let’s replace the old version

According to Red Cross on average more than 211 million people have been affected by natural, or manmade disasters each year. What’s more the agency reports that this number is constantly growing.

The design brief is based in a scenario where all of the sudden hundreds thousands of people loose their relatives, properties, become homeless. What role can/does design play in crisis situations? Can design make a significant difference to those in despair?

My research made me realise how many issues aid agencies have to face while distributing aid. I always thought that main problems are to accumulate needed funds and to get appropriate amount of aid workers, but now i see that there are plenty of other issues. Logistic, transportation, conflict of interests with local governments, cultural differences, lack of cooperation from local societies are just some of them. Therefore, is design a solution for mentioned problems?

Already some aid organisations turn to designers for help in solving their issues. There are crisis relieve projects run by profit and non-profit design practices and universities. Designers like Fred Cuny show via their activity that creative, well considered approach can make difference. Unfortunately the importance of design is still underestimated. Some designs never pass the stage of prototyping because of lack of funds for this purpose. The solutions used by aid agencies are often outdated, inappropriate. For instance, same canvas tents are being in use since 20 years although new lightweight designs should have replaced them years ago.

“In our business it’s really difficult to say, ‘I have something new, and let’s replace the old version’”

Ghassem Fardanesh, UNHCR

Hopefully this situation will soon change.

ENERGY CONSUMION

We consume different sort of energy every day to live. I am a very lucky person as I am living in country which can provide me this. However, in some places, people do have problems with this issue. So how can we help? Well, apart from donating money or transporting food, water or medical resources, designers design things to help them.

In the last lecture, we looked into some built in solar penal bag which specifically design for people living in a country without sufficient light sources. Basically, people carry the bag out during daytime to charge up through the solar panel and use it as a light source to read or do things. It might seem to be a clever design for them as no cable or power station need to be set up in order to provide electricity, but to me, I think it is not the best way to tackle the problem. It is because the cost for getting solar panel is very expensive and by doing this is not giving what people need straight away. Therefore I think we should be more careful on helping and designing. To me, the definition of a GOOD design is how well the product balance among COST, FUNCTION and OUTLOOK and the solar panel bag is not balancing too well in terms of that. Finally, I think this solution is only good for a short period of time. I personally do not think this will help out in long terms. Moreover, light energy is only one of the kind...

My conclusion is rather spending such a big amount of money on solar panels, why not spend it to do something which can tackle the problem straight to the point?

What is ethics and how does it apply to designers, their practice and me? It is all about responsibility and who has the responsibility, is it me as a designer? The client, or the consumer who is ultimately responsible for the materials used within production. I have noticed that many companies recently have been advertising their ethical stance, that they are green,  I believe this is because of the pressure from 'ethical' middle-class consumers who eat organic food, and avoid cheap goods due to the fact sweatshop labour is involved. The thing is unethical products will still be around unless the price of more ethical and sustainable products lessens, thus allowing people on lower incomes to make the choice, the choice which at the moment they are unable to make. I see parallels between milgram's experiment and ethical/sustainable purchasing, milgram shows that in the face of authority people will go against their own views and moral stance if somebody in authority tells them to do so. Its the same with consumerism people will go for affordable products and go against their beliefs. 

Let’s fight climate change with a list of do’s and don’ts...

I am never quite sure what to make of the issue of climate change. It always seems to be there, nagging me and making me feel guilty when I throw away a piece of cardboard or leave the TV on standby, but in my opinion the whole subject of ecological change has become fairly stale.

The initial panic and realisation of what is happening has now been replaced with a ‘What else is on?’ attitude. Is this cultural ignorance or ill education? We are asked to do our bit to help ‘save the planet’ with generic lists of what we should and shouldn’t be doing: drive less, recycle more, plant a tree, but how do I know that this is going to have any effect on global warming? I know very little when it comes to science.

It is interesting to question whether we would be more willing to ‘do our bit’ if our ‘bit’ was tailored specifically to us as individuals. As Roger Malina states, ‘data about ones own environment must be accessible and understandable and in a sense ‘owned’ by each person.’ Would a location based, demographic eco database, informing us what we can personally do to combat global warming be the answer? Perhaps. Or perhaps we’ll just bury our heads in the sand for a little bit longer.

Now let’s all go plant a tree and feel better about ourselves.

Help the consumer!

I recycle as much I can, I use reusable bags, I print on both sides of a paper and that makes sleep well at nights. But is that what recycling is all about?

Hawkins presents recycling as a source of ethical self-improvement and I have come to agree with her. What recycling does is not solving a problem but putting patches on it. It gives the satisfaction to the consumer that everything is fine with buying and using something, as long as at the end he/she will throw it in the right bag. After that someone else we will take care of it and everything will balance. I get that satisfaction too but after some thought I feel like it does not really make a difference. I will put my plastic coffee cup in the recycling bin and it will be recycled but there will be hundred more plastic cups produced by the time I will have finished my action and probably not made of recycled material. “What recycling did was shift the focus of environmentalism from industry and production to households and consumption” (Hawkins, 2005:104)

As Colin Williams1, says in an article in Icon magazine “recycling has only captured the public imagination because it’s relatively easy to do, but it’s just a process of “waste diversion”, and the system only comes full circle when someone buys a recycled product”. What the article suggests? Use more oil. I believe that is where a potential and real solution of the problem lies. As future designers instead of having recycling on the top of our design requirements we should probably go for bigger life cycle. Market is full of all these incredibly cheap products in chains like Argos and Ikea but with one or two years of life using the excuse of recycling. Creating products that can be used longer would reduce the waste production, as the consumer would not have to buy new ones every one or two years. That would also move environmentalism back to production.

I am not suggesting removing the responsibility from the consumer, but sharing it with him. Help him/her to waste less.

1 Collin Williams is founder of Smile Plastics, a recycled plastic manufacturer.



"Argos value range white cordless kettle", price 4.79 GBP, life 1-2 years
http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/4219639/Trail/searchtext%3EKETTLE.htm



Hawkins, Gay. (2005) "Plastic Bags: Living with Rubbish". International Journal of Cultural Studies. SAGE Publications
McGuirk Justin. (2008) "Worried about the oil crisis?". Icon Magazine. Issue 64. Page 120-126

   Rapid developing countries produce a large proportion of the greenhouse gases, lots of voices have a strong opinion on developing world should act on pollution reduction but what is the reason for some developed countries having the right to lower the developing countries right to improve of their quality of life.

In the past 50 years more than half of the rain forest had fallen due to land development and the need of wood, “Unbelievably, over 200,000 acres of rainforest are burned every day in the world. That is over 150 acres lost every minute of every day.” The reason for destroying forest by fire,is to create land, creating land for agricultural uses. Due to the increase population around the world more land is require for food production, because of the low agricultural technology(low efficiency) in the non developed world. More land will be needed with the same amount of food produced compare to developed world.

    If the rainforest development is controlled by the developed countries,less food would be able to be produced and that might lead to a shortage of food in the area.

    For the past 150 years,industry had developed rapidly and developed world had released polluted gases and damaged the world severely. China and Indian had only started their developing around 1970’s.Why does the developing world had to take up the responsibility to save the planet, clean up the mess left over by the rich countries?

Maheshwari Weavers

The reason I took this class, is mostly because of my need to think about how to effectively design “for the other 90%”… of course, I do not like the fact that “other” is a key word in this statement. The work I am doing in India now is only the result of the close relationships that I formed there; these relationships were only possible after I had learned to speak Hindi fluently-- language is a big factor in absolving the sense of “otherness” that may at first be palpable when working across cultures.

I fell in love with India after living in Varanasi, one of the world’s oldest living cities, for a year. Then, I fell in love with Satyam, we have now been together almost 4 years. He is from Maheshwar, a small village in Madhya Pradesh, where he runs a grass-roots NGO, Chetanya Sewa: besides providing food and housing to the elderly, this NGO works on transforming the village slums. Though I still love India, I can no longer idealize it. The things I have experienced, seen, and heard from people who actually live in slums has made me feel that I should try and help as much as I can, if only perhaps because I am in the position to do so. I do not want to speak for anyone, the best thing I can do is just try to listen to what people tell me about their lives and their needs, and start from there.

The images I have posted are of Maya and Deepa, two Maheshwari handloom weavers, wearing saris that they have woven themselves. The hardcopies incorporate handloomed silk and portray the weavers’ lives and livelihoods. I will be working with the Maheshwari weavers again starting in July, this time with the assistance of a grant from Rotary International.

I realize the potential and the opportunity that the relatively new fair-trade market provides for these female weavers to substantially better their standard of living; also, the relative value of the dollar over the rupee means that profits can also be utilized in order to fund Chetanya Sewa, and there is a lot we can potentially do. But, the success of this project will rely on design input and how well we can create textile items that will be marketable in the West, mainly in the US. If we can do this, we will not only help the weavers raise their standard of living, but also bring in funds that can help transform the slums in the Khargone region. If anyone has any ideas about, or interest in, this sort of project, please talk to me...

Zoo Animals Versus Wild Animals; Jaschinski’s Camera Versus the Crittercam in the Art of Framing the Other

“I felt that I photographed something which I didn’t know. And it was almost like the camera saw it, not me,” –Britta Jaschinski

Steve Baker, in ‘Hunted by the Animal’, draws attention to the pervasive presence of the animal in contemporary art: it becomes the Other, both “vividly present” and “bewilderingly absent”. The animal both fascinates and repels as it can act as a signifier for the holistic grace of nature as much as for human estrangement from “the Real”.

Britta Jaschinski’s photos of animals in zoos and in the wild have become iconic. They are aesthetically provocative, emotive and morally ambiguous: they have been interpreted in various, even contradictory, ways. Baker claims Jaschinski’s photos in Wild Things visually collapse the arbitrary conceptual divide between zoo animals and wild animals, and yet her photos have also been adopted by the Born Free Poster Campaign, presumably, because they highlight the misery of captured animals.

The Guardian Weekend, in a quote proudly reproduced on Jaschinski’s website, states, “Jaschinski’s photos remind us what we stand to lose.’ The photos are definitely somewhat melancholic—is this because they mirror the loss of animals in an increasingly technologized world? John Berger has argued that the contemporary art world’s obsession with animals can be read as a sort of memorial to them: he believes that animals have already been largely lost to modern man. While a palpable sense of loss may be inherent in some contemporary works of art, this tendency is more likely a reflection of a human sense of alienation from the self, than a signification of the real lose of animals.

According to Lacan, human’s have an irking and unsettling sense of incompleteness and dislocation from their environment; animals, on the other hand, have been immobilised, forever frozen in the Mirror Stage—they are not “prey to language” and thus have no desire and no sense of the Other. With the current limited linguistic knowledge of animal language systems, it appears that animals lack the complex language faculty possessed by humans, and therefore, according to Lacan, are also without desire or a subconscious (of course, let us not forget that he said the same thing about women!). According to Lacan’s model, the human voyeuristic desire for the animal Other is an asymmetrical one: humans may yearn for the animal other, but, for animals, the human is not an Other at all and cannot really exist outside of the entire gelatinous mass that constitutes “the Real”.

If Jaschinski’s photos represent the melancholy loss of and yearning for the wild Other that stems from a purely human desire to return to “the Real”, then Crittercam claims to do the opposite: rather than generating images of animals framed as desired Others, Crittercam promises temporary embodiment within the Other that can override humanity and offer a first hand experience of animal subjectivity.







The Crittercam slogan of loosing one’s humanity to gain access to an animal’s perspective, along with the corporal world invoked by the editing of the Crittercam footage, and described by Haraway, is a shame, a farce, a fantasy. In the end we are, of course, limited to our own sense organs and locked out of a Sperm Whale’s echolocative and markedly different perception.

But the Crittercam, like the animals it is attached to, “senses” the world differently than a human body: it can collect and measure data (such as depth, speed, temp.) that our sense organs cannot even compute. This collection of data can be used to gain knowledge about the animal subject. The animals, roaming freely in their native habitats, are acting as subjects on their own terms. Haraway emphasises the importance of acknowledging this subjectivity; she even highlights the necessity of striving towards interspecies communication:

We have to learn who they [animals] are in all their nonunitary otherness in order to have a conversation on the basis of carefully constructed, multi-sensory, compounded languages.

If these “multi-sensory, compounded languages” ever develop, they may very well be reliant on technologies that transcend human physiology and can decode and interpret different modes of perception that allow various animal species to perceive and make sense of their habitats through sense organs different from our own. This venture will also most likely entail “infoldings of the flesh” that will act as supplementary human sense organs to compensate for our inherent differences.

The ethical question that arises in exploring the relationship between animals and humans, whether through art or science, is formed around the contested notion of animal subjectivity. Eduardo Kac has said that his GFP bunny is the beginning of a new form of art that entails the “creation of an art subject rather than an art object”. But couldn’t one easily restructure this sentence and generate a very different statement that is actually equally true: The GFP bunny is the objectification of a subject in the name of art. A lot of contemporary art works, like the GFP bunny, have an aesthetic and conceptual allure that fascinates the viewer with its sheer uniqueness… but, when it comes right down to it, do such works do anything beyond exploiting the human desire to objectify and possess the Other? This is an open-ended question to say the least.

“Art, no matter how apparently cruelly, does not shrink from the sight of the animal. In doing so it is one of the few contemporary forms that can claim properly and respectfully to attend to the otherness of the animal.”– Steve Baker

"If you want to get close to a tiger, get an elephant"

http://quicksilverscreen.com/watch?video=48477

Artificial / Natural

I find it difficult, when discussing human/animal relationships, to avoid a “Save The Animals” sentimentality. Nature is a boundary we have created and placed certain ideals upon, yet still continue to violate. There is a need for ever expanding knowledge into a world that is not our own. Particularly, it seems, if of benefit to us. This is something I can understand to a degree, however feel that it just isn’t our place.
Crittercam is a prime example of a human “research tool” that is clearly overstepping a line. These cameras “allow scientists to study animal behaviour without interference by a human observer”. Sure, but the result is still a wild, majestic lion with a great big camera box around its neck.
Donna Haraway describes technology as an organ, an “infolding of the flesh”. In Material culture we discussed how we can “extend our senses”, a video camera simply being an extension of our sight. But should we be extending ourselves into somewhere we don’t belong?

Crittercam is designed for the purpose of observing animal behaviour in a way we otherwise couldn’t. This is something I initially doubted, the very presence of a human technology would surely alter an animals behaviour. However, I looked into a suggested documentary ‘Tigers: Spy in the Jungle’ that involved elephants carrying (badly) disguised cameras through the jungle to capture tigers in their private habitats. And honestly, it was wonderful. The animals showed no signs of disturbance and there was some really exciting footage. However, they didn’t have cameras glued to their backs.
What was it really illustrating to us that we need to learn?

Haraway explains how Crittercam may be used to not only understand an animals ecology but also show us how to change as a consequence. But from over a decades worth of data, has anything changed? Perhaps our zoos might expand, with more “accurate” enclosures for otherwise unobtainable creatures.
Wouldn’t that be lovely.

Poor Entrepreneurs

Very small loans better known as microcredits caused sensations within the last years and onwards over the western and less developed countries.
The small loans are made to give poor people the chance to establish a sustainable means of income. These people don’t fulfil the minimal qualifications to gain access to traditional credits usually.

By the help of the microcredits, poor entrepreneurs gain the possibilities to
start self-employed projects to earn money
to find a way out of the poverty.

Trust building and help during difficult times are the main principles between the borrowers and the trust-driven banks across India, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Morocco, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Ethopia, Serbia, Russia, Pakistan, Mexico and Brazil.

In November 2008 the first micro-lending website kiva.org has launched its service on the Internet successfully. People donate money and lend it to the poor. The service provides useful information about the people’s backgrounds
and the planed projects of the unemployed.

Beside the sensation about small loans in the less developed countries
exists criticism. Gina Neff of the Left Business Observer claims that the success has been judged basically from a lender’s perspective. She mentions that the microlending Grameen Bank’s high repayment rate doesn’t reflect the number of women who are repeat borrowers that have became dependent on loans for household expenditures.

Also in the developed world like in the United States exists microcredits to help out people to find a way out of their poverty for example.

About 12.6 % of the United States population, 37 million people live below the poverty line. However microloans have less appeal on the people because they don’t


believe in escaping poverty by private enterprise.

Microloans U.S.

Kiva - microloans online

Journal of microfinance

and this as well 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJal-Ohggd4&eurl=http://www.karmatube.org/videos.php?id=1322

ok so the videos didn't work heres the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Sb6RmRMbBY

We place ourselves outside, above or beyond “nature”

nature
Noun
1. the whole system of the existence, forces, and events of the physical world that are not controlled by human beings

I don’t have a problem with the fact that we are outside, above or beyond nature because by definition that’s what it is. I think it’s important to remember that we invented the word nature and created the model that it is. We created its boundaries, what it is and what it stands for. As a model it doesn’t actually tell us what is going on and if anything tells us more about ourselves than the universe around us. This is true for any model we make be it nature, the future or time. Just because we have created this model doesn’t mean it is an accurate representation of what is happening around us.

Artificial Natural - Unnatural Selection

Technology seems to have far too much control over evolution. Take a look at human evolution for example; we inject ourselves with many different vaccinations to protect ourselves from viruses and as a result natural selection becomes far more limited. As people are now immune to the virus, the process of natural selection is altered. Now, the weaker individuals are no longer eradicated from the population, but instead it may now be that the people with no money for vaccinations are targeted in this process. Due to the technological changes brought about by humans, we have altered a natural balance of how the world should evolve on many different levels.

The process of evolution no longer seems to be that of natural selection but that of an unnatural form. Evolution is no longer based so much on survival of the fittest, but more the survival based on an organism’s compatibility with humans and their technologies. If evolutionary changes for the worse come about through environmental and atmospherical change, then humans are greatly to blame for the ones occurring in the world. The Atlantic cod for example, has decreased in size from fifteen centimeters to ten centimeters over a short period of time. The main reason for this, as researchers say, is that only the larger cod fish get caught in the nets and therefore the smaller fish have a favorable phenotype for survival, which they will then pass on. They have also found that the fish reach reproductive age twenty-five percent earlier than usual so that they can lay eggs before they got caught or killed. As a result, the cod fish lay eggs prematurely and become a weaker population due to the lack of ‘natural’ growth. The fish are no longer evolving naturally and progressively, but unnaturally due to technological inflictions that humans have put on them, quite literally stunting their growth as a species.

It seems that what has happened is that with technology and human interference in specific animal niches, the balance between humans and animals has been upset completely. Humans are using up far too many resources, destroying the atmosphere, being generally wasteful, and other animal species are in danger of extinction as a result. So how can we change our human impacts to that of naturally occurring evolution? Designers behind a lot of technology, need to start learning about what is happening within the world, an attempt to design for the better. In biology, biodiversity is the key ingredient to a sustainable community, and that is why we should aim to restore this currently uneven balance back to a ‘natural’ measure by designing for the future. Not just the future of humanity but that of an ecosystem as a whole.


References:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/science/13fish.html
http://www.ioe.ucla.edu/news/article.asp?parentid=2064

Recycling

Though I approve of recycling and its merits, I do not recycle everything I dispose of. I refill my water bottles when I can. I buy the reusable linen or hemp bags from Iceland and Sainsbury’s when I am grocery shopping, but I often end up shopping while I am already out, so I do not have my reusable bags with me. Then I end up either buying more reusable bags, which I feel is the store’s way of making more of a profit rather than helping the environment, or giving up and using plastic bags. Once I get my groceries home, I do use one or two plastic bags for trash, but I cannot save them all indefinitely due to lack of storage. I could save them for months, but sometimes end up throwing them away anyway. Gay Hawkins questioned, “If we accept that disposal is necessary, how could it be recast in ways that acknowledge the ethical significance of rubbish without generating moral righteousness or resentment?” But I cannot do everything myself and I wonder if others are making an attempt to recycle, or am I actually doing more than others? I think recycling is a good thing, and I do not want to contribute to overflowing landfills, but I am a busy student with limited time to devote to saving the environment. And I resent the fact that the older generations say it is up to my generation to fix everything they have messed up. Everyone is responsible to do what he or she can. So I will try to continue to do my part.

-Emily Suber

Moral Taxation

The argument of where the social responsibility falls with regards to ethics is an interesting question. Is the consumer always at fault for consuming excessively and not managing his greed, is the manufacturer at fault for not going against the grain and working to more responsible standards or is the government at fault for making it too easy to exploit and waste whilst indulging big business. The governments relationship to big companies is always scrutinised but perhaps more now in these harder financial times. On www.socialresponsibility.com it states that the argument against companies being responsible is “should [organisations] shoulder those costs on behalf of society?”
I feel that in the end government must take responsibility for finding more effective ways of encouraging responsible business practices that benefit all communities involved and remove some of the power from big companies. So by looking at taxation on products that are produced further away that could be produced locally, or likewise on lower taxes for ethically strong products (fairtrade for example which already has a full system in place). It would take some restructuring but could bring about a greater sense of community, reduce emissions and promote jobs in local areas. The downsides are of course just as numerous, such as the loss of the global village and even a return to elitist society. I would be interested to further explore the responsibility in society for ethical practices and how accountable government is and should be.

Human/Nature

Humans perception of the earth as a vulnerable entity, sensitive and frail is interesting. Is that idea actually only relevant when seen in conjunction with our dependence on it? We are selfish beings and in worrying for the Earth are we not worrying for ourselves and nothing more? After all if it does become one big, warm wet sphere, devoid of life, will Earth even know any difference? However, it does not benefit us, so we worry. Would we worry so much about the loss of trees in Amazon if they were not so important to our survival? On the other side, the survival of animals is like a visual embodiment of our conscience with regards to the power we have and how we use it. The death or endangerment of a species saddens us and lowers our perception of how responsible we are, further removes us from our image of ourselves as gods, dominant and controlling. In fact we know that we are gods, wielding the power of technology and bestowing pitiful benevolence on other inhabitants of Earth. The problem then, our intelligence means we draw a line between us and everything else. We struggle to connect ourselves to nature. We are technology, retching forwards, morally confused and born into a world that is not ready for us. Is there a way to actually care about Earth, to connect to nature (beyond ourselves) and truly feel it, or would we just be kidding ourselves?

Farm Farm

By 2050, more than half of the earth's population will reside in urban centers. Applying the most conservative estimates to current demographic trends, the human population will increase by about 3 billion people during the interim. An estimated 10,000,000,000 hectars of new land will be needed to grow enough food to feed them, if traditional farming practices continue as they are practiced today. At present, throughout the world, over 80% of the land that is suitable for raising crops is in use (Sources: FAO and NASA). Historically, around 15% of that has been laid waste by poor management practices.


A potential solution could be realised through introducing artificial nature in urban areas by building farms and parks vertically. Since the concept of synthetic trees was introduced in 2003, geophysicist Professor Klaus Lackner at Columbia University designed one, a construction that mimics the function of natural trees whereby leaves pull carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the air as it flows over them. He estimates that every tree would remove 90,000 tonnes of CO2 a year. And when the CO2 is captured, it would be locked away deep into the sea bed by drilling into the surface, where high water pressure traps them to not be able to come back up to sea surface again.




I reckon dedicating a whole skyscraper to build a farm is a tempting proposition - no more weather-related crop failures, diseases spread by livestock, or runoff polluting water sources. Not to mention locally-grown produce for the residents of central London, Manhattan and Tokyo, eliminating the environmental costs of transport (with fresher vegetables to boot!). Veggie prices will fall in these cities with more city-farm-vegetables produced, which would be something to look forward to.

Info retrieved from: www.verticalfarm.com
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/6374967.stm

The Reality

The climate of the Earth always changes from time to time. Looking in the past, it has cause changes its composition in a significant way as a result of natural causes. Nowadays, referring the term of climate change is generally used when our climate have been identified since in the early of 1900’s. The changes we all have seen and feel over recent years followed with predictions over the next eighty years are thought to be mainly as a result of human behaviour rather than due to the cause of natural changes in the atmosphere.

With the greenhouse effect are well known to this topic, it is important when we discuss and change ideas about climate change as it relates to the gases that keep the Earth warm. It is however the extra greenhouse gases, which were mainly produce by humans, are thought to pose the strongest threat. Currently there is a growing of general agreements amongst climate researchers that Earth’s climate is changing due to the manmade greenhouse gas emissions ever since human life starts to revolutionize.

The main topic to the problematic is certainly focussed on the amount of climate change we can or might expect in few years time or not whether it will happen. With adaptations amongst humans in terms of how we need to change the way we use to live in order to cope with changes to our climate such as using renewable energy can actually reduce any incoming impacts from getting a drastically drastic climate changes.

*Filah

Artificial Natural

How natural and artificial! This is the reaction to the perennial question of the relation of human life to nature’s creation that provides an important topic for discussions. In terms of biology, it is the scientific study of life and it is simple the only kind of life that has been available to study and question. Without other examples, it is difficult to distinguish essential properties of life that would be shared by any other living.

Moreover, our only option is to try to create alternative life forms ourselves and that is the artificial life that literally refers to as “life made by Man rather than by Nature itself”. It is the name that gives out a new discipline by attempting to recreate biological phenomena from scratch within the use of computers and other “artificial” media. The process of combining and composing ideas to form a theory or system has been an extremely important tool in many disciplines.

With great practice more on artificial life in an attempt to recreate another alternative ways or media will result in not only theoretical understanding but also in the technology of computer hardware and software, mobile robots, spacecraft, medicine and other vital engineering or sustainability projects that gives a big impact to the environment and the life on Earth. By extending the horizons based on this topic, it is within this vastly larger domain in which we will discover practical and useful implication in approaching towards sustainability and the design practice.

*Filah

The Black Gold

After reading the article posted below by Clark titled "Climate change" i found the points to be exactly the same as what someone would say if they did not understand the fundamentals of how everything, that is used throughout their day is available to them because of these companies.

People complain that companies are producing too much waste, and these "petroleum" companies are causing massive environmental and ethical problems... Well yes they are, but we are the ones funding them to do this.  If you went to University today or traveled to work, you used a type of fuel to get there, which is, well... supplied by them.  Now you may think that this is as far as it goes, so it’s all there fault… Well no every single item you have used today is most likely been made buy some sort of petroleum product or has had petroleum used to make it or transport it to you…People may abuse these companies with all sorts of media but again all these media types have been made or need to use some form of petroleum to run.. I do not understand why people shout and complain, when in reality you have to have it if you want to keep living the life that you all enjoy so much...

However I do believe that we can change and that we do need to.  I’m no blind and I can see that the world around me is changing and this is due to our misuse of fossil fuels… But people need to understand that this is not an overnight job.  Massive amounts of infrastructure have to be changed. And unfortunately a large amount of funds have to come from somewhere to achieve this. Basically people may complain and make a fuss but I would like to see people throw away all of their items and live a green life style… I don't think many would sign up

You are addicted to the Black Gold whether you like it or not!

Luke Guttery

COMIC Relief

Everywhere you go at the moment you get a big red nose in the face. I wanted to report on "consume your ethics", and charity consumerism seemed paradoxical and interesting.

Comic Relief is an annual national charity event culminating in a comedy telethon. The money raised gives thousands of people who face discrimination, injustice or poverty the chance to transform their lives. Without question I am in complete admiration of Comic Relief's charity work and the 450 MILLION! that they've raised to help people in both africa in the UK. Over 50 million Red Noses have been sold since red nose day started in 1985 to raise funds. This year if you arn't taken by the 'nose' (of which there are 3 variants) or you want to show further support, you could also purchase: 'A set of all three noses, The red nose deeley bopper, Red nose charm, The gggliing giggler, The magnetic car nose, The perfect little pin badge'. Or if your a fashionista who doesn't think a big red nose will suit your look there are 11 different T-shirts available (celebrity endorsed) (and designed by Stella McCartney)  - Momentary commodity driven gratification and when the hilarity wears off, (excluding the select individuals that save their 'noses' with the view to them becoming their grandchildren's ebay generated inheritance) they go in the bin. Only this year are the noses recyclable (if you take them into Sainsburys).

Skipping the issue of virtue-washing, targeting children and celebrities basking in PR, we are continually fusing shopping wth giving. Apple and (Project)RED generates donations to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, and Swisstool sell a pink swiss army knife with proceeds going to Breast Cancer Campaign. I can’t help but believe that donation through buying goods serves as a distraction from what we consumers should really be thinking about. I applaud Comic Relief's philanthropic efforts, but maybe our morals are being manipulated. A Red Nose is not just an emblem to show support or help spread the message, its abit of a gimmick. Why do we need a gimmick to make us donate? It seems to stand that the western population need coaxing by a Comic Relief carrot with the promise of a good time to actually give the time to apprehend the real crisis. Embedded-giving takes the focus away from the real concern and its backstory. It over looks the issues; rather than donors getting closer to what is needed and how their money is used, they’re getting farther away. Is it a meaningfull way of generating money? 

It's interesting to note that consumer gratification seems to be needed as an incentive to donate. Our ethical conduct is strenghtened with the offer of goods, and it is not yet recognised as unethical to buy into throwaway marketing tat.  Is it right of comic relief to be what seems slightly perverse and hypocrytical in their approach to fundraising - or are we all consoled by their admirable efforts to do good so its okay?

Climate "CHANGE"

I always wonder about what ethics does large co-operations has. Every co operations has human resource department, by using advertising or their design trying to produce a friendly and responsible image to the public. But do they actually physically help or just ignore the endangered environment  and carry on with their ridiculous lies.

    Royal Dutch Shell plc had a set of adverts to show their efforts to save the environment and how they are connected to their work forces in different countries. That’s totally creating a mirage for the public to see and covering up how much crap they have actually created.

   Because of petrol, countries are invaded, civil wars broke out, environment is damaged and even our lungs are affected. Political forces are behind these large co-operations, because of their revenue, politicians can be funded. And this is one of the reason why it take so long for the US to cute their CO2 emmitions.

How many people heard about Zapata petroleum Coropration? It is the petro company that owned and opened by George H.W.Bush,No wonder why the oil price had rocketed and little is done to lower the consumption of petrol.

Co-operation with bad ethics and numbers of politicians uses design and their power in different ways to divert your visions. The little power from Greenpeace and various organizations would not be able to fight against multi trillion dollars co operations. But a union of power from citizens of Earth might be able to make a difference and set new ethics for them. Industry and co-operation which make up 70% of the total greenhouse gases release.

When reading and researching for this blog entry I wanted to relate how peoples anxieties and fears exist within the realm of design and other creative industries and find a good practice which I, and others, could follow. These are a few points that gelled with my research.


-As a student studying design, I often create things as a reaction to a problem, which I try and find a solution for. After seeing the 'Guardian Angel Bags' and some of the products associated with the 'Safe' exhibition I started to question what the best method of deigning for anxiety is and realized that is in no way straight forward. Using the 'Guardian Angel Bag' as an example (see fig.1), if you look at this product at face value it can be seen to reinforce the idea that there is a danger, and you need this product to be safe, and therefore counterproductive. These bags are very much intended to be ironic; they are a social comment, laughing at people’s anxiety (or laughing in the face of danger).



Fig.1, Guardian Angel Bag



-A very real example of fear driven ethics could be religion. Fear of damnation or the apocalypse convincing people to worship. This topic recently collided with the advertising world when the British Humanist Association made a campaign for the sides of busses saying 'There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.'


-It is no revelation that the media, television and film play a big part in the creation of fear (I often think back to when we were all going to get avian flu). Films of the Apocalyptic or dystopian fiction genre often try to push us towards changing our ethics. The film that comes to my mind is ‘The Day After Tomorrow,’ which had its heart in the right place – global warming awareness- but was interpreted as complete fear mongering due to its very “Hollywood” plot.

Here is a clip from the animated TV series ‘South Park’ parodying the film ‘The Day After Tomorrow.’


Sam Tripp

reflection on safety gear for small animals

Having a look at an exhibition’s catalogue called “SAFE” I came across some brilliant designs and some others that made me think a little bit more critically about designers’ ethical responsibilities and how they are fulfilled. The products in SAFE where "designed to protect body and mind from dangerous or stressful circumstances, respond to emergencies, ensure clarity of information, and provide a sense of comfort and security"

I may be a little bit strict about design because I believe mainly in usefulness, but I do not exclude emotion from the list of useful aspects. I consider designers as some of the most creative professionals and I find it sad when talents go wasted by designing useless objects.

Practically I refer to the project “safety gear for small animals”, which is an example that has confused me. It is obvious that Bill Burns has done extensive research on the issue and after finding the problems those animals face decided to design something about it. He designed a range of tiny scale models of human safety gear based on the Victorian era’s theory about similarities between humans and animals.


What is the point? Well I guess it is a little bit funny, a little bit cute, but why did he have to lose time and money and waste materials for just a few shots? It is obvious the collection is not designed for use and I think it is a shame as a designer instead of creating something a little bit more useful that could actually offer a solution to the problem he wasted his creative mind for a few pictures.

On the other hand I feel like he didn’t lose his point completely. His collection triggered my curiosity so I visited his website, read his manifesto and learned a little bit more about endangered species and his work in general which aside the tiny safety gear is really interesting.

At the end of the day who is to decide what is useful and what not? If its aim is to inform and the message gets through then it served its purpose, I guess...

Antonelli Paola (2005) Safe:Design Takes on Risk, New York:MoMA
http://www.safetygearforsmallanimals.com/

Artificial Nature

Dear everyone who has choosen Artificial Nature,

I do not own this picture but i think it might be a good starting point, what can we define as 'Artificial Nature'?


I haven't decided my topic on what to discuss yet but i though it would be a good idea to remind you guys that out post entries is between Feb 10 to March 3. I almost forgot but let's start talking. x

Desmond
wongwcd@hotmail.com

Ethics + Sustainability, 2009

Art of Survival - Debunking Third World Myths

This entry was inspired by this video of Hans Rosling, talking about world economics but specifically in Africa. He uses data visualization software to really show what he is trying to get across to the audience – without the software I think his talks would not be nearly as informative. The point he is trying to make it that far from being an area of little to no development (which is what a shockingly large amount of people believe it to be) Africa, as a continent has come a long way from the ‘pre-medieval’ state it was in at before the 1900’s. He goes on to criticize lumping the whole continent together as one homogenous unit, but using the software shows that there is massive economic diversity in Africa, with countries in both the upper and lower percentiles of healthcare standards and GDP. He goes on to ‘prove’ that conditions across the continent will keep improving until they are at the place most of Europe/North America is at now. (This trend has already been observed in parts of South America).

So across Africa there is such diversity in conditions that for us to try and design for a whole continent is impossible, and ‘us’ designing for an individual community is inefficient. What the individual areas need is a self-instigated, self-governed system of some kind on behalf of the populace. This is what has already been observed, bringing some countries into the upper levels of ‘development’. With these sorts of systems in place the individual states within Africa are more than capable, and some have been able to, pull themselves out of economic strife.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=YpKbO6O3O3M