Utopia of Genius

The world I wish to live in will show the results of the exponential development of technology, fortifying the design thoughts of ExistenzMaximum.  Technology is becoming so accessible to the point where we are subject to essentially immediate technology in an unlimited capacity. We have access to what it offers, regardless of our capabilities of it being necessary in immediate and unlimited capacities.  Paola Antonella states that, “as the numbers of such individuals grow, we will reach a critical mass that will topple the few unreasonable techno-walls will in place.  For the first time in history, a crowd of billions of individuals will be able to unite the power of common sense and the imaginative vision of personal initiative with the most advanced principles of design wisdom” (59).

This makes realistic the pressure of the creative minds in position to use said technologies in order to attain the success a creative mind is expected.  “In order to take full advantage of what the future holds, the connected world will need to develop a set of rules that will ensure respect and trust between individuals among groups.” (Antonella, 58).

Elizabeth Gilbert brings a solution to the understanding of creative accessibility within the creative mind itself, bringing back pre-renaissance thinking to contemporary discourse.  It is to think of creativity as a living entity outside of your body which will come and go as it pleases to grace you with it’s genius.  Gilbert says this is “to protect you from the results of your work… I need a safe distance between me, as I am writing, and my very natural anxiety about what the reaction to what that writing is going to be from now on.”

In my world technology will flourish, whilst it’s accessibility will have no overbearing affect if we rely on Gilbert’s approach that will allow creativity to flourish.

---------------------------------

References

Antonelli, Paola. "All Together Now!" Design and the Elastic Mind (2008): 150-66. Web.

Gilbert, Elizabeth. "Your Elusive Creative Genius." Ted Talks. Oct. 2012. Lecture.

The Inner Dimension

Biomimicry tells us of what existing in nature could translate into something tangible and be put into use in the venue of design.  Elements like

symmetry

balance

colour

form

line

shape

scale

figure

ground

hierarchy

and space

These are things humans have already put an ample amount of work in to pick up and understand.

These all exist to the lens of a human in the visible dimension of nature.

These all exist to a human when having already understood the aforementioned design principles.

These elements, we can re-create them and make them work for us.

These kinds of elements are what make up the tangible use of communication and creation in design.

These venues of communication and creation allow for a type of re-thinking to progress society.

Although, there is a field in nature that design doesn't intentionally reflect the behavior of.  Thus far, it can't, because it is of an invisible dimension in nature not yet understood.

But

It is everywhere and everything.

It defines the creation and destruction of everything.

It has been from the beginning and resides in all of us, all the time.

It has been exposed, but it is not yet understood.

It is a key to understanding the make up of the entire universe.

The make-up of atomic particles carry the duty of making everything in existence work the way that it works.  All tactile objects, liquids and gases can be broken down into molecules that rely on the force of their bond between each other and determines what form they take in the visible dimension.  Looking deeper, these molecules themselves break down, as we understand thus far, into electrons, protons and neutrons.  The number of these three subatomic particles contained in an atom defines the force that will occur to create a molecule.  Now those electrons depend on a force to keep them orbiting around the other subatomic particles to begin with as the said particles have their own force keeping them bonded together.

Now taking into account string theory, there are discoveries being made right now explaining why those subatomic particles have forces that hold them together.  There is one suggestion in that there are ultramicroscopic filaments vibrating at different frequencies to make up quarks and electrons etc.  These frequencies don't work in a space with three dimensions, mathematically.  In order to properly calculate the existence of this the mathematics had to propose 10 dimensions.  Particle physicist Garrett Lisi shows this in the diagrams of his Ted Talk.  Each time he adds a dimension to the composition of an atom, each component is broken down and he shows that there are new components that comprise them and need to be discovered.

This breakdown is part of the photo-series above that links the make up of an atom to the make up of the universe.

From nature is where we learned the initially-stated elements of design, only as we discovered and understood them more.  How will the design world change as the largest component of nature is understood more? What is the next set of elements that can be implemented in design, perhaps involving more than one dimension?

The atom, lonely in it's vast molecular space, has lots to tell us but won't until we force the information out of it! 

---------------------------------

References

Benyus, Janine. "Biomimicry in Action." Video. Ted.com. TED, Aug. 2009. Web. Oct. 2012.

Greene, Brian. "Making Sense of String Theory." Video. Ted.com. TED, Apr. 2008. Web. Oct. 2012.

Lisi, Garrett. "A Theory of Everything." Video. Ted.com. TED, Oct. 2008. Web. Oct. 2012.

O'Connell, Aaron. "Making Sense of a Visible Quantum Object." Video. Ted.com. TED, Jun. 2011. Web. Oct. 2012.

Data, will it drown us?

In a search for creative, technical and/or scientific answers we rely on data to attain the knowledge necessary.  There may be cause for worry in that we may be oversaturated with data with overwhelming amounts of research and data collection ensuing.  A factor that magnifies the cause for worry is how data is interpreted in a subjective manner, leading the followers of data in a specific stream of knowledge.  But this should not be anything we humans should be incapable of handling.

Think of humans and their relationship to data as language.  Consider information functioning as an idea or concept, knowledge functioning as the word or text being used.  The understanding of the message sent by data visualization is the understanding of text in language.  It’s automatically subjective but to convey the information in speech won’t be any better.  Peter Hall says in his work, “Critical Visualization,” that “data itself is never neutral; it is collected for a reason, and processed and presented for specific purposes.  In other words, ‘there is no such thing as raw data.’” (130).  This echoes the use of words and conversations as people choose what words they truly listen to and choose the words they in turn speak to express their ideas.  Thus, there can be no such thing as a raw idea.  Despite the downside of data reaching a subjective expression like language always does, it remains to be considered something to truly be a cause for worry.  Mankind has found a way to grow and thrive in a world of language in regulating it, so it must be familiar grounds as there must be a similar way of regulating and thriving in a world driven by data visualization.  It may drown us at some points but we will find a way to change our understanding of it to create it as something to support us as we have with language.  It won’t seem trivial if it’s treated the same way humans treat language, an act that is utterly mundane as it occurs at every instance of human interaction.  Data may act as a support just as language has in the history of mankind.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Reference

Hall, Peter. "Critical Visualization." Design and the Elastic Mind (2008): 121-31. Web.

Typing

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

This is just another blog where the ideas of another aspiring blogger types out another stream of ideas to leave another footprint on the vast virtual landscape that is the internet.  Countless hours are spent typing, each hour demanding the commitment of each finger to create the words that will portray an image of the blogger's thoughts.  Presentation of the blog depending on the accuracy of each finger... yet getting no credit or appraisal.  Once the skill and comfortable pace is attained and learned it is simply just another tool in the blogger's creative arsenal-- the keys being an extension of their hands that are unable to touch and manipulate the blog itself, letting the mind drift endlessly into the digital abyss whilst bypassing the utter reality in that their knuckles bounce up and down... fingers tingling... wrists crooked... shoulders hunched.  Physical consequences are as lost as the mind is in the digital abyss.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Typing has become an everyday mundane activity that the blogger thinks nothing of.  Ben Highmore says in their work "Everyday Life and Cultural Theory" that an everyday activity "witnesses the absorption of the most revolutionary of inventions into the landscape of the mundane.  Radical transformations in all walks of life become 'second nature'. The new becomes traditional and the residues of the past become outmoded and available for fashionable renewal" (2).  The revolutionary invention of the keyboard has served the purpose of simply creating the mundane process of creating text on a digital platform.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Although, this everyday activity isn't exclusive to only bloggers but ranges a demographic spanning from an early adolescent individual to an aged tech-savvy retiree. People of all types, whether working a desk job or casually e-mailing an overseas friend, partake in the activity of communicating beyond their speech.  Michael Jackson writes in his work, "Knowledge of the Body," that, "thinking and communicating through the body precede and to a great extent always remain beyond speech" (328).  An entire network of communication has been created through the act of pressing a desired finger to a desired key.  As if it were a tradition, people of different backgrounds and with different motives each partake in this same activity.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

References

Highmore, Ben. Everyday Life and Cultural Theory: An Introduction. London: Routledge, 2002. Web.

Jackson, Michael. Knowledge of the Body. 2nd ed. Vol. 18. N.p.: n.p., 1983. New Ser. Web. 11 Sept. 2008. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/2801438>.

A Portrait of Myself

-->

I feel my mind go blank as the adrenaline of the moment takes over.  A typical play usually lasts no more than 5 seconds but a condensed form of all the hours of hard work I put in begins to run through my mind.  Every single step I took, I take once more.  Every running swing of my arm, I swing again.  Every bead of sweat I sweat, now take their encore.  My breath cuts off when in the blink of an eye I turn my head to find the ball already in the air approaching me.  Time has now stopped.  And I have all the time in the world to think if I will catch this ball or not.  All of my focus has drained the rest of my body to the point of entire numbness, save for the tremor of my beating heart muting all auditory stimuli into a lone rhythmic thump.

One year before I would have never imagined myself playing such a physical sport but I found my way in.  Just three months ago I saw my teammates playing their hearts out while I sat on the bench just hoping for an opportunity.  And just one minute ago I was still on that bench.  I had no time to ask myself, why me out of everyone? Am I ready for this moment? Am I going to catch the ball? 

That isn't what you do in this moment.

Because of how badly I wanted it I simply decided that this is my turn, my chance to shine.  It was a moment like this that has come to define who I am today because I will never forget that moment when I reached up and extended both arms beyond my range to clutch the football in my hands and to have never let it go.