Sunday, October 26, 2008

Passing on genes and products

In many ways, an "artificial" genome is created by the many products that are in the market at one time. Looking back at the history of man-made products is in a way like tracing our genetic makeup.


This analogy came from reviewing my timelines. I noticed that I had an interest in trying to connect natural examples to man-made objects. And throughout my explorations, many questions arose.


Where does the history of Industrial Design begin? How did man come up with the idea of mass production? Why did efficiency become the ideal so many now work towards? Should good design be affordable to all?


Therefore, to answer these questions I look to nature for analogies and perhaps some answers. First, mass production has existed with the very first living beings. DNA and the duplication and replication of any living organism's genome are very similar to the artificial methods of making products. Nature's methods of reproduction are varied and sophisticated.


While I could go into the details about the workings of DNA and RNA, the gist of the whole process is that DNA and RNA act like molds in creating multiple copies of one shape or unit of something. The units of DNA go on to create proteins or other traits that are components to what would become living organisms. Likewise, molds are tools used to mass produce particular parts which could be assembled into products.


What causes organisms to evolve is a process of natural selection. Factors like chance, competition, and context determine the survival and fitness of each organism over time. Different animals compete in a setting over food and resources. Depending on the context, one organism might be more fit than another. The fitness of the organism reflects on the species. Once a species can no longer survive in a given context, it becomes extinct. Similarly, the survival of a type of product is like the survival of a species. I'd like to think of vacuums as one species whereas chairs are another. Each brand or type of vacuum might be considered an organism, even though there might be multiples made of that type of vacuum. The survival of a brand of vacuum depends very much on how it performs versus its competition and how it performs in its context. The context for these artificial organisms is made up of factors like the economy, the industry, the consumers, the technology, etc. Independent of competition and context is chance. In nature, every once awhile in the process of duplication, random mutations occur. Mutations are often considered errors in the copying process, but help to generate variation in a gene pool. The beneficial mutations which help an organism survive go on to proliferate. The less favorable mutations become more rare because they don't aid in the organism's fitness. In design, I consider the really innovative or "blue sky" or just out-of the-box concepts to be analogous to mutations. There are ones that are more useful than others, as decided by the environment. They could have been discovered by mistake but could lead to a major change to the general trend of thought.


Looking at the history of industrial design in relation to the theories of evolution and natural selection helps me make sense of the questions raised in class. Industrialization and mass production came about in history because humans desired a more efficient method of creating products. Mass production led to these objects becoming more affordable to a greater portion of the population. Mass production is a logical progression of technological evolution if it is compared to the evolutionary goal of continuing a specific gene. Being able to make a large quantity of a particular product ensures the survival of the company as well as the survival of the product. While this method works well because it ensures a higher profit, it also leads to a homogenized population of products.


As successful as this method of production has been, there was the arts and crafts movement in the early part of the 20th century which went against industrialization. Artisans and craftsmen considered manufactured goods to be soulless and mundane. On the other hand, handcrafted objects are less affordable, less time efficient, and a lot less available than manufactured objects. Despite this, arts and crafts continue to exist on a smaller and more local scale. Last year, I worked for a local crafts center and have met and spoke to the artisans there. The craftsmen there created designs based on personal styles and interests. They were involved in every aspect of the making of what they sold. Their designs took on whatever forms the artisan dreams of instead of a form able to be machine-made. Each object they made can be considered unique. They sold what they made in craft fairs to the local community and rarely to a large population. In many ways, modern-day artisans practice the ideals set out by John Ruskin. Why do these small communities still exist? I think it's because the spirit of the process of handcrafting objects is still appreciated and desired by those able to afford it. Tourists who travel to other places like to purchase crafts infused by the local culture and made by the local people. And in the evolutionary sense, it adds diversity to the gene pool of existing products.


Also contributing to diversity are the random mutations of the product gene pool. I consider these mutations to be the innovative concepts that we see in design competitions or design labs or in student projects or purely as sketches or renderings in online blogs. They are ideas for products that might challenge the status quo or conventions of efficiency or user-friendliness. They are sometimes considered useless and might not ever make it into production. Last class in the appliance studio, I got to see a video of a toaster that launches toast like a cannon. Is the design useful or adding value to existing toasters? Not really. But the fact that these new concepts and designs exist despite their apparent "uselessness" is crucial to the evolution of industrial design. Even if an individual concept doesn't become manufactured, it doesn't mean that it was a waste of time and effort. The development of new ways of looking at design and objects shapes the direction of the evolution of products.


Basically, my point of view comes down to a very simple point. Just as genetic diversity makes for a fit population, diversity in the market of products is ultimately the best. There can't be one solution that addresses everyone or every problem. If all the designers ever cared about was affordability or efficiency, then the objects they designed might be a lot less interesting or valuable.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Week 3: Seating and the relationship between form and function

So to start off, I missed the point of the assignment of the seating timeline because mine did not originally address functionalism. My timeline was a collection of 5 chairs that were made from recycled materials. One is the Reee chair made from recycled video game consoles. Another is the Conolounge made of cardboard tubes left over from the newspaper printing process. The Meltdown Fleece Chairs and the Transit Chairs are similar in that they're both very straight forward about what materials were used to make them. The Meltdown Fleece Chair is made from unwanted fleece clothing and the Transit Chair is made from retired street signs. The last chair is the Cabbage Chair made from left over pleated materials from the manufaturing of textiles.

Making chairs out of recycled materials creates an interesting connection between its present form as a chair and its previous state as another object. For these chairs, form seems to be closely related to the type of material it's made from. In a way, the form of these chairs follows the function of the material. As for functional seating, it's easier to read the function of the Reee Chair and the Transit Chair as being chairs. The Conolounge and the Meltdown Fleece seemed more like sculptures than functional chairs at first glance. And the Cabbage Chair is a complete mystery at first. It ships as a roll and then only when unfolded does it reveal that it can function as a seat.

If Functionalism is interpreted as form follows function or form equals function, then why are there so many different forms for a seat? Is the most aesthetically pleasing chair the one that's most comfortable? Or the most durable? Or the most ergonomic? Or the most economic?

What I find most pleasing about these 5 chairs and what drew me to do a compilation of chairs made from recycled materials is the merging and transformation of a material from one purpose to another. And perhaps the notion of making chairs, which has a very specific purpose, from a recycled unrelated material in itself is a bit extraneous and inefficient and in opposition to the idea of efficiency in functionalism. But does this mean they're not aesthetically beautiful? I believe that even if an object's form doesn't completely follow function, it still can be appreciated and enjoyed.

Week 2: Lighting


The second theme is lighting. My timeline was inspired by nature so I put up fireflies as an example. They use their natural bioluminesence to communicate between themselves and to other species around them. Their light can be used to attract a mate or keep unwanted predators away. Either way, their light informs others of their position and inform others whether to come closer or keep away. Light in this example communicates position and movement and a sense of personal space. Throughout my exploration, I noticed that light is crucial in many places to define a space.

In nature, different geographic locations are heavily influenced by the quality of natural light they receive. I grew up in Beijing and remember the harsh summer sunlight from my childhood. When I came to America and settled in New England, the dramatic changes between the four seasons was defined by the changing hours and shades of daylight. A couple years ago, my strongest impression of light defining a geographic space was when I spent a summer in Anchorage, Alaska. I landed in Anchorage at 1am and saw the sun still lingering a good distance from the horizon. Seeing the midnight sun is a memory I will always remember. The last week I spent in Anchorage in late August, I was able to watch an Alaskan sunset. It was the longest and most beautiful sunset I have ever seen.

Because natural light differs so much from place to place, I chose to put light therapy in my timeline. Light therapy is basically man's answer to help those living in places where light is scarce during the winter to get exposure to a full spectrum light to keep people from feeling emotional disturbances as a result of lack of sunlight.

My other artificial examples of light relate to the sense of place and space in a way similar to the example of the firefly. These examples of light tell people of the condition of the space they are in or are approaching. The lighthouse warns mariners of rocky or potential hazardous shores. Traffic lights direct how cars and pedestrians move along roads. And flares express a person's location in order to attract help. Light in these examples inform people of how to interact with a space and how to interact with each other in a space.

Week 1: Passed/Past



For the first class, our assignment was to create a timeline related to the theme of the "passed/past." I interpreted the theme by exploring how humans have dealt with waste. I find the concept of waste to be fascinating because waste at one time was always something that was useful in another form or time and waste is something that we generate constantly. And just as the lecture talked about how people deal with people who have passed away, I decided to explore how people deal with waste, which I see as something that is past its usefulness.

I started the timeline with the wheel and the aqueduct to connect the passing of waste products to the very beginning of when people learned to transport goods or liquids from one place to another. Modern sewers was an example
of how the transportation of liquids was so useful in helping to improve sanitation by moving waste away from human living spaces. Our modern system of moving trash into a landfill is an example of moving solid waste from our homes to another location to make our living spaces more sanitary. And lastly, recyling takes the idea of simply moving waste from our living spaces to a separate treatment facility further by then turning waste into something that can be used again. In a way, recycling is like giving waste products a second life similar to how the cremated bodies could then be used to create pencils or gemstones.