Danielle by Anthony Cernielo

However Many Takes It Takes

Well candles burn you warm and safe
You lock your door and control your space
And curtains drawn, you think that you're impenetrable
But demons they don't live outside
They burrow deep where they can hide
Inside a safe, you will still feel vulnerable

The ABC of Architects

Andrea Stinga ve Federico Gonzalez

Sarı

...
Aynı kuru kahveciden gün aşırı iş olsun diye
Yüzer gram kahve alıp evde iş olsun diye öğütüyorlar
Ve bir gün bile sormuyorlar öğütülmüşünü
Kimse sormuyor iş olsun diye yapılan iş, iş midir diye
...

Olek and the Charging Bull on Wall Street

I had seen photos of the crocheted bull before, but I just found the video of the installation process. Olek is one of the speakers of "The Artist Life in New York" panel which will take place at Pratt on February 1st. The other artists who will be speaking at the panel are: Aaron Wexler, Jennifer Sullivan, Naomi Reis, Ella Kruglyanskaya, and Matt Jensen.

NYFA Panel Discussion at Pratt: "The Artist Life in New York"
Date and Time: February 1, 2011 | 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Location: Alumni Reading Room (3rd floor of the library)

Thoughtless Acts

A few years ago I saw a book called "Thoughtless Acts" by Jane Fulton Suri and IDEO. The book, which also has a website, was full of examples of intuitive ways people adapted, exploited and reacted to their surroundings. The point was to recognize those things we do without thinking, and use them as insights for creating thoughtful designs.

I walked around the campus and my neighborhood to see whether I could find some examples of thoughtless acts myself. And here is what I found with some notes:

Conforming & Exploiting: The information board that holds the campus map for display is now mostly used for displaying information on student activities and meetings. The map is now only partially visible. The function is not altered, but exploited. A board for permanently displayed information has become a tool for temporary messages. Even the legs holding the board is used for sticking messages.

Responding: The match box is intuitively inserted in the space between the logs of the bench. It is perfect for the match box. The compatibility must have tempted the smoker to leave his waste right there, where he sat down to smoke his cigarette.


Exploiting: The tree acts as a support; a perfect parking spot for the bicycle. Environmental features are exploited due to their affordances.

Co-opting & Exploiting: Names of lovers are carved on the surface of the wooden picnic table. Users have taken advantage of the physical qualities of wood to leave a mark after them.

Adapting & Co-opting: The beaded decoration is hung on the handle of the kitchen window. Thus, the handle provides an affordance other than its fundamental function of opening/closing the window. The person uses the handle intuitively for hanging stuff, as it is the closest thing to a hanger in the environment.

Conforming & Exploiting: There is a high school across the border defining wall of this housing complex. The students have taken advantage of the large surface of the wall and turned it into a message board for themselves. Although the residents are not pleased with this habit, once several messages got written on the wall, other students started to use it for the same purpose too.

Adapting: I found this book in my library with a bus ticket from 2004 in it. I was reading the book during a long-distance bus trip, and made use of the ticket as a bookmark.


Adapting & Co-opting: The bags are hanging from the door knob instead of being stored in a cabinet or hung from a hanger. The door knob can no longer perform its primary function; users must not feel the need to shut their door often. The arrangement makes it easy for the users to grab whichever bag they want before leaving the room.

Green = Guilt?

The main marketing strategy for selling green products has been to exploit the eco qualities of the products, rather than promoting their functionality or aesthetics. Some designers tend to oversee the functional and aesthetic aspects for the virtue of designing a green product. But doesn't that produce more trash?

It is true that guilt or being worried about the future well-being of his/her children may cause the consumer to behave in an ecologically responsible manner. (Moisander, 1997) However Debra Lilley, a research associate at Loughborough Design School, taking reference from the 2003 UNEP reports, states that guilt is not a sufficient motivator, and subsequently policy makers are beginning to realize the limitations inherent in this approach.

What green products offer to users should not only be a feeling of conscience or guilt. Regarding the mechanism of evoking emotions through products, Pieter Desmet proposes that if a product looks or performs in a way that corresponds with a concern of the user, a pleasant emotional response will be the result. We have to bear in mind that a big part of society does not carry a strong environmental concern to be emotionally engaged to use green products just because of their greenness. These products need to engage and connect with users through other qualities that converge with the primary concerns of users, in order to evoke pleasant emotions.

As a consumer, I want choices so I can find the product that best speaks to my taste. I should not be confined to buy that one product in a brown paper pulp packaging as my only choice, if I wish to make green choices. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with brown colored things or paper pulp. In fact, I like them both. But I want to make the point that there is a good selection of environmentally friendly materials available to designers to create their products -and not all of them are brown! A successful shift to green products will happen when the greenness -or the brownness in this case :)- of those products will not be the only quality that shouts at the conscious user.

As designers, we can challenge ourselves to create a variety of products catering to a wide range of tastes that are green; yet are beautiful and functional regardless of anything. I don't find it very ethical to put the consumer on a spot, where they need to make a selection between what they want to buy, and what they should buy. Designers can take the responsibility to refuse to create anything un-green, and make green the norm.

---
Moisander, J. (1997) Complexity and Multidimensionality of Ecologically Responsible Consumer Behaviour, part 1 of Linden, A L, Moisander, J. Thelander, Å. and Uusitalo, L. (1997) 'Environmental values attitudes and behaviour: Perspectives on Consumption as a Social Project', In: Consumption, Everyday Life and Sustainability Workshop, Centre for the Study of Environmental Change, Lancaster University.

One Family in Gaza from Jen Marlowe on Vimeo.

Israilli bir arkadasim gondermis bu kisa filmi. Filmin Ingilizce'ye tercumesini yapan ise ayni saldirilarda babasini ve erkek kardesini kaybeden bir baska Filistinli arkadasim. Film 2008'de Gazze'ye yapilan saldiri sirasinda ogullari katledilen bir aile hakkinda. Saldiridan birkac ay sonra cekildigi icin ailenin kayiplarinin hemen ertesindeki degil, saldiriyla beraber degisen hayatlarini algilayislariyla ilgili. Ozellikle babanin (Kamal) filmin sonundaki konusmasi yurek parcalayici. Kaybettigi oglu icin yaptigi bahceden basederken diyor ki:

Evim yikildi, hayatim alt ust oldu; ama bu saldiri benim icimdekini yikmadi. Kamal olarak beni oldurmedi. Ailemizi bitirmedi, hayattayiz. Hayat devam etmeli. Cocuklarim icin cicekler dikiyorum. Dogru, sahip olmayi istedigim ya da onceden sahibi oldugum bi hayat degil bu; ama cocuklarim icin elimden geleni yapmaya calisiyorum.

Kimseden yardim olsun diye bana bir ev yapmasini istemem.Ihtiyacimiz olan yardim bu degil. Ihtiyacimiz olan insan olarak degerimizi artiracak, kendini insan olarak hissetmeni, esini bir kadin, evladini da bir cocuk olarak hissetmeni saglayacak bir yardim. Ama nasil? Esas mesele bu. Siddetin olmadigi bir aile nasil kurabilirim? Eger cevabi olan ya da cevabini bilen birini taniyan varsa lutfen bana el uzatin ve cozmeme yardim edin. Bu yeterli.

Bu sacmaliklar neden? Insan oldurmek nasil bu kadar kolay? Ruh hastasi insanlarla bir gezegen paylasiyoruz; ama sanki hastalar akli yerinde olanlardan daha cok. Ve ne yapiyoruz cozume dair? Izliyoruz, uzuluyoruz, cok uzuluyoruz, agliyoruz, sonra arkadasimizla bulusup cay icmeye gidiyoruz, yemek yiyip hayatimiza devam ediyoruz. Bir sonraki filme kadar.

Utaniyorum.