we came up with a variety of ideas in relation to the 'Inspector Watcher' iphone application which warns users where parking inspectors are to help inform where to park their car to not only reduce chances of an inspector but to also cheat the system and only pay the meter when they have to.We came up with a number of ethical issues as well as design solutions, shown in the mind maps below;

In the article ‘The Internet of Things’, the authors write that “…the challenge of improving connectivity requires neither gigabit speed nor gigabyte storage but rather the opposite: dramatic reduction in the cost and complexity of network installation and configuration…”. (Gershenfeld et al. 2004) This concept can thus be related to our new design ideas about how we can enable everyone to pay their fare share for parking, as it’s not about creating the most complex system so as to avoid fining at all costs, but rather, to create a system which is simple yet effective – maybe using pre-existing systems and creating an ‘add-on’ feature – so as to enable this advanced, distributed technology to work alongside an already established network.

References:
Gershenfeld, N., Krikorian, R., Cohen, D., ‘The Internet of Things’, Scientific America, 27 September 2004, p.76

Week 1 Change: Prof. Kees Dorst

Designing Sydney


We were very lucky to have Prof. Kees Dorst kick off our lecture series for Designing Sydney. The lecture topic was 'Change' - the changing nature of design in society and the various disciplines, fast-forwarding ten years from now. Dorst explored the the current trends of globalisation, sustainability, the digital age, values, complexity and research and their influence on the future of design.


I found his perspective on the next ten years very interesting, especially the concept of ‘core design’- the shift from designing solutions to re-framing the problem. Re-framing involves designing questions in regards to; experimentation, contexts, scenarios, reflection, paradoxes, etc... to better explore where we are and where our problems are. By posing the right questions first designers are able to come up with more holistic solutions to the problem.

Dorst also said, in the next 10 years designers will have to 'prove the value of design'. This statement ties into the Interactivating the City lab which is focussed on new ways of interacting with our environment.

Method Cards for IDEO- 51 card deck to inspire design

The IDEO method cards are one way designers from different disciplines can work together to re-frame the problem space.


They are used to make a number of different methods accessible to all members of a design team, to explain how and when the methods are best used, and to demonstrate how they have been applied to real design projects.

 The Interactivation Lab
Don't Think Interface- Think Functions


During Bert's lecture we learned about two key themes to this lab- interactive and e-cology.


Interactive- Responsive. See, hear, touch.
Electric E-cology- Distributed interaction, networked.


The tutorial and workshop this week centered around exploring imaginative interactive products. We formed disciplinary groups and were assigned products relevant to our field. Our Industrial group was given the scenario...

"Imagine a wrist watch that tells you when the train you're heading for is delayed"

We immediately began to record everything that came to mind. The main issues which were addressed included; stakeholders, contexts, functioning and interface. We were able to draw parallels between this product and existing products such as ParkPatrol a phone application by CrwdPower. CrwdPower is a start up based in Sydney, Australia- and focuses on iphone and android mobile applications. Their first product released for user communities is ParkPatrol.


ParkPatrol - Parking Cop Early Warning App
http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/ParkPatrol/id348378840?mt=8
ParkPatrol helps you stay one step ahead of parking fines by crowdsourcing Parking officer alerts.

Bert also spoke to us about the ideas associated with E-cology and distributed interaction. He explained the below diagram, which explores the interaction process between our computer systems and humans.


HUMAN                                           COMPUTER

senses                                               display     

perception        INTERACTION         memory

memory                                            processing

action                                               controls


While considering this diagram, we formed another group to discuss how we could use advanced distributed technology to enable everyone to pay this fair share for parking.
I'll talk about our findings in next weeks blog.


References:

http://www.ideo.com/
http://www.itunes.apple.com.au/