Desk crit feedback:
- What impact do you want to have with this project?
- Start thinking about what is the final outcome?, and make it visible, what those possibilities are:
- communication or visualization of how this all works — a guide book to this new medium
- then need the test of that output, how it might manifest, and last as culminating phase of the project
- radical conceptualization of the built environment?
- staging new kinds of events? to re-think about captive audience compare to the past? - By making the leap from these analysis, and take the audience into the idea that people can enjoy that speculation
- Test it, then carry on with design fiction (real – because it’s possible – social network) then speculative/fantastical outcome of that)
- politics of resolutions (act of scanning is non-neutral)
- media flow contrast to least surveilled - Also, think of different aspect to what that “fantastical” can be. Example, thinking of it from the satellite as a subject as a proposal, as oppose to the performance on the Earth (?) (public owned satellites, from satellite’s perspective?)
Reflection:
What meaning does it have, when I claim the rhetorical function of the satellite images as a communication tool — a land-surface base, public voice?
- applying flash-mob to transient people/space
What type of narrative/literary method would be appropriate in building geospatial literacy? (a guide book to satellite as medium)
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Thesis Paper (Rough Draft)
ThesisDraft_BoraShin
Read Moreterra incognita
(a short story exercise)
There have been heavy rains for days. The vast field behind Agbogbloshie, has turned into a thick, muddy swamp due to the rain.
Sporadically you see large groups of black smoke, appearing through out the field, covering the blue sky. The sky is blue and clear, yet, looking up from the ground field , it is hard to find a small glimpse, a window, into the blueness of the sky.
You see women, men, and young children who busily sift through mounds after mounds, scavenging for something. The soundscape on this field doesn’t seem too out of the ordinary. After paying close attention, you recognize sounds similar to that which you would find in a park centered in a metropolitan area – an abrasive mix of the noise of busy cars, construction sites, people’s chit chat, and conversations between kids and parents.
This place is located on the outskirts of the biggest city in Ghana, known as Accra. It’s one of the biggest e-waste lands found in west Africa. Rainy days like this with mud so thick it can pull the shoes from your feet — if you’re lucky enough to have shoes.
Adults and children rummage and rake the mounds of electronic debris that cover the landscape.
Recently, they’ve been finding unfamiliar scraps of bright pieces of plastic debris, unlike the ones they usually find, like monitor cases, keyboards, and hard-drive casings. The children have especially been attracted to bright colors, inspiring them to collect them even though they can only extract small amounts of metals and copper from the electronic cables often attached on the edges of the pieces they find.
Since the day a group of kids put them together during their break, they discovered a hint as to what this unfamiliar object may be.
While some guess it is a large scale toy air-plane that accidentally had been delivered to the field, others guess that it is a huge umbrella. A group of kids recently put one together, finding pieces by colors, matching the pieces together. It almost made up a shape of a square, with the size of about 25 x 25 inches. Another group of kids had been on a mission to put one together, as well. Their color is bright blue. It took awhile for them to put the blue pieces together since they keep finding it while they collect electronic debris during their work hours.
Finally the blue piece is put together, and it also appears to be a square, but this one is huge in size, about 160 x 160 inches. Kids were excited that they can fit about 30 kids underneath it and if it rains like the other day, all 30 kids can escape from the rain, if it is an umbrella as some guessed.
In the field behind Agbogbloshie, that’s the new scene you often find kids do during their break time. Collecting colorful plastic pieces and putting them together. Often finding them in groups pretending to make the colorful square fly, some next to each other, others, alone.
Statement V.4.3
Terra Incognita of the Spectacle (working title)
In the 1960s US first established the electro-optical digital transmission imaging technology through military surveillance satellite, allowing to monitor Soviet in realtime post WWII. These images dramatically improved U.S. knowledge of Soviet including other nations’ capabilities and activities through the aerial geospatial imaging,1 holding exclusive rights for governmental militaristic use only.
In the 70‘s, the launch of ERTS (Earth Resources Technology Satellite) shifted the use of this technology — expanding the knowledge of environmental states — no satellite program has ever proved more important than ERTS.2 By the year 1992, The Land Remote Sensing Policy Act extended the wide possible use for the remote sensing data, allowing now all people with the internet access to satellite images, revolutionizing the geospatial knowledge of every citizen.
This tool of knowledge led to fascinations producing peculiar, conspirative, mythical, and commercialized documentation on the geospatial landscape.
These I believe are the phenomenon derived conjunction in access to granular information with humanly desire to leave evidence of one’s existence. It is the spectacle of the 21st century.
Example such as the Satellite Sentinel Project uses this phenomenon in to the practical humanitarian initiative in order to establish rapid response by documenting the activities in Sudan. Simultaneously calling for collective participation through PPGIS practice (Public Participation GIS)3 to establish awareness, changing geographical involvement through map making knowledge production.
In the age of emerging practices such as PPGIS with upcoming open access initiative to 25 years unprecedented trillions of scientific satellite measuring data by the Landsat Project and Google Earth Engine, what are ways for designers to engage in this emerging phenomenon? What are communication tools that can derive through speculative approach grounded by in-depth research to mediate and empower citizens to engage in this spectacle of the 21st century?
My thesis will be an incubator to establish designerly research methods towards emerging technology around the satellite imagery applied in the PPGIS practice. The research will directly inform in creating speculative scenarios of how people will engage in creating appearances in granular satellite images to be documented. What type of behaviors and cultural phenomenon that will derive by the individuals and/or community as collective to fulfill desires and to achieve local missions in the world that are constantly documented and that images disseminated making it available. The imagined satellite images created by speculative scenarios will then be a resource in creating subjective maps applying the methods by the PPGIS practice.
References:
- Jeffrey T. Richelson, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No.13, U.S. Satellite Imagery, 1960-1999. George Washington University, 1999. Web
- Nicholas M. Short, Sr. Remote Sensing Tutorial Introduction. NASA, Web. 2011
- Google Map Maker, South Sudan Mapping, Google, Web. 2011
Driving questions
- What are ways to establish comprehensive tools and expand knowledge to be documented by the satellite?
- Material applications through structure and scale to make oneself visible considering geographical and environmental conditions
- Application of color and control of light luminosity through the understanding of satellite photosynthesis image reading
- Communication system in the community to call for swarm action
- What are possible myths that can be developed within the areas that are less knowledgeable of this technology? (ex: underdeveloped world and indigenous communities)
- Swarm activities driven by the myth created using the community public clock based on the real time satellite location
- Local initiative to gather natural materials in building temporal structures to be documented by the satellite
- What types of peculiar activities that can derived in the metropolitan areas to be documented?
- Transit as collective vs individual
- Large wearable for individuals to cover the minimum spatial parameter to establish certain amounts of pixels in the satellite image
- Establish temporal textual and/or graphical message using surfaces or light materials through collective participation by exact geographic location positioning
by basing these satellite images to create participatory map:
- What are subjective maps that can derive based on these scenarios?
- What are systems that can be established based on geospatial data that specifically highlights these moments?
- What types of narratives would these maps translate into when it is archived?
- What historical value would these maps have when future generations reflects back on this period?
- How would it alternate the ways we look at current urban space?
Committee Meeting I
Committee:
Tim Durfee, lead
Molly Wright Steenson, writing
Elise Co, adjunct
Jennifer Krasinski, adjunct
Below is what was presented during the meeting: my current frame work, and three possible trajectories
As Yi-Fu Tuan stated, Space and place are basic components of the lived world; we take them for granted. When we think about them, however, they may assume unexpected meanings and raise questions we had not thought to ask.
Abstract v.3.3
Terra Incognita of Ephemeral Stories
Representation is an individual’s perceived concept of what exists in a physical world. This concept is in conjunction to different modes of experience in time and space. It is ephemeral. Function of representation is to actively inform the terrain of meaning making. Therefore providing coherent sense of how one relates to the experience. These relations reflects the ambiance which are constructs of the mundane moments of the everyday, driven by the latent desires, memories, and aspirations.
My thesis explores coexistence of the mundane moments in a physical place and the complex—often ambivalent—feelings that are involved in the meaning making process in an ephemeral space. In the world where the terrain of meaning making process is constantly mediated by the technological media in a place that is physical, the function of representation exerts continuously in the space between the subjective humanly representation and the objective technological representation.
Read MoreAbstract 2.7:
Speculative Materiality of Sentient Data (working title)
Technologies are the means by which people are re-invented.1 Network technology enables ubiquitous information sharing in collaborative expression for ideas and opinions. It is multimodal, diversified and pervasive. Therefore, as sociologist Manuel Castell’s stated, the network society is able to include far greater cultural diversity and multiplicity of information than in any other public space in history.2 In that sense, network technology re-shaped how people gather in a diverse, collaborative way and re-invented the public space as a place we inhabit everyday.
Read MoreAbstract v2.3:
Speculative Materiality (working title)
Technologies are the means by which people are re-invented.1 Network technology enables ubiquitous information sharing in collaborative expression for ideas and opinions. It is multimodal, diversified and pervasive. Therefore as sociologist Manuel Castells stated, the network society is able to include far greater cultural diversity and multiplicity of messages than in any other public space in history.2 In that sense, network technology re-shaped how people gather in a diverse, collaborative way and re-invented the public space as a place we inhabit everyday.
Read MoreKey words:
- virtual materiality
- information public space
- electronic space and design
- collective liberty
- data literacy
Abstract v1.7:
Speculative Materiality for Invisible Public Spaces (working title)
Technologies are the means by which people are re-invented as Marshall McLuhan quoted. In the age of networked technology ables for ubiquitous information sharing in collaborative expression for ideas and opinions. It is multimodal, diversified and pervasive. Therefore as sociologist Manuel Castells stated, the network society are able to include far greater cultural diversity and multiplicity of messages than in any other public space in history. In that sense, network technology re-shaped how people assemble in collaborative diversity and re-invented the public space as a place where we inhabit everyday.
Read More