Category: Weekly Tasks

The last movie I watched was Ant-man and the Wasp, so I started by attempting this title; however, unable to find a wasp emoji, I gave up fairly quickly. So my next strategy was to try out titles of my favourite movies/TV shows. After several dire attempts (Everything Everywhere, All at Once!), the compromises I would have to make started sinking in, and I finally settled on a title.

Although my initial start was quite literal (with the title), I gave up on this approach relatively fast. Instead, I focused on capturing the bigger picture or synopsis of the show, so there was definitely no consideration of syllables. Rather, I tried to combine depicting some key characteristics of the protagonist with the ‘big idea’ of the narrative. I don’t think anyone unfamiliar with the show’s plot could guess it based on my emojis alone!

The task was more complicated than I had initially anticipated, and my version ended up being briefer than I expected. However, in my view, emojis are not entirely ‘universal.’ They can be misinterpreted more often than read accurately (especially if the sender and receiver do not know each other well), so I opted for the ‘less is more’ approach.

Despite the challenges, this was a beneficial task to perform. I found it an intriguing way to connect to the Kress reading, where “the dominant modes of representation of speech and writing are being pushed to the margins of representation and replaced at the centre by the mode of image and by others” (pg. 17, 2005), others here being emojis. However, when reflecting on the “question of gains and losses, in the move from one mode and its arrangements to another mode and its different arrangements” (pg.16), as well as the “aptness of fit between mode and audience” (pg. 19), I did feel the use of emojis for this task resulted in a loss of richness and depth of narrative for the plot. This might, however, be because I am not a good ‘designer’ of emoji communication (just as someone might not be a great musician despite knowing how to play music) and could not effectively transform the intended meaning into the new semiotic landscape.

Reference:

Kress, G. (2005), Gains and losses: New forms of texts, knowledge, and learning. Computers and Composition, 2(1), 5-22.

Prompt: Describe or narrate a scenario about a piece of clothing found a generation into a future in which society as we know it has come apart. Your description should address issues related to citizenship and elicit feelings of excitement.

In the Almost-Now, machines and AI manufacture everything with perfect cold precision. As a result, VR is the norm, and every body is encased in the perfected ‘Teslasuit.’ These skintight suits use integrated EMS (Electro Muscular Stimulation) to allow wearers to feel and experience any desirable motion or sensation. A second skin per se and necessary to communicate with the synced-in smart environment surrounding us whether at home, work or play, these suits are durable, hygienic and indestructible with self-repairing capabilities so that one will suffice for a lifetime. Waterproof, tear-proof, with built-in features to take care of waste excretion or other physical needs, they need never come off. With the advanced version of ZOZO’s built-in 3D scanning tech, the suit grows with the individual, and when the encased body expires, this vital casing integrates Infinity Mushrooms tech to biodegrade the corpse into the environment safely.

In the Almost-Now, democratic socialism has taken over and class privilege has ceased, the state issues these unisex suits to every child at birth, playing an important role in unifying the masses with a choice of standard black, white and grey coating. 

But recent events have disturbed the status quo. The discovery of an ancient relic has instigated unrest and awakened primal desires thought long-forgotten. An obsolete cloth – hand-marked, hand-woven, rough to the touch, physical, torn, coloured, weathered and frail. An ode to a reality bygone, weighted with stories untold of girl and boy, man and beast, sacred and profane, belonging, longing and separation.

Advanced AI has partially uncoded this crude tapestry of an outdated reality, and on popular demand, it will soon be available for upload into new and existing Teslasuits for trial runs. Users will now be able to vir/partially experience the culture and emotions of the primitives that created this simple object and speculate on the rudimentary nature of their existence.  

 

References:

Kapfunde, M. (n.d.). Muchaneta Kapfunde. https://fashnerd.com/2017/11/zozosuit-hitech-fashion-tech-wearable/

MacDonald, F. (2016, February 16). This Mushroom Suit Digests Your Body After You Die : ScienceAlert. ScienceAlert. https://www.sciencealert.com/this-mushroom-suit-digests-your-body-after-you-die

Teslasuit. (2022, December 2). Full Body VR Haptic Suit with Motion Capture | TESLASUIT. https://teslasuit.io/products/teslasuit-4/

V2_ Lab for the Unstable Media. (n.d.). V2_ Lab for the Unstable Media. https://v2.nl/works/the-mushroom-death-suit

Reflection:

I loved the reading and the assigned task this week, probably because of my background in architecture and design. Many of the references in the assigned reading were familiar to me, and the purpose of speculative design resonated firmly once placed in the historical timeline of the development of the design industry via the Beyond Speculative Design: Past, Present – Future reading (2021). 

I primarily used the diagram from Chapter 2 (Mitrović et al., pg. 27, 2021) to structure my methodology for this task, as it made a lot of sense. So I tried to root the scenario firmly in existing technologies but then extrapolated “to create a modified version of the world” (pg.28) while still trying to maintain “plausibility.” I also introduced relevant-to-me social and cultural issues but left these open-ended and finally tried to end in a circle right back at the start… with the speculated now speculating. 

Reference:

Mitrović, I., Auger, J., Hanna, J., & Helgason, I. (2021). Beyond Speculative Design: Past, Present – Future.

“Algorithms are nothing more than opinions embedded in code.”
(Cathy O’Neil in Talks at Google, 2016)

“A machine-learning algorithm can’t tell the difference between being morally good, neutral or unjust forms of bias, so that’s something humans have to be much more careful about.”
(Shannon Vallor in McRaney, 2018)

The Detain/Release simulation was a fascinating yet unsettling and disturbing task that revealed much about how flawed the judicial system seems to be. 

While going through the simulation, I had many questions and needed more information on individual cases. For example, if the crime was theft, then of what exactly? What was the nature of the robbery? Not all offences are of the same rank, as the case of the 18-year-old who tried to ride a six-year-old’s bicycle to school, demonstrated in the McRaney (2018) podcast. How was the level of expected violence or crime of the defendants determined? What factors determined the recommendations of the prosecution? So much critical information related to the context of these human lives was missing. I also became more acutely aware of my own biases, releasing women (perhaps they were mothers?) and instinctively assuming they were ‘less dangerous’ than men.

Each click to Detain or Release was burdened by the idea that these decisions would have far-reaching effects on real human lives. 

The process raised the question: Can machine code integrate human context and compassion critical to these decision-making processes? The answer is no, so these algorithms must be used cautiously, with wisdom and ethically-guided human supervision.

From the podcasts I listened to this week, much stood out. Now that algorithms are becoming pervasive in virtually every sphere of life, from banking, shopping, policing, and transportation to education etc., then Data Ethics – a super-critical domain today – must be prioritized. Transparency must be demanded. 

“Before we start talking about machine morality, we have to think about human morality, that is, the morality of the people designing the machines..”
(Shannon Vallor in McRaney, 2018)

References:

McRaney, D. (Host). (2018, November 21). Machine Bias (rebroadcast) (no. 140). [Audio podcast episode]. In You Are Not so Smart. SoundCloud. 

Talks at Google. (2016, November 2). Weapons of math destruction | Cathy O’Neil | Talks at Google. [Video]. YouTube.

This was an incredibly frustrating exercise.

Having read and watched the week’s assigned content, I thought I would be up to the task and intuitively knew what was to come; despite this, I was amazed at how infuriated the poorly designed user interface made me feel. As well as the chafing reminder of how much time is wasted navigating such things in real-life scenarios and the manipulative techniques embedded within them.

I attempted the game several times during the week and never finished it despite trying my level best. At first, I thought that was deliberate, and the game was designed to be a never-ending loop of madness and folly upon which to reflect… but hats off to Amy Stiff! When I checked her post for this task, lo and behold, she had finished it! Perhaps others have too (I stopped checking after Amy’s post verified my inadequacy :). This led me firmly to the conviction that I must not be human because that was the stage of the game/task I could not cross – selecting pictures to prove my human-ness.

Completing the form was annoying and frustrating as intended, but also an informative, practical exercise in the dark patterns described by Brignull (2011). I could not help but compare this experience to other online interfaces with similar tactics I had been susceptible to in the past, especially those involving financial transactions.

Misleading buttons, incorrect highlights, dubious language, and hard-to-fill (if not impossible) forms giving no indication or feedback regarding how to proceed or what exactly the problem is.

I found Brignull’s article particularly intriguing because of his references to ethical design. I studied architecture and design in the 90s when design ethics were inseparable from design education and taught integrally within it, never considered outside of it. The default (unchallenged) premise was that designers have a moral responsibility to ensure benefit and not cause harm to their end-users. Tristan Harris (featured this week for his TED talk) worked as a design ethicist at Google (Wikipedia, 2022), and Pickering (2021) writes that a design ethicist is “someone who evaluates the moral implications of design decisions and takes responsibility for the effect those decisions have on the world at large.”

There seems to be a shift in where the weight or responsibility of design ethics lies, and I wonder how and in what ways design education and recent developments within it may have contributed to this transformation.

 

References:

Brignull, H. (2011). Dark patterns: Deception vs. honesty in UI design.Links to an external site. A List Apart, 338.

Pickering, M. (2021, December 29). How to be a design ethicist at any company – UX Collective. Medium. https://uxdesign.cc/how-to-be-a-design-ethicist-at-any-company-f166b2f34ecd

Wikipedia contributors. (2022, December 4). Tristan Harris. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristan_Harris

 

(Image: Courtesy NASA/JPL – Caltech).

My main takeaway from this exercise was the crucial reminder that information/knowledge and its presentation is biased, curated and limited. 

As reminded earlier in Module 1.5 – Thinking about Text and Technology (UBC, n.d.), since the days of the printing press (and perhaps even earlier), people were inclined to think of anything ‘published’ as absolute: “As an authoritative entity, text is often thought of as fixed or immutable— something we can interpret but not change.” Growing up, I never considered questioning the information I found in my textbooks. But this perspective has undoubtedly shifted with the onslaught of info, the “tsunami of data” (Wurman, 1996) in the digital era, and the multiplicity of fragmented voices on the Internet and social media. 

In this context, it isn’t easy to imagine an endeavour like the Golden Record occurring today in the same manner as in 1972. “Conflicts over texts are often proxies for wider questions of power relations. They involve what people hold most dear ” (Apple, 1992) and as Apple stated, “All too often, “legitimate” knowledge does not include the historical experiences and cultural expressions of labor, women, people of color, and others who have been less powerful” (1992). These statements were made about text and knowledge as cultural artifacts, and so I feel they are apt for the Golden Record too, “a kind of time capsule, intended to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials,” according to the official NASA Voyager website (Voyager – The Golden Record. (n.d.). However, whose world story is being told depends on who the storyteller is – “particular constructions of reality, particular ways of selecting and organizing that vast universe of possible knowledge. They embody what Raymond Williams called selective tradition—someone’s selection, someone’s vision of legitimate knowledge and culture, one that in the process of enfranchising one group’s cultural capital disenfranchises another’s” (Apple, 1992).

A more appropriate approach would certainly be the one promoted by Dr. Smith Rumsey (Brown University, 2017) in the example of Carter Woodson, where representation is determined from within a culture or community in ways they deem fit and fair.

Reflecting on the network data for this exercise, they provided a visualization of results but not the reasoning behind them. Therefore, I had to go back and read individual posts to determine why some tracks were more popular than others in this particular group. However, based on my personal process of track selection, I feel that even the posts do not tell the entire story. A plethora of events, experiences, emotions, perceptions and beliefs dictate our choices and their variations, and we can only claim these as our own biased and limited responses to our specific situations.

References:

Apple, M. W. (1992). The text and cultural politics. Educational Researcher, 21(7), 4-19.

Brown University. (2017, July 11). Abby Smith Rumsey: “Digital memory: What can we afford to lose?” [Video]. YouTube. 

The University of British Columbia. (n.d.). [1.5] Thinking about Text and Technology. https://canvas.ubc.ca/courses/107180/pages/1-dot-5-thinking-about-text-and-technology?module_item_id=5148817

Voyager – The Golden Record. (n.d.). https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/golden-record/

Wurman, R. S. (1996). Information architects. Graphis.

Image Credit: Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech. https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/timeline/#event-the-first-science-meeting

 

 

 

My selection of 10:

1. Senegal, percussion, recorded by Charles Duvelle. 2:08
2. Australia, Aborigine songs, “Morning Star” and “Devil Bird,” recorded by Sandra LeBrun Holmes. 1:26
3. Japan, shakuhachi, “Tsuru No Sugomori” (“Crane’s Nest,”) performed by Goro Yamaguchi. 4:51
4. Georgian S.S.R., chorus, “Tchakrulo,” collected by Radio Moscow. 2:18
5. Azerbaijan S.S.R., bagpipes, recorded by Radio Moscow. 2:30
6. Beethoven, Fifth Symphony, First Movement, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, conductor. 7:20
7. Navajo Indians, Night Chant, recorded by Willard Rhodes. 0:57
8. Peru, wedding song, recorded by John Cohen. 0:38
9. China, ch’in, “Flowing Streams,” performed by Kuan P’ing-hu. 7:37
10. India, raga, “Jaat Kahan Ho,” sung by Surshri Kesar Bai Kerkar. 3:30

This was a challenge; deciding what ‘we can afford to lose’ is a daunting task!

I tried to take a geographical approach to selection and cover major continents, as well as trying to temper this with a wider diversity of culture. I also leaned more towards selecting tracks that were less word or language-based and more instrumental. I was super-aware of my own biases during the selection process and this was in no way an ‘objective’ exercise with a definite preference for more tribal or ‘raw’ sounds over the more ‘classical’ ones.

This exercise was engaging with an unexpected process and surprising results/discoveries. Since the task emphasized an audio format, I did a simple line trace of my original image and chose to rethink my handbag objects in a more aural context. In some instances, without meaning to, this led me to a more personal and visceral expression of an idea and Postman’s notion of new technologies changing “the character of our symbols: the things we think with” (2011) resonated powerfully. Compared to the initial execution of this task, this version is messier, more intimate, abstract/confusing and less guarded. Much of this I would attribute to the change from purely writing to aural/multimodal.

After reading the New London Group’s manifesto and the idea that literacy pedagogy must now “account for the context of our culturally and linguistically diverse and increasingly globalized societies” (pg. 61, 1996), I was encouraged to explore parts of the task in my native language, something I have never done before. The medium of education and instruction has always been English throughout my life, so my innate (and unchallenged) assumption is that anything academic must be in English. Switching from writing to other modes opened up endless possibilities for exploring alternative expressions of my ideas – such as the sound of traffic. A simple idea with different representations depending on where in the world you are or which ‘lifeworld’ (The New London Group, pg. 70, 1996) you occupy.

Another example: when trying to depict the mouth freshener from ‘a taste of home,’ I did look up the Blue Ribbon jingle but found it too cheesy and commercial. It did not tally up with my feelings for this unique cultural item. So instead, I cut a short audio clip from an interesting YouTube video of a Pakistani man living in New York who ‘unboxes’ this quintessential Pakistani flavour and unexpectedly finds fifty Pakistani rupees inside. This would be worth about 19 cents in American currency, but his joy at the discovery is priceless.

This sound clip notably allowed me to think about identity and online presence at a metacognitive level, especially the idea that “meaning-makers remake themselves. They reconstruct and renegotiate their identities” (New London Group, pg. 76, 1996). Here is an elderly Pakistani man living in New York, with his own (popular) YouTube Channel, having difficulty reading English, ‘unboxing’ a distinctively Pakistani product that he seems utterly unfamiliar with. Added to this is the ‘intertextuality’ between my reading of this cultural artifact and his, which “draws attention to the increasingly complex ways in which meanings are constituted through relationships to other texts.. narratives, and other modes of meaning” (New London Group, pg. 82, 1996).

The new artifact still speaks my stories but in a different language than before, one which is perhaps less universal and more particular to me.

 

References:

Postman, N. (2011). Technopoly: The surrender of culture to technology. Knopf Doubleday Publishing. (Original work published 1992)

Sabir New York. (2021, February 13). Pakistan pan masala | Pakistani gift | blue robbin pan masala [Video file]. YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vja83KLQXZs

The New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review 66(1), 60-92.

For this task, I used the trial versions of two different speech-to-text software: Speechmatics and Amberscripts.
I chose to speak about a recent travelling experience with my family during the winter break of 2022. Unfortunately, the first script cut off abruptly because the free version had a short time limit.

Speechmatics:
Length: 00:01:38

We were. We were meant to travel to the Dubai and we travelled on Christmas Day because thetickets were cheaper. The first thing that happened was we had a layover at Paris Airport and itwas completely deserted. Nothing was open. We couldn't get any food. There was just oneStarbucks coffee shop opened with very limited options and our flight got delayed so wemissed our flight got delayed because of the storm and Toronto. So we missed our connectingflight in Paris and ended up with the layover being even longer than we expected. And our nextflight out to Dubai from Paris was about 12 hours later. So we just spent the whole day 25th ofDecember on Christmas Day at Paris Airport. Eventually, when we did get on the plane, therewas a problem with our seats, but thankfully that got resolved. And then when we arrived atDubai Airport, all our luggage was lost on the fit. We had about eight cases because we wereattending a wedding and we had all our wedding clothes and everything in there. All eightsuitcases got lost and they didn't even find them. Later on, all together. So we didn't get thosefor a couple of days. And that was quite troubling. We got two of the suitcases back later andthen every day, one more suitcase.

Amberscript:
Length: 00:03:43

So the last time we traveled, there was a bit of a fiasco. There were five of us traveling, and it was for the winter break, 2022. We had to go to Dubai to attend my nephew's wedding, and there were five of us. My three children and my partner and myself traveling. So we tried to get the most economically feasible tickets and we ended up flying on on the night of the 24th, but technically the 25th of December, Christmas Day. And there was a storm there was a storm in Toronto that day. So that really added to the whole, you know, experience. And our flight got delayed because of that by several hours. So by the time we finally got on the plane, we arrived late in Paris and live and we ended up missing our connecting flight. So we had to stay there for another. The next flight was we were supposed to catch one in the morning. Instead, we ended up having to take one at 9 p.m. at night. The airport was completely deserted. Nothing was opened. It was hardly any people there. Barely one Starbucks open. And that too, with very little options. Basic coffee and a croissant, perhaps. But, you know, we were all together and we were okay. So that was an experience. Eventually, we got on that flight and ended up in Dubai, where we waited for quite a while before we found out that our bags were lost and actually had been possibly sent back to Canada. And so we had to go home without any luggage. We had eight suitcases and of course the wedding was coming up and all our clothes and preparations were in there. So that took a while because the suitcases did not all arrive back together. We got to after a day or two and then another one and then another one. We had to keep following them. It was quite it was quite hectic and a little bizarre because we had no idea which suitcase was where in the world eventually took a week for all the suitcases to come in. And that was quite an interesting experience. We traveled on Air Canada for part of the flight and Emirates Airline for the other half of the flight to Dubai. The service was all right. I guess once we got to the bye, things got better. And Emirates kind of really handled the situation really well. They they really tried to help us a lot, especially with the luggage. And they had them The luggage was actually then eventually in pieces delivered to the house. I guess traveling on Christmas Day did not help our cause much. Yeah.

There are many grammatical errors in the transcription, but I was impressed with Amberscript’s ability to interpret my speech and add punctuation quite accurately. In addition, both software could eliminate my vocal disfluencies (filler words such as ‘um’ and ‘ah’); perhaps because I speak fast, Speechmatics could not separate many of my spoken words, Amberscript did a much better job of this.

There are more grammatical errors, missing punctuation, incomplete sentences and repetition in speech, which the transcript clearly shows. In addition, the sentences are either too choppy and short or too long and repetitive. This is because writing relies on many conventions to achieve a ‘flow’ in the script, such as subordinate clauses and transitional phrases, which are often missing in speech, a less precise, transient, informal and more immediate medium. We consider these ‘mistakes’ in the written format because we are integrally conditioned in a literate society to write a certain way from a very young age. This literacy is associated with being adequately educated and assimilated as a functioning and cultured member of civilized society. Natural speech does not integrate this ‘literacy’ unless deliberated and practiced.

Also missing from the transcript is the tone, timbre, volume, pace and timing of my voice, which I use to convey the emotional context of this anecdote. It was also interesting to note that the second time around recording my speech, I was more structured in my delivery and remembered more detail.

Overall, writing seems akin to a premeditated, orchestrated murder as opposed to speech that is more of an accidental, brutal, raw, passioned act of violence. In the former, consequences are thought out; clues are still embedded leading back to the perpetrator, but only someone skilled in the craft can interpret them. Reading over the transcription of my speech and then my written notes/analysis on them, it seems like two different voices or personas, the second more controlled and ordered for public consumption. In this sense, this task is similar to the ‘What’s in my bag’ undertaking, juxtaposing two different portrayals of self (one more self-conscious than the other) and what this reveals about the individual.