The Exhibition

I created an area for everyone to slow down, take a breath, read the slow manifest and just create space for themselves.

The poster gave basic information about the project and how sPACE worked and there was a working prototype showing how paceMaker and Buggy interacted with each other.

 

Umeå Universitet, UMU. Designhögskolan. Examensutställningar.

Report writing

Here I am, sitting in front of the computer once more (like every single day), dedicated to write my report! Instead I start reading Zenhabits, not just because I am a procrastinator, but because I know there always comes something to help. Funny enough, the latest post is called “How I Tackle a Big Writing Project“. Perfect!! Reading through it, I realized once more, how things are actually in flow and that it is my fears, my worries and future predictions that block me from acting.

I have struggled about the subject first: ” Maybe I am the only one that feels the need to slow down? Am I making a project out of my incapabilities of focusing and producing in a high rate?”. I started talking to people, asking them about their paces, their balances in life, rhythms, what makes them fast, what makes them slow. I realized I wasn’t the only one feeling “rushed” but at the same time most people did not want to slow down. Slow had bad connotations: Lazy, stupid, inefficient, late.. Especially in work situations, slowing down meant risking your work, risking to be perceived unwilling. Business was after all busyness. Being busy meant being important, so busyness became a way to prove how good you were in your work. “Oh I was at work/school until 3:00am yesterday” became a phrase to be used to tell how dedicated you were. But then people opened up slowly, someone that was compaining that her collegue was not fast enough, later told me “I do the same task 3 times, because I always have to make it fast, so it always have some mistakes that I need to correct on the next version”.  Another person working with sales underlined how he liked the fast lifestyle then confessed that he is having panic attacks due to this fastness created by his job.

So, I got over the insecurities about the subject. There was a deep down need to take a step back and ask “where or what are we running to?”. At this point of the project I was also trying to slow down myself, so I also tried to get a good understanding of different methods that could be used in design. Slow design was one of the most popular topics I

Slowing down in itself required mindfulness and focusing. For the longest time I had believed that focusing would take away the spontaneity of the process, what good is creative process if you don’t do exploration, right?? Close to the end of my project I realized (albeit a bit late) that exploration is nice when not done in a 20 week project with dedicated time slots. Exploration apperantly is better done when looking for a topic and not when trying to fit into a schedule.. Hmm wait, that didn’t work either. I am still trying to figure out the balance of focusing vs being spontaneous.

Focusing and letting go: Don’t put the plans, don’t put the goals. But when you are doing something, focus on doing that thing. Bring all your attention to that single task. And when another task arises (that is not due to your distractedness or fears) see if you are more excited about doing that task. Check with yourself regularly, are you excited about what you are doing still. Continue with the task until you are tired or you can’t avoid the distractions any more. Take a break to enjoy your satisfaction :)) Repeat every day. Set aside time to do it everyday. Have a “quite own zone”. Aside from that zone of yours, be open to new experiences, enjoy each moments as they come. These feel still contradicting to me, but try and see how they actually go hand in hand.

Report writing: Start with the intro, continue to use your research report and move on the the rest. One step at a time.

A speculative story

slwo

As life got faster and faster, the complexity of it increased. It started with consumption of the resources, then relationships and finally time. Designers and engineers kept working to create tools that will help people cope with this high pace life, making all the tasks less time consuming to allow the consumption of more… and more.. and more.. By 2015 people were already buried under the digital speed, by 2020 ubiquitous computing, ease of data access and productivity requirements due to the increased competition made the attention span so little, that anything that was “in”today was “out” tomorrow.

Usability and user friendliness became highly important to avoid all the friction by making the interactions smooth and seamless. Computers started reacting to your needs just merely by thought processing and new services popped up every day to bring you the world in the comfort of your house. The loss of friction had an unexpected effect, it was killing the opportunity of reflection and depth. Even though, it was a naturally occurring course, the industrialized system made good use of this.

Designers got better at producing even more user friendly tools, such as computers that react to youwithout you even stating what you need or services that bring you everything you need in the comfort of your home, interactions offered less and less friction which in turn left no chance for reflection. The smoothness of the tasks raised the expectations for humans to be more like machines. The increasing pace of a human life after the industrialization continued its acceleration where eventually it reached a point where anyone that didn’t reach to the pace of the machine was considered to be useless to the society.

The world did not become robotized at once, but human to human interactions (HHI) started decreasing drastically, since computers and smart devices did not lose time through those kind of interactions. Work/ life balance slowly disappeared as remote working, mobile technologies and brain implants became commonplace, leaving you no place to hide from the work. Even when for some wicked reason, you didn’t get any work related messages, you were lulled to a passive state due to the social cloud apps that came preinstalled with the implants.

HHI regulations put an end to face to face meetings and casual chatter, which in turn turned all the relationships into busiships (a business relationship, much like what we know as networking today) where you were free to buy and sell busis (the business friends) depending on their qualities work. It was far from being a currency, but if your busi was putting someone for sale, it meant a huge drop in their sociodigital credibility. Since face to face interactions diminished noticeably, the connection had to be made via the

Many of the activities that once was considered as daily practices such as going out for a walk, talking with a friend and even religious affairs started to get integrated into the work life. In fact, for a while the workspace was considered to be the sanctuary of modern life. just like the ancient deities, the material gods asked for services and sacrifices, which resulted in the creation of Workship Lines in every office where workers sacrificed their times in assembly lines.  The holy Book of Fast entitled many principles such as “You stop you die!”, “Don’t you want to be something, more than anything?” and “Nobody will like you unless you win the race”.

It was that, the workship lines that led the system to fail. Due to the dullness of the ritual, the workshippers started getting into a more meditative state of mind. This in turn caused the brain implants to malfunction, leaving silence instead of the non-ending hum of the social cloud. In the silence, people started finding themselves. Small revolts started here and there and everywhere. The food pill movement was the first, followed by many, but the story we will tell now is about a small (in fact they were only 2, Shane Huxley and Maureen Sade) order named “Slow New World”.

slwo2
The activities of the slow new world, started from where they were the most: the office. There were many offices in the town, but this particular office was a design office and it was called “the factory” due to the endless working hours of the employees. The “designers” were still able to work with only 1 day off in 3 months and they were preprogrammed in their brains to feel guilty and sinful when they took the time for reading a book. The factory was where all the smoothness was created. It worked like a clock and even the creativity was standardized, so that they could do more without thinking or going deeper…

Due to the policy “Report Inefficiency”, they were highly monitored so they all worked separately to bring a change to the office. 

Shane Huxley was a guy in his sixties and remembered how it all started. He was one of the very happy kids that got his first computer but he never expected things to become this way. He grew up in a family with long dinners accompanied with chatters and laughter. But the more devices that were introduced, the less time they had for chatting. He remembered very clearly the day his mother bought a washing machine, both his mother and father seemed to be very pleased by this amazing. Until that day, he and his father washed the dishes while his mother prepared the “after dinner tea”, but the ads clearly promised that they will “save time that you can later on use to spend quality time with your family”. After that day, there were always dishes to wash, kitchen to clean and that promise of “saved time” never came. The night before he left to join the work force, he was stuffing “responsibly produced chicken wings that are not really chickens nor wings” to his mouth, alone but connected in his room, typing and texting while watching the latest episode of some well-known series. He texted his parents goodbye as he left the door, never to come back again. Not until that day while he was workshipping in the booknomore line where they disassembled old books to create fast reading pieces out of them, he was reminded of a book that his father read him slowly, savoring each word and taking his time every night, spending time to make the book just more interesting. His understanding of “spent time” shifted that day and he craved for deeper interactions that revealed slowly.

(Principle of choice: Reveal. Creating interactions that stretch the time or reveal instances from everyday life. Thinking about the experience rather than efficiency. Creation: E-brynth – a slower interaction with the messages you receive in your smart devices. E-brynth is a palm sized creation that is connected to your device via an induction magnet. When you receive a message, it requires you to move a ball to the center of a labyrinth. The same applies when you want to send a message. Main motivation: Bringing back the care and consciousness to the digital HHI situations, since physical HHI is somewhat impossible to achieve in a heartbeat)

Maurelle Sade was born to this era. Her time was spent in the playground centers where kids were collected together in big buildings and taught how to “play efficiently”. In these centers not only they learnt how to build busiships, the children were also protected from the dangers of the outside world. They were always given a task which was evaluated by the time they complete it, so they learnt fast that it was never about the value, but the time. Maureen was a curious kid with pouring creativity but long hours of play buried these traits down deep inside. She grew up to be a gentle, silent member of the society and forgot what it was like to create. Not until one day she was workshiping in the thought extraction line (because talking was no longer efficient enough) emerged deeply into the assembly of suction poles, which were made by the combination of birch extract (trees have amazing thought extraction properties, one may notice how their thoughts become clear and light when they sit by a tree for some time) and nano carbon tubes. While she was separating the birch bark into tiny bits, her motions slowed down and she got a splinter. Instinctively she took her hand to her mouth and at that moment she could smell, taste and feel the tree. From that moment on, a fire to bring nature closer kindled in her, never to fade away.

(Principle of choice: Reflect. Reconnecting us to the environment around us and become aware of the moment. Creation: Naturalize – a carpet that reflects the outside world. Walking on the carpet gives you audio and sensory feedback on the season and weather outside. When you step on the carpet, it feels like walking on dry leaves or snow. Main motivation: The phrase “walk like your feet is kissing the ground”. Since going outside during work hours is strictly forbidden, she aims to remind people of the rhythms of the outside world.)

The SNW order worked undercover in the office to deliver their message and hack people’s workspaces. They also have a little book called “thoughts on slow” which they wrote at the back of the electronic packaging, using a poorly made carbon structure that acts as a pen (since the use of physical pen and paper has long forgotten, with the hands only familiar to typing or even just voice recognition). 

slwo3
The activities of SNW has unfortunately been found out by the work force and the founders were exiled. Their creations were somehow saved by some of the followers but never to be used again. Their book “thoughts on slow” has been an inspiration to many and even though the order was terminated the ripple effect of their ideas and principles continued long after they were gone.

slwo4

Meta Design

Yes, we do user centered design but where is the desiger himsellf lies in this picture. We cannot say that the designer don’t put himself completely in his product. No designer designs what the user wants, but what they think the user wants. We are hightly integrated in our designs. (but i think that wasnt the point i was trying to make.)

We talk about the sustainability of design, sustainability of the work we do. But what about the sustainability of the worker, the designer? If we continue pushing ourselves through deadlines, take fast decisions, contribute to a cirlce that we don’t even know if we wanted to contribute’ because we never had the chance to reflect, will we last?`When will the burnout come? Put aside the late nights, no breaks and carrying your work with you all day, the fact that you need to create a design that you aim to change the world with, in a few months? wouldn’t you really want to put some more time in? or some more depth? understanding? engaging? what happens to your designs after you make them? yes, we do user tests during the process. but what about after? have you ever followed up with your design? how did it touch people, how did people interact with your design?

 

Workshop: Fast Virus

We had a fun workshop today! The participants were asked to first identify the symptoms and how the virus may have spread. They were then split in 3 groups; two representing slow activists and one representing the fast system. They were all asked to create kits to promote their values (the activists to cure the fastness disease and the system to spread it).  Funnily enough the behaviour of the groups was interestingly parallel to the roles they were assigned to. The system group loudly stated how they were enjoying the activity and started producing various tools very fast, whereas the activist groups brainstormed for possible solutions before taking action to produce.

The fast kits aimed at emotional behavior and included a “holy book of fastness”, herbal mixture for “premature ejacuation as a fashion statement” and slogans/posters with the hidden threat of exclusion from the society if you are not fast enough. Targetting of emotions made me realize the invisible fastness choices we make everyday without reflecting because it was more “acceptable” and triggered the ideas of making them visible.

The slow kits included tunnel vision glasses to avoid multitasking, booster break boxes that hide the computer mouse or motion limitation objects. “Bringing limitations to slow down” fuelled up interesting discussions on choosing your own pace vs being forces to slow down and the findings from these discussions paved the path to my later concepts.

Key Findings and questions:

Fastness is the norm and more accepted – How to make slowing down more attractive?
Fast choices kill the opportunity of reflection – How can we make the choices visible?
Fast is fun! – How can we make slow more fun?
Limitations make you slow down – How to balance the choice and the force?

DSC03457

DSC03474 DSC03483 des1 DSC03445 DSC03448

Council

DSC03433

Today with a few classmates, we had a small circle council about design processes. For those who don’t know what council is I have a small definition:

Council is an old method of space creating for people to freely introduce their thoughts and feelings on a subject. The participants sit in a circle for everyone to have an equal position and a talking object is introduced to the group, so only the person with the talking object can speak. This provides a free space for that person to go deeper in his/her explanation but at the same time allows for other people to build on the subject. The Way of Council.reGeneration.

I discovered this method during my time in Turkey, for effective communication to build communities, especially after the revolt movement created a need for an equal base for vocalizing opinions. Here are what came out of our little session:

  • “It takes a long time to figure out what design is and you need to fail a lot to learn from it.”
  • “Design process is messy and there are times when you thing “oh shit, what will I do” but it somehow turns out okay.”
  • “You need to have a good reason to put time into making a prototype. You need to know the “why”. It is so not simple and so not repetitive. Depends on the process and project.”
  • “There will be ups and downs, it’s inevitable. You know you’re going to fail but view it as an opportunity to grow, since it is hard to progress as a designer without failing.”
  • Letting go and discovering your own methods of working.
  • “You need to explain the reasons behind your decisions. You need to reflect on your perspective and thought.”
  • “I’m overwhelmed with all the ideas I have and I am afraid to select the simple ones. Cause when I pick the simple thing people may think that I may not think more complex. Using the process to show intellect or to convince people that I am a good problem solver but it is not just about that!”
  • “I always dependent on others to validate my ideas before I moved on. Freelancing benefitted me, being on my own and having no one in the same sphere helped me to trust my own ideas. Even though I’m confident on my decisions questioning the decisions from the feedback of others is important for me.”