Growing up in Wellington, I idolised the urban city. The glamour, the art, the formality, the modernity, the inspiration people and the fast paced lifestyle. I then moved away to a rural town where everything was slow, dirty and boring. Moving back to Wellington in 2012, everything became fun and colourful again as I felt alive. Until I grew up that year. I grew up, my eyes opened to the surroundings instead of the picture I had painted with my eyes of what I thought Wellington was. No longer eclectic and filled with art, I began to see the flaws in the society, the cracks in the pavement, potholes in the street.

 After living in the city for three years with my eyes open and ready to see, my view has changed. I can see the cracks, the shit, the faults and blemishes. But I can also see people trying to fix the flaws in our society. Using the idea of flâneurie to 'guide' my search, I want to look at more ways people are trying to fix the flaws in our society. I want to look at the visual society and what is being done to fix the world around us.

The images below where taken around Newtown, Mt Cook and Te Aro. This was my attempt at flâneurie, as I tried to find flaws in society I have never noticed before. It was from this excursion that I defined my critical perspective ti envelop the attempts at fixing these flaws within society - not just the flaws themselves.

Literary Review -

 Lucas, R. (2008). Taking a line for a walk: walking as an aesthetic practice. In T. Ingold & J. L. Vergunst (Eds.), Ways of Walking - Ethnography and Practice on Foot (pp. 168-184). United Kingdom.


 Looking at the reading by Raymond Lucas, the idea of the flâneur talks a lot about aimlessly wandering both with and without a purpose. This reading relates to my project as I attempted flâneurie in order to open my eyes to the city around me. I attempted to see what I had not seen before and how people show subtle interaction with these scenes. "His eyes open, his ear ready, searching for something entirely different from what the crowd gathers to see," (Lucas, 2008).













Haiku - 

I really want to voice a haiku that describes these flaws in society and the small attempt made at fixing them. Even though the remedy to these flaws may be small, the act itself is positive. I want the haiku to show a gradient from the dwelling idea of flaws to a positive feeling of an attempt at remedying these flaws.
  • Urban flaws, cracks, faults; Reparation in disguise; Temporary fix.
  • Societies done; Junk strewn across the street path; To be rained upon.
  • Toss the broken out; Does society bother; Attempt a repair.
Theory Construction In Design Research: Criteria, Approaches and Methods
Ken Friedman

The Design field represents six general domains from the world. Natural sciences, humanities and liberal arts, social and behavioural sciences, human professions and services, creative and applied arts and technology and engineering. Design may use all of these domains, or just specific ones, as well as using varying amounts of each. This is specific to each individual problem, the criteria and how you go about it.

 The rapid development and expansion of available technologies means we are surrounded by technology and influenced by it in our daily lives. "These include the artifacts of information technology, mass media, telecommunication, chemistry, pharmacology, chemical engineering, and mechanical engineering, along with the designed processes of nearly every service industry and public good now available other than public access to nature. Within the next few years, these areas will come to include the artefacts of biotechnology, nanotechnology and other advanced hybrid technologies", (Friedman, 2003).

 Nearly everybody can design with the information and technology available today, but design flaws and mistakes are common. This is often because of inadequate preparation. Designers must undergo proper research and planning in order to tackle design tasks. "The designer is an analyst who discovers problems or who works with a problem in the light of a brief. The designer is a synthesist who helps to solve problems and a generalist who understands the range of talent that must be engaged to realise solutions. The designer is a leader who organises teams when one range of talents is not enough. Moreover, the designer is a critic whose post-solution analysis considers whether the right problem has been solved", (Friedman, 2003).

 Theory requires a mixture of researching, planning, understanding, analysis and evaluation. The practice of design revolves around interdisciplinary researching and understanding in order to solve problems faced by society. By using articulate language to communicate ideas and theories, these concepts should be able to be understood by people from a range of backgrounds. By simplifying the ideas and concepts, these theories can stand strong because people from backgrounds other than design can understand and respect them too.
Theories For Design And For Things
There are many different definitions of what a theory is. This can be specific to the topic or subject it is being used in. "A theoretician therefore, identifies phenomena in the world, studies them and makes assertions about their underlying structure." 

 "The notion of design theory may seem wooly-headed and irrelevant but it has a place: theory can provide a structure for understanding problems and help generate methods for solving them" (Doblin 1988: 6).

 Critical Theory: "a rigorous critical engagement with social and philosophical issues which is aimed at the cross-fertilisation of research methods derived from the social sciences with a Marxist theoretical framework for conceptualising social relations." Critical theory has become more popular in the last few years and can be applied to more situations than before. The theory of theory itself has been look at by Max Horkheimer, the pioneer of critical theory:

  • Theory is "the sum-total of propositions about a subject, the propositions being so linked with each other that a few are basic and the rest derive from these."
  • "The smaller the number of primary principles in comparison with the derivations, the more perfect the theory."
  • "The real validity of the theory depends on the derived propositions being consonant with the actual facts. If experience and theory contradict each other, one of the two must be reexamined.

As critical theory has developed and relates to life outside of literature, it is transforming into the interdisciplinary cultural theory, which covers many different topics such as Marxism, feminism and postmodernism for example. "Cultural theory can be defined as a literature that aims to develop a systematically ordered model of the empirical world to explain the nature of culture and its implications for social life, (Smith, 2001).

 "Meanings of objects are context dependent and they change with changes in patio-temporal location, frame of reference, cultural environment etc. To be effective, theorisation should address all attributes of things that influence their existence and meaning in relation to people, other things and the environment. These attributes may be corporeal, ephemeral, economic, social, technological, cultural or political.
Tangible Bits: Towards Seamless Interfaces Between People, Bits and Atoms
Hiroshi Ishii and Brygg Ullmer

"We began our investigation of "looking to the future of HCI" at this museum by looking for what we have lost with the advent of personal computers. Our intention was to rejoin the richness of the physical world in HCI."

"Tangible User Interfaces will augment the real physical world by coupling digital information to everyday physical objects and environments."

"We see the locus of computation is now shifting from the desktop in two major directions: i) onto our skins/bodies, and ii) into the physical environments we inhabit. The transition to our bodies is represented by recent activities in the new field of 'wearable computers'. We are focusing on the second path: integration of computational augmentations into the physical environment. Our intention is to take advantage of natural physical affordances, to achieve a heightened legibility and seamlessness of interaction between people and information."

"The smooth transition of users' focus of attention between background and foreground using ambient media and graspable objects is a key challenge of Tangible Bits."

This paper focuses on developing the current relationships between GUI's (Graphical User Interfaces) and HCI (Human Computer Interaction). Through including the senses humans have developed through evolution, richer experiences can be created while using technology. "By taking advantage of multiple sense and the multi-modality of human interactions with the real world. We believe the use of graspable objects and ambient media will lead us to a much richer multi-sensory experience of digital information."




I, Sharnia King, hereby swear to abandon all fear; to question everything; to trust in myself; to honour those before me as I excel, and to support those who follow as they ascend. I swear that I will never accept another's standard for success, as I set mine one measure higher. When I am finished, no one will ever fucking look at me the same way again.

http://www.goodfuckingdesignadvice.com

All posts related to CCDN331: Live Theory can be found on the home page or under the CCDN331 label on the right hand side of the page.
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About

I am a designer, currently studying Design Innovation at Victoria University of Wellington. My focus areas are website and mobile media development, interaction design, 3D modelling and animation and audio-visual space. My blog shows my journey through each project as well as my learning experience through university. What do I want to be when I grow up? I have no idea. But I love what I'm learning. Although there have been many bumps along the road in this journey and despite the fact that there are going to be many more, I wouldn't have it any other way.

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