Category: Research

 

 Embodiment

Reading this article, my first thought was if there was such a thing as universal aesthetics? I mean I would think that most of us, across cultures, would find a sunset beautiful. Perhaps we will never be able to pinpoint what exactly makes an object “good” but maybe being intuned with all our senses would make us more sensitive to what is good and design things more efficiently. As the article said, perhaps by reflecting the human soul in a form we would resonate with people more. Although I have no idea on how to do that, hopefully with time I will.

The article makes me reconsider the role of electronics in our daily lives. In the first few paragraphs, the author claims that corporate futurologists dream up of futures with “no room for doubt or complexity in their techno-utopian visions”. Although I think it is unfair to throw whoever corporate futurologists are under the bus, I do agree with the point put across. We tend to have a mostly one-sided view on what technology is and can do.

The section on when objects dream further adds on to the point. It talks about electronic objects dreaming in the sense that they leak radiation. That in itself isn’t too exciting but acknowledging the subtle ways electronics influence our way of life is.

The last section that piqued my interest was on critical design, to see design as an effort to push the limits of our lived experience and not the medium in which we use. I guess my question would be if critical design could be commercial, although the author seems to be finding that a very bleak prospect.