It’s hard to think that a shot time ago, it was hard to make electronic music. 50 years ago, the first experiments in electronic music were made in Milan. That equipment is now preserved at the Museo degli Strumenti Musicali of Castello Sforzesco, Milan. Here is a magnificent set of photographs of the studio.
I have been having serial dreams for as long as I can remember. “Serial dreams” are what I call them because I have dreams with overlapping landscapes with central themes. Sometimes seemingly opposing or different themes “break through” from one to the next with overlapping features or actions taken by the dreams themselves. There are people in these dreams, sure, but it is the landscapes and objects that bind them. The dreams are timeless and can span decades.
If the narrative of dreams is spacial, then time lives somewhat outside of the narrative. How does the mind make connections between scenes that seem disparate or disjointed? What is the difference between awake and asleep?
A designed object is an object of interest. If the object is interesting, why not make it part of the narrative? A playstation/ Xbox controller can trace its roots in handicrafts or pottery, where the interaction is closed around the body and the actions all take place around a small area of a semi-circle. A wiimote is a shortened stick very similar to the style of stick our ancestors used to chip away at nuts and presumably write messages on the ground for one another. What makes the wiimote different is the ability of the person using it to transform it into a metaphorical object capable of becoming anything.
What would a narrative controller look like in the dream world? It couldn’t be something stationary. It couldn’t be something you hold on to.
A controller in the narrative world would have to have to be an embedded symbol or a type of motion that would work well in the dream landscape. An entirely gestural interface–One without a hand-held object would be the best.
Some of you might think I’ve gone bonkers after my last post, but I’m just externalizing what I’ve suspected all along: As designers and makers of things we have to be completely conscious of the afterlife our materials after they’re done being what we bought them for.
Dan said that the conscious load of being an industrial design was too much of a burden: Why make things whose ultimate place is in a landfill?
But what of our electronic devices? If we create web sites with AJAX, will older computers have to be thrown into a ditch because they can’t support what we make?
A box with solenoid sensors made en-masse will probably go the same way. Is there a way I can create secondary or tertiary uses for this box. I know ultimately I will work without the box– if luck will have it–but I want to stay vigilant and aware.
A lot of this is talked about in Cradle to Cradle, the book I’ve been thumping for the past couple of weeks. In the chapter entitled Waste Equals food, this quote sticks out:
“From our perspective, these two kinds of material flows on the planet are just biological and technical nutrients. Biological nutrients are useful to the biosphere, while technical nutrients are useful to what we call the technosphere, the systems of industrial process. Yet somehow we have evolved an industrial infrastructure that ignores the existence of nutrients of either kind.”
The chapter goes on to talk about how recycled plastics are actually downcycled. Downcycling is the process that breaks down plastics and it’s not pretty: So-called recycled plastics are weaker when re-formed and have to be augmented with copolymers that are even more dangerous. Other secondary products such as rugs and fibers have to treated with hazardous stabilizers as well.
We have to rethink this whole thing before we go any further.
I keep reading little bits and bobs about brand as part of a design experience and I want to get a few things off my chest. I was a Brand Manager for 3 years and although I am not a strict authority on the subject, the subject itself has not really been in existence long enough for it to have derived any true meaning in our culture. Nowadays, brands come and go quicker than pairs of socks in the dryer, so I fail to see why anyone gives a toss.
But while we’re on the topic, here are the principles of a good brand experience as I see them:
1) Provide a good service or product to a customer This works on all levels of the organization.
2) Speak consistently and clearly to your customer. Be fair.
3) Brand is about clear visual design and nominally about the logo. A bad logo presented in the context of a clear design is a better experience than the inverse.
4) Advertising delivers nothing measurable except for brand presence.
5) Without a a total quality management system in place, the brand is crap.
In Japan, this consists of four ideas (spuriously ripped from Wikipedia, the first time I’ve seen them get their facts right):
Kaizen: Continuous Process Improvement
Atarimae Hinshitsu: The idea that “things will work as they are supposed to”
Kansei: Examining the way the user applies the product leads to improvement in the product itself.
Miryokuteki Hinshitsu: The idea that “things should have an aesthetic quality” (for example, a pen will write in a way that is pleasing to the writer)
6) Not a principle, but as a company, treat your employees the way you’d treat your customers.
6a) Inversely, The way a company or employer feels about you is embodied by the quality of the bathrooms they provide.
Sweding is going to be the next big thing. Mark my words. I’m going to swede all of your projects come thesis time.
This is dedicated to the two people who were too good to sit with us tonight at the bar:
http://www.bekindmovie.com/
