September 18th: Class Summary

In our second class last Thursday we were treated to a short lecture by Jerry Weslake during the first half. Jerry opened our eyes on the topics of ergonomics, anthropometrics, and proxemics- the measure of personal space, or more simply a person's "bubble". The main focus was to show the importance of user-centered design, as opposed to designing only to please our own eye. More specifically, he used the chair as a model to show the effects of good/bad design, and the use of ergonomics when creating such designs.
Jerry also touched on understanding the senses in regards to design, and how we instinctively prefer certain lines and forms over others. An introduction to the term synesthesia- a transfer of information between the senses- elaborated the subject. For example, a slashy line makes us feel anger, although the line itself can not be "angry". So although a jagged, rigid chair just does not look comfortable in a functional sense, it may also make us FEEL uncomfortable in other synesthetic ways.

The major second half of the class was spent viewing clips from two documantary films. The first being "The Power of Ten", by design duo Charles and Ray Eames (1977), which demonstrated the concept of relative scale, size and distance. By starting with a 1m2 viewpoint of a picnic scene, every 10 seconds it zooms in or out 10 times farther, over a range of 40 positive and negative powers of 10 in increasing and decreasing perspective, taking us to the voids of outer space,or right into the microscopic world of carbon atoms in the subjects hand. These contrasting insights show how the importance of things is based on what co-exists around them at the next smallest/largest scale. Regardless of the scale or size of what we aspire to design, and how unrelated things may appear, it is our job as designers to interpret the world as one interrelated whole. As the video shows, even at such drastically different sizes, carbon atoms and the farthest cosmic reaches are a part of one whole. There is no one without the other. However, the importance of say and atom (or anything)increases when studied at a specific, in this case microscopic, scale. Again,though,this atom's importance would diminish when designing a new ergonomic chair for Jerry for example!

The second set of clips from the documentary Baraka, by Kevin Stearns, was far more contemporary. Although it was without dialogue, the experience proved to be impacting and dramatic. Scenes of urban life , factories, and nature roll past in fast forward speed. The effect is the establishment of a parallel between the systems that occur within these different environments. Seeing chicks being piled, prodded, and tumbled around was harsh for many, but in the end didn't seem far-fetched from the urban, human scenes at all. Is there really that much of a difference between these chicks' lot in life, to all of us being piled onto subways, or shuffled across busy moving streets? And, this flux of people, agriculture, and production has inherited a constant flow like that which we find in nature- continuous, and connected. Are we really separate from machines? This film gestured at the notion that mankind is so desensitized that we have allowed machines to enter, and even dominate the cycles of our lives.