notes, 29 September, 1 October

we talked about walking, and how it might relate to writing (and even drawing).

mention was made of Thomas A. Clark his “poem” (sort of) “In Praise of Walking” —
a photocopy is on table in seminar room, from where it first appeared (a book titled The Unpainted Landscape).
it also can be found here and there on the internet

there is of course the famous Paul Klee idea “A drawing is simply a line going for a walk.”
here

boustrophedon
boustrophēdón “ox-turning” from βοῦς, bous, “ox”, στροφή, strophē, “turn” and the adverbial suffix -δόν, “like, in the manner of”; that is, turning like oxen in ploughing) is a type of bi-directional text...
common way of writing in stone in ancient Greece...
wikipedia

palimpsest
a manuscript page, either from a scroll or a book, from which the text has been scraped or washed off so that the page can be reused for another document...
wikipedia
the term can be (and is) used figuratively, e.g., for how humans write erase rewrite etc their activities on the land...

disabilities

“Individuals with disabilities make up a third to half of all people killed by law enforcement officers, according to a report by the Ruderman Family Foundation analyzing data from 2013-2015.”
“Black and Disabled: How Racial Discrimination Is Amplified by Ableism“
‘Being black and disabled, we get treated like we are disposable.’
Sherina Poyyail, re:set (June 8, 2020)

What Can a Body Do?
Amanda Cacchia’s essay to that exhibit at Haverford College
catalogue to that exhibit (pdf)

and blindness

Perkins School for the Blind
(in Watertown, near Cambridge)
great museum, that is currently closed because of Covid-19, but well worth a visit
(I believe was open only Tues and Thurs, limited hours).

whales! and menopause!

“Failing to find common ground in the human world, Steinke turns to the natural one. She takes an immediate interest in pilot whales and orcas, the only other animals known to undergo menopause.”
ex Sarah Manguso’s review of Darcey Steinke. Flash Count Diary : Menopause and the Vindication of Natural Life (2019)
“Where Are All the Books About Menopause? For women, aging is framed as a series of losses—of fertility, of sexuality, of beauty. But it can be a liberation, too.”
Sarah Manguso. The New Yorker (June 17, 2019)
here

Text and Image Experiments And Inspiration

 

 

book 2- ideas

 

Interview #2

I conducted this second interview. Down below is the interview that I did with my friend Maxwell Mapel

Piece of trash: Poland Springs water bottle

Question 1: Grab the nearest piece of trash that you have. Now, where did you buy that?
Answer: Big Y (Grocery store)

Question 2: Did it make you happy and why?
Answer: Not really. It's more of a necessity

Question 3: How much did you spend on it?
Answer: 4 dollars for a package of water

Question 4: Will you buy it again?
Answer: Yes, because I need to drink water.

Question 5: Is it made out of plastic?
Answer: Yes

Question 6: If so, is it recyclable? What recycle number does it have?
Answer: Yes, It is number a #1 recyclable.

*Something I shared with him is that it is indeed recyclable and is meant to be recycled.

Question 7: Before having this conversation, did you at all think about how you were going to dispose of it?
Answer: Yes, I was going to put it in my recycling bin.

Question 8: How often do you actually recycle things that are supposed to be recycled.
Answer: I try to recycle as long as it's convenient (A recycling bin near me)

Question 9: On a scale of 1-10, how interesting did you find this interview to be?
Answer: I would say a 6

Overall, this interview went well. It was interesting to see a different perspective of someone who doesn't really think too much about recycling. Maxwell did not have much to say about recycling in general.
 

Interview #1

I conducted this interview over the weekend and got some helpful insight. Down below is the interview that I did with my friend Katherine Wojcik.

Piece of trash: Apple Cider flavored seltzer water bottle

Question 1: Grab the nearest piece of trash that you have. Now, where did you buy that?
Answer: Stop and Shop

Question 2: Did it make you happy and why?
Answer: Yes, because it was a limited time product for the Fall time

Question 3: How much did you spend on it?
Answer: About 2-3 dollars

Question 4: Will you buy it again?
Answer: No, because it was kind of a waste of money. It was a nice treat but I don't think I will buy it again.

Question 5: Is it made out of plastic?
Answer: Yes

Question 6: If so, is it recyclable? What recycle number does it have?
Answer: Yes, It is number a #1 recyclable.

*Something I shared with her is that it is indeed recyclable and is meant to be recycled.

* Something she shared with me is that the bottle can be recycled for 5 cents in 5 states (MA, NY, CT, Main, VT)

Question 7: Before having this conversation, did you at all think about how you were going to dispose of it?
Answer: Yes, it was going to be added to a bag full of recyclables to be redeemed. (Recycled for the 5 cents)

Question 8: How often do you actually recycle things that are supposed to be recycled.
Answer: I try to recycle as often as I can. The trick is wondering whether it can actually be recycled or not.

Question 9: On a scale of 1-10, how interesting did you find this interview to be?
Answer: I would say a 6. I believe that most people are pretty aware of recycling.

Overall, this interview went really well. Not only did Katherine learn stuff from me but I also learned things from her as well.
 

notes, 22-24 september

for Tuesday 29 September,
read the first (introductory) chapter “Who Is the World Built For,”
in Sarah Hendren her What Can a Body Do? : How We Meet the Built World (2020)
have some thoughts about or prompted by your reading, perhaps written down (in margins?)

in room : Rowan, Adam, May
remote : Paige, Leslie, Nate

have changed who might normally be in room/remote, because of absences last Thursday.
“remote” people are welcome to come in, perhaps can sit in studio area (so that we can maintain social distancing)

if showing work, please do so via the course blog, or as “presentation” from google drive.
we know that holding work up to laptop/phone camera is less than optimal (but sometimes can’t be helped)

—

Sara Hendren
accessible icon project
more, on same

Alterpodium
with Amanda Cachia / March 2014–ongoing

from Hendren‘s “Who Is the World Built For” —

1. ...that she lives with the disabling conditions of the world... (6)
2. Designers work from what’s called a brief... at its best, a brief is packed with questions that can be addressed by any number of methods... (7)
3. But how do you make a charismatic thing... (8)
4. discussion of “normal” pp 10-14
5. aside (disability, might include other factors too, including history of slavery, economic/social class, etc...)
6. discussion of art, philosophy poetry vs engineering (18)
7. personal factors of “misfit” — autism spectrum, dyslexia, chronic depression... (19)
8. the author’s social life filling up with “people who are blind or deaf or use wheelchairs—and whose everyday routines were also replete with tools” — the importance of such encounters, conversations, new perspectives (21)
9. the dynamics of a design class : dyads of teacher and student, the triad of teacher + student + the “thing we’re building together” (22)
10. “A shared material task will direct everyone‘s gaze to the work at hand, but good collaborations are structured by relationships that you can’t just assume. They don’t arrive without effort. They’re also built.” (23)
11. on iterations (not just discussing the possibilities and debating choices in the abstract) (24
12. things, stuff (that’s not yet junk or trash) : “It is the very nature of all our stuff to give us help.” (25)
13. relationship of tools to the body (26-27)
14. “...design can include making something new, but it can also include unmaking the world as it is, or perhaps remaking it, with parts and systems alike.” (28)
15. more on the body, and the in/stability of that body... Deleuze on Spinoza on “what can a body do?” (29-30)
16. the vantage point of the untypical — “...many nondisabled people have never really considered that disability as an experience myight indeed be... a generative and restless vantage — a view on the world...” (31)

and, related somewhat (if only tangentially) to Hendren’s chapter —

‘There is a fear that this will eradicate dwarfism’ The controversy over a new growth drug
A new treatment could help children with achondroplasia, the most common form of dwarfism, grow taller and avoid health problems in later life. But there are concerns about whether this is ethical
Emine Saner. The Guardian (28 September 2020)

—

things / discarded things

duck/duct tape
Duct tape (also called duck tape, from the material it was originally made of) is cloth- or scrim-backed pressure-sensitive tape, often coated with polyethylene.
wikipedia

Hari-Kuyō (Japanese: 針供養) is the Japanese Buddhist and Shinto Festival of Broken Needles
wikipedia
this in relation to “junk,” trash, people’s relationships to the things that have aided/comforted them, but have outlived their usefulness.

Ode to Broken Things / Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)
many translations out there; this is nice, because of the wunderkammern shown with it

Jenny Odell,
Bureau of Suspended Objects
related tumblr

—

ICD-10 / Mental Health classifications/codes

ICD-10
International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems 10th Revision (ICD-10)
Chapter V, Mental and behavioural disorders
(F00-F99)
Incl.: disorders of psychological development

ICD-10 Mental Health Billable Diagnosis Codes in Alphabetical Order by Description
 

more text placement experiments

 
 

Bower Boxes- with some found objects

 

more spread ideas for whale book

 
 

New ideas on Sustainable Informational design book

 I have been thinking more of what I would like to do for pages in my book and have thought of some ways to add some other peoples perspective. I have an idea to create a survey (or a few) and send them out to friends, family, and students as well. These surveys could be a number of things. They could ask how other people think about the environment, their opinions, what they do to avoid making trash if they even think about that. The whole idea is to gather peoples thoughts and ideas on environmentalism and to see if people, especially students think about what they are doing in part of the environment. I'm also thinking about setting up a google sheets document for myself to examine how much trash I am producing and how much plastic I am buying/using as well. I think this could be a neat idea to bring myself along with others and gather that sort of information for research and information for the book/infographics. 

chicky book

 

The book isn't bound yet, but I ordered some supplies to do so. Also I made a few mistakes here and there, so I also need to get my hands on some correctional fluid. I'm going to put my digital drawings on that blank page, I just need to print it out is all.

updated proposal

I want to explore the arvangaurd pamphlet and booklet design. Experimenting with the layout and construction the the booklets.

ideas for animal books - whales

Trash on the Streets

I went out today with my camera to take photos of the streets and beach. I have a few photos of pieces of trash that were left out by people in the town of Beverly. I found only two masks although I am sure there are more but overall not too bad for the walk I went on. It got me thinking how crazy it is to find all this stuff on the streets when there are trash cans to be used for that specific thing. There is one image in particular with a piece of plastic on the beach going into the water. It got me thinking about how much plastic goes into the water from people just laying their trash around when leaving the beach. I think this can be a good idea to go off of for an educational purpose with information design.