Class Reflections, September 18th

There was a noticeable distinction in the topics discussed and the themes touched on in this Thursdays class. The class began with a presentation on ergonomics and user-centered design, focusing on the body and personal space as a means to improve the relationship between humans and the spaces they inhabit. Understanding behaviors, our sensory responses and the space we occupy is imperative in designing buildings and products that will support humans.
The second half of the class did not focus on one frame of reference such as the human body, but informed us on the much broader scales that exist beyond it. We were shown the film The Powers of 10, which put into perspective our place in this world as being a part of a collective whole. Despite humans’ interest in centering ourselves on this earth, we must understand and accept that we are interconnected to so much outside of our interests.
In another more shocking approach to addressing the different perspectives and relationships between natural and human systems, was demonstrated in the film, Baraka . The film proved to be extremely effective in translating this issue through juxtaposing images of humans and machines. There was much discussion and debate surrounding the film after the class had ended, but what I personally drew from the film was this strong sense of dialogue between two seemingly opposing systems (human and natural). We are so much more apart of nature despite the offset patterns and segregation we’ve imposed on it. There were many images of people working in factories, all of them acquiring such machine like qualities, and although we are in a sense still in control of the machine, since after all we’ve created it, it is our reliance on it that makes us a slave to it as well.