NGO 2.0 Poster
I think this proposed symposium looks to address some really challenging questions that designers who are interested in Designing for Social Impact is concerned. For more discussions please join the googlegroup.
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This is a part of the workshop that I had conducted recently at the National Institute of Technology, Trichy as a part of their college festival Pragyan. Introduction To Light Painting View more presentations from Kshitiz Anand. Of late, I have been reading about the tremendous rise of the social networking sites. Facebooking is on an all time high and continues to grow further day by day. With more people giving their private data online, more companies asking for credit card details, friends keeping track via different channels, one is forced to think whether all this would be good in the long run. I personally use two-three social networking sites and they have my information on it. When I started on these sites, I had all my information from my real birth date to my relationship status to my exact likes and dislikes on it. Over the years, I have removed some of the information. The irony of the situation is that even if you do that, all the people in the network get to know about it. So one would think that everything is lst in the name of networking and privacy is dead. Recently I read about a term Publicy. Laurent Haug in his blog post titled ” Publicy the rebirth of privacy” talks about an interesting phenomenon that is happening everywhere. He mentions that “Privacy is not dead. It just went global and public, which doesn’t mean you can’t control what people know about you. Actually, it is now the other way around.” Interesting article to read that one. And lots of food for thought. This is a part of the presentation that I gave at Pragyan 2009 at National Institute of Technology, Trichy. It is based on a simple that I ask myself, everytime I think about taking a photograph. Here in the presentation are the list of factors that I think go into the making of a good photograph. If you notice, the camera is at the last slide. It is because of a fundamental belief that I have. Its not the camera that makes a good photograph. it’s the photographer and their vision. What Is A Good Photograph View more presentations from Kshitiz Anand. (tags: photography thoughts) Came across this Interesting presentation by Nathan Smith. I think he touches upon some really interesting points on the Fundamentals of Design. And the pictures used in the slides are amazing too! Fundamental Design Principles View more presentations from Nathan Smith. (tags: ux design) One of the things I have often wanted to during a photo-shoot is analyze why I enjoy doing it. There is a lot of the experience factor associated with a) clicking the photograph and b) viewing the photographs later. Now, I have traveled wide across India doing photography and had similar interesting experiences over and over again. One of the shoots that I recall well is the street photography on the streets of Kolkata, India. I had always wanted to find an answer as to why they call Kolkata the “City of Joy.” This album resulting from the photo-shoot is a result of that quest. Kolkata 2007 Everywhere around me when I am clicking I am seeking to get a good experience of doing the act (of taking the photograph). I try to capture the elements that would at a later stage give me as close to the same experience I had while clicking it. There were many factors that lead to the overall experience. Each moment that was experienced was expressed in the form of a photograph that can be said as an expression of that instantaneous experience. Today whenever I re-look at that photo album I am able to relate to the time I had, and the experience I had. For every shot I took there was a story associated with it and it was these individual stories or expressions that made up the entire experience a memorable one. These stories which are culturally constructed expressions, would be beneficial in a person recalling the experience, as well as to the people who are not familiar with the culture. These photographs allow me to make a better sense of experience by virtue of connecting of the cognition (of what’s there in the mind from the past), the feelings . . . → Read More: Experience Photography Introduction Quite often we have heard people questioning the existence and nature of design. Questions like ‘What is design?’ ‘Does design mean art?’ Is designing an object similar to saying beautification of the object? Some even say, design is common sense; and comes from intuition. If we go a bit deeper into these questions, we get to know answers to many more questions like, what role does Aesthetics play in having a good design? What are the factors to which a design owns is success? Is it pleasure it mere satisfaction? Does good design come from experience of proper understanding of a concept? Do the cognitive faculties of the human mind play a role in deciding the quality of a good design? Should a good design mean ‘globally acceptance’? Does design depend upon the culture and context? Do environments pay some role? How is a priori synthetic judgment possible? In this essay we will see the relation of beauty, aesthetics, art and design. We will see the factor that makes an object pleasurable, and how it aesthetics is a valuable source for designers. The philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and excerpts from his essays Critique of Pure reason,Critic of Judgment, Claims of Taste have been put in; in order to give a more explainable answer to these above questions. Concepts and Knowledge According to Kant, concepts came from pure understanding and not from experience alone as had been put forward by David Hume. Kant says that all speculation about the nature of things in themselves, beyond the phenomena of perceptual experience , is devoid of all meaning, and cannot even in principle attain the status of knowledge. Kant speaks of metaphysics- that body of knowledge that is both ‘synthetic’ and ‘a priori’ , rather than that body of knowledge which pertains . . . → Read More: Kant and Experience Design I love to critique. Being in a field in which I am always surrounded by the different forms of art that have been created, there is always a scope for criticism. So photographs that I take are criticized, and so are the designs that I make and I do so the same for any movie I see. Now there is a difference between the art of critiquing and the art of reviewing. While reviews are targeted for the common, general audience who do not have a flair for work, critiques are often targeted at a very specific audience. When we view an art / design we start with an impression of it. Over a time we start to develop an opinion about it. And these opinions over a period turn into judgments. These judgments are what we call critiques. Thus if we analyze, any judgment is therefore ultimately what is what the judge thinks about it. And these judgments are subjective. Thus criticism is a subjective act. A critic is a judge of a piece of art, who gives his or her subjective judgments based on the opinions formulated after the impression of the artwork. Now criticism has been prevalent in the society since a long time but it is only recently that I felt that there is a need for a sincere effort for an organization to send out an honest opinion without any bias. Often one confuses criticism with only negative feedback. The art of criticism is supposed to see the piece of art a consummation of efforts. So the good things, as well as the bad things should be highlighted in a critique. A good practice that I follow and propagate people to follow is to start by saying a positive thing about the cultural expression. This . . . → Read More: Approaches to critiquing This is a final paper I wrote for the Interaction Culture class at Indiana University. ABSTRACT As Interaction Designers, two of the most important things that one needs to consider are the experience and also the audience being designed for. The presentation of the cultural expression is dependent on the presentation style and a thorough understanding of the audience. This paper aims at giving a close phenomenological understanding of a highly successful photography exhibition by India’s most renowned photographer, Raghu Rai. In the later part of the paper, from these points and an overall experience point of view, it is aimed to generate points for a framework for its application in Interaction Design. Author Keywords Phenomenology, experience, exhibition, photography, interpretation, culture Excerpts from the paper Interaction Design and HCI are constantly seeking for analogies from the established fields like computer science, the cognitive sciences, and other disciplines like sociology, anthropology, critical theory and philosophy. There has also been considerable efforts in trying to get an understanding from film theory and looking at experiences in film. Photography exhibitions on the other hand are highly subjective. It is therefore more likely that any critical accounts of such exhibitions are phenomenological in nature. There is always the vision of a photographer that is being conveyed. And more often that not there is a mismatch between the intent of the photographer and the intent with which the viewer interprets it. There is also the element of time that comes into the picture when doing an analysis of the exhibition. Conclusion Feelings and sensibility cannot be rationally expressed in words. It can only be experienced. Any exhibition of this kind, not only expanded the horizons for what can be exhibited in the Indian market today, but also helped in understanding what goes on in . . . → Read More: Understanding experiences in photography exhibitions for Interaction Designers  Comments are closed  critical theory, critique, experiencedesign, HCI, Interaction Design, writings  critique Cleaning is a sacred act. It has been done in the Indian culture (and also in other cultures around the world) since times immemorial. The Indian culture and traditions have been full of rituals and ceremonies in almost every event. And all of these rituals happen after an act of cleaning. There are festivals in which you have to clean up the houses as a compulsion, as it is said that the goddess of wealth, Lakshmi, only enters those houses that are clean. In the traditional times (and also to a large population even today), people would not even take food without cleaning themselves up completely after bathing and performing a sacred ritual. This is even done in the coldest of months, and in the harshest of conditions. Many see these acts as cleaning the human soul. At times the act of cleaning also signifies the need to keep off the bad omen and the evil spirits. An extension of this is the ridiculously superstitious ceremonies that are held widely across the country. In times of adversities, the gods are summoned even more and every bit of effort is made to please the gods, so that the souls can be ‘clean’ and the society ‘cleaned’ of the adversity. Being an Indian, who is religious, and who does not take any food on all most all days without having a shower (unless of course if I am starving), and who wants the goddess of wealth to bless me, I think that “Cleaning my computer’s desktop” (more specifically on a Mac) is a truly sacred act. The sacred experience that I have every time I have to clean my desktop gives me a joy and a sense of satisfaction that perhaps no other act does. I see the computer’s desktop as an . . . → Read More: Sacred Digital Experiences |
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