The Pill Bag

Project Concept

For our final project, we chose to create a provocative object to address the ethical issues in contraceptive justice. The invention of the birth control pill was a significant milestone in the women’s rights movement. Since then, other long-acting, reversible contraceptives have been developed for women, and women now have a total of 11 methods. In contrast, men only have 2 options, thus the public ceding major responsibility for contraception to women. Moreover, Women currently bear most of the financial and health-related burdens of contraception, dedicating time and energy to contraception care, feeling stress and anxiety about taking the pills, the possibility of unintended pregnancy.

Women bear the majority of contraception responsibility and the burdens it entails while men have limited reproductive autonomy. We decided to design a pill bag resembling the birth control pills calls the attention to reconceptualize the responsibility for contraception as shared between men and women. Continue reading “The Pill Bag”

Project Development – Drawings

For our final project, we chose to create a provocative object to address the ethical issues in contraceptive justice.

IDEATION 

The invention of the birth control pill was a significant milestone in the women’s rights movement. Since then, other long-acting, reversible contraceptives have been developed for women, and women now have a total of 11 methods to choose from, including barrier methods, hormonal methods, and reversible contraceptives. In contrast, men only have 2 options—male condom and vasectomy—and neither are hormonal methods or reversible contraceptives. The disparity between the number and types of female and male reversible contraceptives is problematic for at least two reasons: first, because it forces women to assume most of the financial, health-related, and other burdens of contraception, and, second, because men’s reproductive autonomy is diminished by ceding major responsibility for contraception to women.

Women currently bear most of the financial and health-related burdens of contraception. On the whole, female methods tend to be more expensive than male methods and female methods have more severe side effects than male methods, as well, in part because various contraceptive methods for women involve hormones, while no methods for men do. Beyond the health-related and financial considerations, there are also nontrivial inconveniences and burdens associated with contraceptive use: dedicating time and energy to contraception care, feeling stress and anxiety about the taking the pills, the possibility of unintended pregnancy, and facing the social repercussions of contraceptive decisions and the possible moral reproach for contraceptive failures.

Women bear the majority of contraception responsibility and the burdens it entails while men have limited reproductive autonomy. We decided to design a pill bag resembling the birth control pills blister packs calls the attention to reconceptualise the responsibility for contraception as shared between men and women.


IDEATION DURING BRAINSTORMING

We developed 9 provocative object ideas address the ethical issues in contraceptive justice.

  • Pill bag (Reminder bag for our users)
  • Fortune Wheel (contemplating between between safe sex and raw sex)
  • Fortune cookie
  • Phone case of organ-like shape losing blood to show time is running out
  • A piece of furniture that uses speed-control limit to remind people about the consequences of having sex
  • Piggy Bank (Cost of contraception)
  • Dual reality
  • Interactive book (Religion vs. Contraceptive)
  • Interactive artwork involving paint (Participants have to select which whether male or female should be responsible for taking contraceptive)


CHOSEN CONCEPT: PILL BAG (FIRST DEVELOPMENT)

 How it works?

  • Ring at 7am
  • Alarm will be activated and LED light surrounding the pill on the embellishment will light up
  • Alarm will stop once the pill pack is removed and placed back into the compartment. (Using photo cell)
  • People who comes near the bag will trigger a beeping sound to show the sensitivity of our user taking the birth control pills (DECIDED TO OPT THIS FUNCTION OUT)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


CHOSEN CONCEPT: PILL BAG (SECOND DEVELOPMENT)

How it works?

  • The pill compartment will be placed at the back of the bag with LED lights surrounding it.
  • At a certain timing, the compartment containing the pill will light up and sound off a beeping alarm. (Easier for the user to approach)
  • Once, pill is placed back in the compartment, sound and light sensors will be off.
  • The bag strap will be embellished with a hashtag highlight our issue
  • The front of the bag will be embellished will pill containing babies.


After body storming, we feel that the pill bag shares the same problem as the 79% clock, where the audience, the guys, the provocative objects do not affect them.

Thus we decided to incorporate a “barcode” feature in the bag. When the audience scans it, it will lead to a landing page on where talks about the  pro and cons of birth control pills, facts about birth control, it serves as an educational purpose regarding on women’s struggles on the financial and health-related burdens of contraception.

We did more research and found out that many women will set the alarm on their phone that will vibrate, but not make a sound, so nobody knows you’re about to take your birth control pill. Because women feel embarrassed about taking their birth control pill. We think that there is no need for women to be ashamed when they are on the pills, women deserve to be in control of managing their sex lives in the same way they deserve to be in control of managing their health. So we decided to make the bag “transparent” by using clear plastic, to address that there is no need for embarrassed instead this bag should inspire you to feel less embarrassed when you take I, because you can inspire other women to explore less ashamed of their sexuality and their decision to delay motherhood, too.

Intention of this interaction:

Hence, the interaction is not only for the users to be reminded to take her pills but it’s also an interactive commentary that the public gets to participate and be informed about this issue after interacting with our object. The data we collected can be used to see how many people we reached out to and convey the message highlighting about our issue.

CHOSEN CONCEPT: PILL BAG (THIRD  DEVELOPMENT)

We’ve decided to add a second layer of interaction for the public to be involved in our movement.

Features:

  • The pill compartment will be placed at the back of the bag with LED lights surrounding it.
  • At a certain timing, the compartment containing the pill will light up and sound off a beeping alarm. (Easier for the user to approach)
  • Once, pill is placed back in the compartment, sound and light sensors will be off.
  • The bag strap will be embellished with a hashtag highlight our issue
  • The front of the bag will be embellished will pill containing babies.
  • *There will be a barcode at the front with a tagline which prompts the public to scan it. (Why barcode? → Price of contraceptive is a problem too)
  • Second layer of interaction: Leads them to a page about our movement (information, questionnaire, maybe donation for people who don’t have access to conceptive)
  • Data collected can be used to raise awareness and inform the public about how many people we managed to reach out using our object.

 

Research Critique – Critical Making

Concept Critical Making
The concept of Critical Making is merging two concepts ‘critical thinking,’ and “making’. In Ratto’s terms, “It is the glue that uses combines conceptual oriented thinking and physical based making with the emphasis on introducing hands-on activity to those that primarily work with language eg. those in the communication or science field.”

Critical Making has similarities to the practice of Critical design, comes from the background of industrial design and builds objects that work to challenge the narrow conventions and biases that products play in daily life. The differences between critical making and critical thinking is, Critical design is object-oriented; critical making is process-oriented. Critical Design is focused on design and building the prototypes that reinforce a banal and comfortable status quo by being efficient, optimised or comfortable , instead pushes users into more complex emotional and psychological territory by questioning the social norms and stimulating discussing and criticism of design. 

Critical Making resembles the filed of ‘value in design’, which it strives to unpack the assumptions behind technology designs and increase understanding in how technological objects shape social values. 

Critical Making is a constructionist approach to work through values in design, information studies, or science and technology studies. 

Issues with Standard Methods of Technological Design

The issues with standard methods of technological design is that the product does the job however it lacks of a goos user experience.The concept of standard methods of technological design is often produce systems that lack cultural richness, emotion, and human-oriented values, often overemphasises principles like efficiency and productivity that contributes to a consumer- oriented culture that overworks, overproduced and over consumes. However, the concept ofCritical Making considered the complex emotional and psychological territory by questioning the social norms and focus on the user experiences, thus Critical making is one that tackles standard methods of technological design that poses problem of the lack of emotional and human oriented values. 

Critical Making x Designers x Public
Critical making intervenes by giving designers and the public an opportunity to break out of this cycle, step back, reevaluated the assumptions and values being embedded into the design and mindfully reconsider a broader spectrum of human experience.

Critical Making

The Transparency Grenad

In my research assignment, I was given the topic,The Transparency Grenade, it was a project developed by Julian Oliver to comment on issues of transparency in the world today.

The work is a translucent resin model of a Soviet F1 Hand Grenade. Encased within  a tiny computer, microphone and wireless antenna, which captures network traffic and audio where it is placed. When the pin of the grenade is pulled, the information is streamed to a dedicated server where it is mined. The server uploads the data onto a public site with a map that shows the location of its ‘detonation’.

Components of The Transparency Grenade

The Transparency Grenade is designed with a sleek exterior and translucent encasement that advert to the transparent nature of affairs that arises as a result of this project.

The Transparency Grenade can be seen as an example of a product born out of critical making. The reason for this: it is a product made with the intention of showcasing an important issue that needs tackling which is the lack of Corporate and Governmental transparency today.

Oliver feels is prevalent amongst powerful government and publicly-owned companies make decisions behind guarded doors that impact the lives of many, often leaving us feeling powerless to effect change, both in and out of a democratic context. by presenting a tool that  seeks to capture these important information and allows one to leak information that would otherwise stay behind closed doors. 

In my opinion, critical making is a concept that I would definitely encourage and can be extremely applicable to us, art student, when we want to design a product with the concern of human-oriented Values or it can even be social issues and not forgetting the functional aspect of design.

 

Blibliography:
What is Critical Making? (n.d.). Retrieved from http://current.ecuad.ca/what-is-critical-making

Metalwork by. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://transparencygrenade.com/

Marquis. (2016, April 05). The Transparency Grenade. Retrieved from http://www.digiart21.org/art/the-transparency-grenade

Micro-Project 3 : Together Split

Hey guys!! Here’s my third micro project for Experimental Interaction. Desiree, Fenella,Siti and I staged a “music video” using split-screen video chat features on Instagram. Enjoy:-))))

https://youtu.be/__Ycbr6y56c

Project
 We decided to perform a couple of simple moves with the music beats and translating these moves from one screen to another as fluid as possible, which also the main challenge of this project, as it was hard to get the right timing for the objects to be in the right place.

Objective
The objective of this project is to experience the possibilities of the third space and able to create a work that incorporated four person smoothly.

Outcome
We had quite a hard time coordinating with one another, our initial idea was to use music beat as a signal for the movements then we realised that our sense of rhythm are different. Through this micro-project, we were able to explore the essence of time in the third space, and how it can pave way to creative ways for more collaborative art performances that are no longer limited by the physical boundaries.

Out of all the 3 Micro-Projects
1. Which project did you feel you had the most creative control? Why?
Micro-Project 1
The brief of the project was simple and straight forward, Photograph the space or object, post your photo in the Instagram describe it and include the #1010adm hashtag. We were given a lot of “freedom” in this project as compare to the other two Micro-Projects.

2. Which project had the most unpredictable outcome? Why?
Micro-Project 2
Micro-Project 2 had the most unpredictable outcome as it allowed the audience of the work to have a huge amount of control in the next action of (ME) and I  had to follow. Our concept was to let the crowdsourced community experiencing their fear through the participant, our objective of this project is to see how the crowdsourced community  react when they have two extreme options to choose from, the  Angel” VS ‘Devil” options, when its not themselves performing the actions. I was surprised that the  crowdsourced community (my insta followers) chose all the “Devil” which are the nasty options, I thought they will choose the “Angel” options….

3. Which project best illustrates the concepts of DIWO & Open–Source?Why?
Micro-Project 1
Both concepts of Do-it-Yourself (DIY) and Do it with others(DIWO) were best illustrates in Micro-Project 1. Every participant had to contribute their own interpretation of the project from their perspective. Posting it on Instagram using the hashtag #1010adm is a collaborative effort of every participant is communicating(in the comments). It felt like everyone was working towards a common goal by contributing their own interpretation of the project.

Micro-Project 2 – Crowd-Sourced Art

Deepest Darkest Fears
Our concept was to use insta feed to create an interactive game, where the our crowdsourced community for this project were mainly my Instagram followers to decide the next course of action. 

We used Instagram as it is one of the most popular social media platforms and also is the best platform to bring everyone together and interact with one another. Given the time limitation we choose insta feed as our medium, and use poll feature as it is the most efficient and fastest way to bring it out to the audience and do it together.

Inspiration
We were inspired by the crowdsourced relationship where the lady have to follow all the instructions that were made by her audiences.For our project, we chose fear as our topic, as fear is a vital response to physical and emotional danger, it has strong roots in human evolution, We decided on the two fears that were most practical in our immediate environment which are Darkness(Nyctophobia)and talking to stranger (Glossophobia and Xenophobia). 

The crowdsourced community are experiencing their fear through the participant (ME), our objective of this project is to see how the crowdsourced community  react when they have two extreme options to choose from, the  Angel” VS ‘Devil” options, when its not themselves performing the actions.

Question 1:
Guys Lets play a game whats your biggest fear?


 

 

 

 

 

 

Darkness VS Talking to a Stranger 

Darkness – 60%
Talking to a Stranger – 40%

Question 2:
Blindfold to level 1 or Take a walk outside together 

 

Blindfold to level 1 – 94%
Take a walk outside together – 6% 

Here is a video of me taking the challenge
CHECK IT OUT

Question 3:
Next Level
Locked in toilet VS Sitting Together 

  

 

 

 

 

Locked in toilet -86%
Sitting Together– 14%

Observation
The conversion rate from viewing the feed to choose an option is low, even though it only require a minimum effort for the crowdsource community to particular in the game (the insta feed no of views is  almost twice the no of participants voting) Ironically, the insta feed viewer is consistent through all the insta feeds, which it tells me that whether crowdsourced community participated in the game(by clicking) or not, they are getting more curious as the story goes on. Its reminds me of what Dan shared in the class, no form of interaction actually is a form a Interaction, or in another word, viewing the insta feeds is a form of participation, because the crowdsource community is experiencing what the participants (ME) is going through.

 

Micro-Project 1: Creating the Third Space

For my  first image, I decided to capture the image at lecture hall, as my expectation for university life, it will be systematic, like how those bench being placed and spending most of my time at lecture hall absorbing new informations. While the second image was taken at the basement 1 ,  where actually I spent most of my time in school, rushing for submissions. The space altered by the foreign object(chairs), the unfamiliarity was being introduced to the space reflects my experience thus far in school. The school system  disrupted my systematic mundane working life and I am still adopting the new environment (I know it has been six months). 

The characteristics of the alternative virtual space that we had created are personal, collaborative and constant changing, it holds different perspective by different participants which holds or retains special memories. #1010adm provides a platform for the participants to interact through interact with each other by commenting on, replying to comments and liking other’s post.  However, hashtag is easily being alternated, it is a open platform, anyone can use the Hashtag without persimmon. The space will be altered If the hashtag were to be used by irrelevant content such as a space that is outside of ADM is being introduced, it will disrupted the consistency of the work. 

Both concepts of Do-it-Yourself (DIY) and Do it with others(DIWO) were demonstrated in the project. Every participant had to contribute their own interpretation of the project from their perspective. Posting it on Instagram using the hashtag #1010adm is a collaborative effort of every participant is communicating(in the comments),  sharing their thoughts and ideas can be exchanged without entering into physical space. In my opinion the project is more of DIWO as the objective, Hashtag#1010adm creates a community binding like minded community to interact and further discuss the topic.