[-empyre-] march discussion - the prototype perspective

[Gabriel Shalom]

At Gabriel Menotti's suggestion I would like to present the following 
short video as a contribution to the conversation about prototyping. I 
am especially interested in the self-reflexive and transcendent value 
video can have in an immediated context.

*Delivered in Beta*
/an immediated autodocumentary/
http://vimeo.com/9290664

How are social media changing design? What is the value of a prototype? 
How are work and play merging? Where is design headed in the 21st 
century? "Delivered in Beta" begins a conversation on these topics and 
invites your participation (twitter hashtag #od10beta). This video was 
created during the Open Design Workshop at the Betahaus as part of 
Social Media Week Berlin 2010.

After creating the video I was struck by the reaction which it was 
capable of generating, not only in the workshop participants -- who saw 
an assembly cut at the workshop itself -- but also in the blogosphere. 
Numerous people reacted very positively to the ideas presented in the 
video, from designers, to web developers, to simply people involved in 
any sort of iterative process.

In the mean time I have been exploring the connections between models of 
software development such as scrum or agile development as frameworks 
for creating immediated experiences collaboratively with 
autodocumentarian subjects. I hope this video and the conversation 
surrounding it creates some interesting connections for you all and I 
sincerely look forward to extending the discussion -- til now a nebulous 
cloud of tweets under hashtags #od10beta and #imautodoc -- into the 
Empyre network!

Greetings from Berlin,

Gabriel Shalom
Videomusician
Adjunct Faculty Motion Design Department
Berliner Technische Kunsthochschule

http://www.gabrielshalom.com
http://www.ks12.net

Gabriel Menotti wrote:
> Dear Rob and Adrian:
>
> Thanks for the exciting contributions! Here are some comments to keep
> the ball rolling:
>
> Adrian: your critique on the positivist logic of prototyping casts
> attention to the underlying authorities that direct it and define it
> as teleology. As long as prototypes exist within an external value
> system, there seems to be no fundamental changes when industrial logic
> is substituted by a shared repository that normalizes creativity (or
> the clearance of the app store). But I wonder if that is not natural
> of design as a standardizing practice – i.e. the process of setting
> parameters for /the other/ – and in the end every form of design that
> is not intimate and personal would be directed towards a normalization
> of uses. In that sense, the idea of an antiergonomy sounds very
> intriguing. Would it consist in creating difficulties of use? Or of a
> mode of use that depends on the ad-hoc production of ergonomy? Could
> such object be shared with other people? Could you please expand on
> that idea, and how it relates to teaching people produce their own
> prototypes?
>
> Rob: it is interesting how one of the most intimate objects (the
> grandmother cup), which would traditionally be considered a useless
> but valuable souvenir, gains an undeniable functionality in this
> scenario of the scriptable reality. Makes me think of how objects
> exist within different architectures, and the change of environment
> provokes strong effects in their possibilities of use. However, as the
> function of an object becomes more dependent of the pervasive
> environment, and is therefore regulated by what you call “the heart of
> the IT architecture of the system, its standards and protocols”, how
> is it possible for the user to negotiate the function of an object if
> he have no access to the environment? Doesn’t that intensify the
> functionality of everything, casting out random innovation? And what
> is the destiny of the objects that does not ‘ressonate’ with the
> architecture?
>
> Best!
> Menotti
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
>   

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