deathgroup

[deathgroup]

Reading III: Summary. The New Materiality of Design. By Eeki, Oct 8th 2018

Students of Aalto, conform!

Group death had its last after-reading-meeting today at Väre. Staying up late trying to write the introduction for the meeting took its toll and left me with a dysfunctional brain. However, despite my inability to form concise and comprehensible sentences let alone to say them out loud, I feel like we successfully exchanged some relevant thoughts and points about the readings and life. To me, the most interesting topic of discussion—that probably sparked from Vossoughian’s writings—was the standardisation of human life: how the hegemonic expectations of a society, or in this case, an institution can make me willingly give up my free time, make me choose to spend evenings, weekends, reading and writing, trying to fit the set schedule of a course. Having somewhat failed the last two writing assignments, the experience as a whole has not left me loaded with confidence. But, forward, said grandma in the snow.

I could babble on, but then again, I can’t. Good night!

[deathgroup]

Reading III: Summary. The New Materiality of Design. By Anna, October 8th 2018

For the third and the final reading group meeting we gathered to Väre. It was Monday morning again, and we were thinking these weeks with Discourse in Design assignments have gone so fast. Eventually we started the formal part of the meeting with Latour’s text even though the conversation was constantly mixed up around both Latour’s and Vossoughian’s content since there were so many similar themes in both of them: society, technology, standards, knowledge... 

General opinion was that Latour explains too much. It is hard to focus on the topic since he uses too many words. Mind starts to wonder around. Way too many lines to explain a simple thing. But we still had a nice conversation around the content. At first, we pondered the moral aspect from designers point of view. Should we have to think about that when working as design professionals. What kind of projects do we wanna support with our time and effort? We came to the conclusion that yes, we can and we should, when ever it’s possible. If we have the knowledge and position there is possibilities to affect to the course of things. At least it’s good to raise conversations and it is good to bring things up. Too often in work life the pace is tough and feels that theres no space think about things thoroughly or from a new point of view. Then we went on discussing technology and the design of everyday things. How can and are supposed to be able to use so many machines and vehicles automatically. It’s part of the common knowledge and part of our heritage. We recognize certain features and know how to behave according to them. For example mobile phones. We are already so used to them, even small babies no how to operate with touch screens. And theres always someone behind each vehicle, someone has invented them and brought the stuff for general use. Usually engineers. We talked how much engineers have to do with the course of our history.   Thanks to them society runs more efficiently and profitably. Ilkka mentioned Kurt Vonnegut’s book, utopian, where engineers were positioned at the top of mankind. That does not sound so weird at all at least from todays perspective. 

Standards rule the world many ways. There is different kind of rules and standards in our life and theres geographical differences, for example between United States and Europe. Standards make life easier and smoother, safer too, but behind the standards there is also a business point of view that is good to acknowledge. Standards are used as a tool for markets. Also good to remember that standards and rules are not necessary serving everyone, they are targeted to the majority, and are based on the average. But there is always exceptions, not all the people find all the norms suitable for them. For example, prescribed working hours. There are several studies that proves people are different – while some one is most efficient on the morning other one is working best in the evening. Luckily the the trend is going to more individual direction in the future.

[deathgroup]

Reading III: Summary. The New Materiality of Design. By Ilkka, October 8th 2018

For the final meeting we returned to Väre, as most of us attended the Project kick-off as well on Monday. Instead of secluding ourselves in a remote and hard to find conference room we stayed in our “home” lobby – much more pleasant milieu with people chatting, working, walking around and creating living surroundings for us. Discussion about readings wasn’t as easy as last week, but it wasn’t too forced either. It’s just that Latour didn’t raise that many comments or questions, but his writing style seemed to annoy us. Why so many words? Maybe he too had a word limit or something, forcing to write way too much.

We discussed about standardization quite a lot, and how it has, is and will affect our lives, in more ways than we’ll ever know. All our built surroundings are build of standard size parts, delivered in standard units and build according to standard work time. Standards make life as we know easier in many ways, but do they also dictate our lives too much? Architects use certain measurements when designing living spaces; designers use certain safety standards when building playgrounds; everything starts on an A4.

One big issue Latour discussed was the nonhumans surrounding us. It actually is quite interesting topic, even though I hated how he wrote about it. However, we didn’t talk quite that, but more about automation and how it affects our lives. I brought up Player piano, a novel by Kurt Vonnegut I read earlier this year. It’s a dystopian novel about automated society, where machines do most of the chores, and the most admired people, the creme of the society, are engineers who can design and maintain these machines. And because that is how the society works, it is difficult for people to see the problems or alternative life style. The book was published in 1950’s, and it does reflect surprisingly well to our time too. Difference is that right now the trendy word is digitalization.

Conclusion of Reading III: Mixed feelings. Vossoughian was easy and good, Latour not that difficult either but boring. I think my mind already erased 50% of it, if not even more. I was planning to finish reading Latour today, but I won’t. I wouldn’t mind reading more Vossoughian though. Keywords I will keep in storage for later use: DIN, materiality, nonhuman, antropomorphism.

I will conclude my journey through these Readings with a quote from Player piano (via Goodreads.com):

“The main business of humanity is to do a good job of being human beings," said Paul, "not to serve as appendages to machines, institutions, and systems.” 

[deathgroup]

Reading III: Summary. The New Materiality of Design. By Yi, October 8th 2018

Finally, the last summary!!!

I’m pretty exhausted these days so I guess I couldn’t come up with more ideas now, which means this summary wouldn’t be a perfect ending for three week’s reading. Albert Einstein once said: “ Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything one has learned in school.” Thank you Einstein, it’s so comforting for people who has a poor memory like me. I’m quite sure I couldn’t repeat even one complete sentence from those articles, but I think I almost got all the points they want to say, and I know, these concepts will influence me more or less the way I see the world. As for the design perspective, I don’t know how much I can really take into practice(the first topic still seems to be the most relevant one), because admit it or not, theory is different from practice. Sometimes it’s really hard to fill the gaps between these two, even though you really want to apply these critical concepts.  

Some words for today’s discussion. We started with Latour’s texts, we criticized his old school style, wordy and detouring logic, but his attempt trying to talk with readers save some credits for him.(Although it doesn’t make the article less boring). Lots of reality issues we related to, IIkka talked about these two books<the design of everyday things> and <player piano>. I checked the latter one, seems quite interesting. From design of everyday things, we were wondering, as a designer, when we design a very normal product, should we do something totally new or should we keep the “traditional” essence? We also notice some products are actually being used by users in a total different way from designer’s mental plan. And this is what Latour mentioned in his text: “ There might be an enormous gap between the prescribed user and the user-in-the-flesh, a difference as big as the one between the “I” of a novel and the novelist.” So back to the last question, we are so accustomed to everyday products and how they works, it seems like there are some universal rules and standards behind them, assuming that everyone knows “this kind of stuff should be used in this way”. So how to balance the idea of creation and user-logic when you try to design outside the box?

A very common example. Although I still think the right ways seems really weird.

Ilkka and Anna also mentioned Isotype, which brings us back to the first group discussion because “it was the forebears of pictograms we now encounter everywhere, such as the man and woman on toilet doors.” Universal standards/images sounds like an alluring ideal but it’s impossible to realize. We were discussing, is there any icon can represent all kinds of human beings no matter disabled or transgendered etc.?

I don’t mind being pushed to read academic essays because I do can get something from those difficult sentences, whatever I read it in a right or wrong way.(but I really need a break now because the tasks are too intensive for three weeks) Though this course seems like a second round for me, the concepts and topics I’ve touched already from last time, still, I got something more this time. And this kind of discipline is necessary for all people from all kinds of majors because these knowledges should be taken as common sense nowadays.

[deathgroup]

Reading III: Introduction. The New Materiality of Design. By Eeki, October 8th 2018

I do not enjoy the fact, that it is, again, almost 1 o’clock somewhere between Sunday and Monday as I start to write this. On the other hand, I do enjoy the fact that the Earth has spun enough times for the reading to finally come to an end!

I was smarter this time. As suggested, I started with the shorter of the two texts, Workers of the world, Conform!, which turned out to be relatively easy to read. It was written in a straight-forward, descriptive way. It was rather interesting to read about the birth of the paper standard I am so accustomed to that I rarely stop to notice it’s size and proportions. At this moment it feels there is not much I can take home from this writing, other than some trivial information, and the sense of an accomplishment of reading it through without too much sweating. However, I do find the notions of standardisation and uniformity interesting and relevant. They got me thinking about the standards of work: 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week. Everyone seemingly and supposedly able are expected to give up their autonomy for half of their awake-time (assuming they need another 8 hours of sleep), five days a week. This standard has never suited me. I find 8 hours a day to be overly demanding and wearing, and often notice it’s negative effects on my wellbeing. The same is expected of us in our studies. On top of the expectation that we are able to tolerate the exhaustive schedule, extra pressure is being thrown at us by pressurised to plan our whole studies all the way to the end, to the time we turn in our theses. All this, with not much room for failure. And when an individual does fail to meet those expectations, the individual is at fault.

Last week I failed to write the introduction in time, and I am afraid I will have to leave this one short, too. It is now 3:18 a.m. which means my alarm will gently ring and wake me up in less than five hours. I think it’s best, for the sake of my life, to sleep and continue on these thoughts in my summary tomorrow.

[deathgroup]

Introduction, Reading III: The New Materiality of Design. by Ilkka, 7 Oct. 2018

20’s German standardheads

First time we met with the group later to be known as Death, we discussed various aspect of knowledge. And one of the points brought up was useless knowledge. The kind of things you know but you’re not sure why, such as which year events took place without knowing the context, who invented what but no idea why etc. I’ve always liked this sort of information, and with age I’ve become more interested in wider picture around this knowledge. In a way I also like order and rules, such as typographic grid systems, lists, hierarchies, and eventually standards. I also seem to be more of a practical than theoretical thinker, and I suppose for these reasons I liked Nader Vossoughians Workers of the World, Conform! (And quite possibly why I also liked Druckers Graphesis).

Humble A4 is something so mundane and obvious you just need to know something about it. And just how deep is it tied to German modernist era and cultural change after WWI. Just gotta love the whole paper standard concept, and the influence it and other DIN systems have had on our culture, without us even paying attention to it.

I’m so into this fascinating history of paper sheets and Dewey and Ostwald and Porstmann that I cannot even start to think about the critical parts of Vossoughians article. I suppose he is trying to make the reader see that standardization has not liberated workers of digital era, but I’m not sure why. I’m fascinated by those 20’s German standardheads, and just keep looking at those beautiful and information rich illustrations. I’m so impressed right now.

Doors & door handles

I read first 13 pages of Bruno Latours “Where are the Missing Masses? The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts” on one sitting, but then I hit the wall. Enough mister, I feel like you are making things too complicated. Yes you can use humble hinges and groom as a metaphor for something, or as a gateway to more theoretical discussion, but it’s still a door.

And when talking about doors, I keep waiting for a reference to Donald Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things – did not happen during the those 13 pages. I read that book number of years ago, but I still remember him criticizing door handles, as they could be designed for better usability. Hmmm, maybe these two authors actually have something in common: Latour starts his reasoning by telling about the note on the door; Norman on the other hand suggests, that a well designed door handle doesn’t need a PULL or PUSH sign, as the handle itself can direct the user to do what is needed. But whereas Latour digs deep in the world of nonhuman characters and materiality and complex description of a door, Norman stays in real world, giving designers something to think about considering real life. (Disclaimer: I didn’t re-read Norman, but I’m fairly sure door handles are important part of that book).

After a nice four day break I returned to Latour. Reading four or five or maybe six pages more made me realize that Latour is actually talking about the same thing as Norman, but in different context and using fancier words. To put it simple it might be “Know your user”, or from another point of view “Know what you’re using”. Norman, as memory serves me, writes about mental model and conceptual model, meaning that user has a certain idea about how a device, service or such works. And if this mental model doesn’t match with designer’s conceptual model, there might be usability problems ahead.

And that’s all I read. Two thirds. I think it’s enough, it has to be. Maybe I’ll try to finish the text after group meeting. It seems that our discussions really help me to absorb these texts: maybe it’s the same case with this one.

[deathgroup]

Introduction, Reading III: The New Materiality of Design. by Yi, 7 Oct. 2018

It is really a coincidence that the day I started reading <the missing mess>, I just reviewed a talk which called <The ending of Cordelia> in the morning. The speaker said: “the ending of Cordelia (letting her die or not) is a very important watershed in drama. This is the watershed of the so-called medieval and modern century.” 

A major difference between the Middle Ages and the modern century is that there are some great figures in the Middle Ages who weave a belief. The whole society believes in such beliefs. Anyone who doubts these beliefs is wicked and bad. These great figures covered our heads with a man-made sky. When each of us looks up, we do not see the natural sky, but the artificial ethical one. The values of medieval drama is “One good return deserves another”, they always demonstrate this kind of faith of the world—— meaningful and orderly. However, is this world really a meaningful and orderly world? NO. When Shakespeare faced the whole world by himself, he discovered a huge tragedy. This tragedy is how small and negligible humans are. The world is disordered, the world is meaningless. All the order and meaning are just something those great people made up for us to believe.  Our true tragedy is “all those things are fake”. The death of Cordelia made King Lear a great tragedy, any attempt to resurrect Cordelia was the vulgarization of King Lear and Shakespeare.

Ok it seems a bit digress from the subject…back to the topic. Why I thought of Shakespeare when I saw the seat belt example? Because I found a different “great figure” in this context. An interesting sentence I noticed in page 152: “I, plus the car, plus the dozens of patented engineers, plus the police are making me be moral”. Now, since we know there’s no such “orderly” world, we began to indulge ourselves into this selfish, physical, immediate world. It would be so easy for us to do “bad” or “immoral” things if there’s no any laws or rules as constraints. However, laws and rules can’t take care of every human issues and details, there are still plenty gaps between actively-following and narrowly-escaping. And here it is, our neglected “great figure”, comes into the show——the hidden mechanism—— “materialization of morality”. (I have to admit that this author drove me a bit crazy because he’s too wordy. His language is not hard to understand but his logic keeps detouring. He is trying to make his narrative fun and easy following, it might be good for audiences who seating there listening to him, but as a reader, I feel it’s a waste of paper. He should narrow 30 pages down to 10 or something, and I believe that’ll be enough. So I googled relative articles to help myself understand his core idea, and that is “materialization of morality”.)

| Materialization of morality|

It refers to the abstract moral concept through the appropriate technical design, so that it can be embodied in the structure and function of the artifact, thus play a moral guiding and normative effect on human behaviours.

Two examples below to help explain:

1.A fly in the urinals at Schiphol Airport

https://worksthatwork.com/1/urinal-fly

According to Klaus Reichardt, who invented the waterless urinal and now runs a company that sells this technology, nothing works as effectively as getting men to aim in the right place.‘Guys are simple-minded and love to play with their urine stream, so you put something in the toilet bowl and they’ll aim at that,’ says Reichardt. ‘It could be anything. I’ve seen a golf flag, a bee, a little tree. It just happens that at Schiphol it’s a fly.’

2.Conceptual traffic light in Ukuran

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owAAnalkzGs

___________________________

Another point Bruno mentioned over and over again is “a nonhuman doesn’t mean non-humanity in the process”, on the contrary, “Engineers are the authors of these subtle plots and scenarios of dozens of delegated and interlocking characters so few people know how to appreciate. The lable “inhuman” applied to techniques simply overlooks translation mechanisms and the many choices that exist for figuring or defiguring, personifying or abstracting, embodying or disembodying actors.” This viewpoint can relate to the ending of<Workers of the World, Conform!>:

-Standardization helped transform professions like architecture into endeavours of calculation and computation, the mechanics of which are hidden to us.

-“system builders” who create the infrastructure on which we rely, and who are “always engaged in ideological and discursive work, not merely technical work.” (everything’s political :) )

Among all the readings we did in Design as Critical Practice Course, Workers of the World is my favourite, it was so impressive, because I never thought about why A4 paper is the standard paper size among the whole world, and also don’t know it supplied the basis for the standardization of bricks, buildings and all the furniture and fixtures in buildings etc. … But what more sobering is that the author mentioned the potential danger of standardization.

-Standardization was associated not only with discipline but with the enhancement of surveillance. The Nazis initially required party communications to conform to DIN 476, and ultimately outlawed the use anything but A4 paper in official correspondences.

-Max Weber in Economy and Society (1922): the development of a rigid division of labor, clear chains of command, and routinized behavior. (“The more perfectly the bureaucracy is ‘dehumanized,’” Weber observed, “the more completely it succeeds in eliminating from official business love, hatred, and all purely personal, irrational, and emotional elements which escape calculation. This is the specific nature of bureaucracy and it is appraised as its special virtue.” (how scary)

So we can take a glimpse from these sentences how Nazis grew strong. It reminds me of a German movie <the wave>. A teacher starts an experiment to demonstrate how easily the masses can be manipulated because his students do not believe that a dictatorship could be established in modern Germany. Ostwald wrote in his 1927 autobiography. “If one wants to organize, one can only do so if one first intervenes in the unification and coordination of the most everyday, common, and thus also least reflective functional routines.” This sentence is so sobering, perfectly explains why waves can become a Wave.

We hardly doubted those technical standards in our daily life. Of course we don’t need to doubt them all the time otherwise our life would be totally ruined. The importance is we should have some awareness because we are so easy to ignore the conditions we live in and get used to accepting the common sense of society without any asking. We take things for granted all the time, we accustomed to social rules day by day, however, we don’t even know something we did might actually contrast with our belief. It’s always necessary to be vigilant.

[deathgroup]

Introduction, Reading III: The New Materiality of Design. by Anna, 7 Oct 2018

The third reading group assignment is titled "The New Materiality of Design”. Both texts are pondering the relationship between technology and society. In the first text, ‘‘Where Are the Missing Masses? The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts’’ Bruno Latour highlights that to fully understand how socities work we must understand the affect of technologies. The second text "Workers of the World, Conform!” by Nader Vossoughian (2017) presents the development of standards. I find the topics interesting and personally close. The fear that technology is taking over each part of our life has been here, well always, and I can sign that argument well from my own perspective. During the last decades large amount of jobs have been replaced by technology. For example, I have worked in couple of places where used to be secretaries, they handled all the "paper work". But within years all that work was automatised and their effort was replaced by some programs. Too bad these programs were not so clever that the paper work would have fully disappeared from peoples desks. It led to the situation where everyone had to be their own secretaries. Everyone had to learn the programs and take care their own paper work. So, by letting go the secretaries, owners probably made some savings, but the secretaires work did not actually disappear it changed it's shape and diffused into more people. And when people started doing secretarial work in addition to their actual work, their productivity and concentration suffered. This reises a question does the technology necessary solve or answer to the needs, cause it often feels it too often also creates new unpredictable problems that had not existed before. 

Latour explains, that it is not possible to separate society from technology because they are so interconnected and interdependent. He takes a look at the process where human effort is displaced or delegated onto a nonhuman actor, or technology and explores how artifacts can be deliberately designed to both replace human action and constrain and shape the actions of other humans. His article highlighted the interaction between humans and technology by understanding technology in the context of what it would require a human to do to achieve the same outcome. Latour was also interested in the process by which machines delegate action back to humans. He used a door as an example when describing how technology has replaced a human effort and says that doors have an essential societal role: “the hinged door allows a selection of what gets in and what gets out so as to locally increase order, or information”. There used to be grooms to ensure the doors were kept closed, nowadays this need is solved by means of technology. But the reality is not so simple as it sounds, it is always possible that automation will not work as intended or people want to avoid using it. So can technology really replace a human? Is human worker more reliable? Not really cause there’s always the possibility that the human doorman does not do his job properly, it is possible that he does not appear to the place to do his duty. That in mind non-human automation seems to be more reliable. Latour had another example in his text, he described using of seatbelt which is also mechanism served by technology. How one should use it and if you don’t the automatic sensor gives you feedback. But you yourself can affect to this model by switching the mechanism off. The choices we take are usually learned functions. We learn that it is wise to fasten the seatbelt or it is recommended to flash the toilet after using it. 

If we take a closer look at our daily life it is obvious the machines and systems have a lot influence on us. The amount of different instructions and pre-defined rules is enormous. But if we are thinking the morality of technology we should think the designers who use the technology. Some one is always behind the machines and systems, and as a designer, me too, I guess I hold some power when creating for example new web pages and applications which can serve huge masses of people. Behind my work there is a sum of user data, which allows me and my collegues to generate artifacts that catches people and order them to function certain way. That leads me wonder, should I think my responsibility and use my skills certain way? 

Vossoughian writes how standards began to develop within societies, and what an effect standards have had to the development of the societies. He quotes german chemist Wilhelm Ostwald how he asserted that "in order to harmonize all knowledge and eliminate unnecessary expenditures of energy, the world’s information would have to be completely standardised.” In the article Vossoughian talks about A4-paper, how standardised paper format had significant effects in many fields of society. Is undeniable that a construction of certain routines and standards have been necessary to answer the needs and development of mankind and infrastructure. Now it is hard to imagine a world where would be no common habits. But again we must acknowledge that there’s always someone behind the standards and that someone also holds a power. By following the rules and standards we are doing things to support the system and the ideals. And it is always worth thinking who are serving by the actions and established models?

[deathgroup]

Intrommary, Reading II: Design and the Flow of Discourse by Eeki, 2 Oct 2018

I did not succeed in writing before our meeting, which took place today in Tintin Tango, a café in Töölö. Therefore, I present to you a combination of introduction and summary, intrommary.

Again, I found reading and browsing through the texts incredibly, if not increasingly difficult. I made the mistake of starting the reading with Johanna Drucker’s Graphesis. I found my eyes repelling the lines of text, as if a magnetic force was pushing us apart. Forcing my way through the sentences I found myself coated in Teflon® and the words dribbling down off me. Then, I placed a funnel in my eye socket and tried to pour in the contents of the exhausting pdf, only to find my ears leaking. It took me too long to realise that she and I, apparently, do not share a mutual language. I had this same overwhelming sensation with the previous reading when trying to wrap my head around Geertz’s thoughts. Nevertheless, Drucker’s writings will most likely be something I will turn to when working on my thesis.

During our meeting I was relieved to see I was not alone with my feelings regarding Drucker’s style of writing. Three out of four of our group had faced somewhat similar problems, or at least a disinterest towards the text, whereas one of us had found the text interesting and useful, and was eager to read the whole book through!

Into the meme pool by James Gleick was an easier bit to swallow, although to get to the core of the text would demand more time. I found Gleick’s way of writing enjoyable. Here are some unstructured thoughts that came up:

thoughts themselves have a will to survive.

thoughts are infectious, contagious, dangerous parasites.

thoughts replicate, but never stay the same when passed on.

something something.

Mills’ Man in the Middle was an easy read, as well, because it pretty much talked about things I already know. It’s funny to read something like this from six decades ago that could be written today.

Meeting with the group was lovely. Tintin Tango surely beat anything Väre has to offer. I feel like I can get a grasp of the texts only when discussing them together. I wish I had more to say.

I want to sleep.

[deathgroup]

Summary, Reading II: Design and the Flow of Discourse. by Anna, 1 Oct 2018

Our second reading group meeting took place in café Tinting Tango. We agreed that overall the material was more understandable this time, but everyone did not find all the texts so interesting. Especially Ducker’s Graphesis divided our opinions. Some of us thought is was a bit boring and did not get in touch with the core. 

The longest and the most vivid discussion happened around James Gleick’s Into the meme pool. The evolution theory behind the definition of meme and term selfish genes does makes sense but is it actually so relevant to compare genes and memes? We did found the concept of meme fascinating yet quite blurry. The concept of meme is huge and that’s why our conversation began to bounce here and there. We we wondering for example, how hard it is to define a meme, where and when a meme is born and can you pass a meme to someone so that the receiver would fully get it and the meme would not change on the way? Then we came up with the conclusion that it is hard to avoid that it would not change since everyone looks at the matter from their own point of view, and with their own knowledge. So the memes keep living and evolving every time we communicate. Ideas also cause ideas, so every time we communicate we each other the ideas continue their living and create more ideas. So with this thought It is easy to understand that memes exists in our daily work life as well. it is all about catching ideas and breed them forward. We were also pondering can you refuse memes? If you are under the influence of a meme, for example some ideology, will you eventually start to spread it forward? Also in Ducker’s text she refers to memes, how the development of new technologies has accelerated the spread of ideas.

And then the third text C.W. Mill’s, Man in the middle, it raised a lot of thoughts as well. The core of the content was easy to understand cause It was like a speech. We felt it could have been written today, since the situation has remained the same, only things have been getting worse. We could all relate to the topic, the problematic role of the designer where you find out that you are a part of the capitalist machinery. We are all at some point in a situation where we have to think about our professional position? Whether it satisfies you or is it tearing you to different directions? And can you find a balance somewhere between different types of work modes? Do you find peace even when making the most commercial work assignment or do you have to do something more meaningful to compensate the situation? At the end the feeling that you can influence the course of things is important and that is the direction in which to strive. That you opinions matter and the fact that you are listened to. 

[deathgroup]

Summary, Reading II: Design and the Flow of Discourse. by Yi, 1 Oct 2018

Though three of us rarely get anything from the <Graphesis: Visual forms of knowledge production>, at least Ilkka likes it and gonna read it again! So I think that’s quite enough :)

We talked Memes first. We feel the concept of meme is too big, it feels like everything related to thoughts can be called meme, whether it’s as big as a culture or as small as an idea, which makes the boundaries really blur so it’s hard to tell the precise definition of meme. But I guess the definition is not that important, the point is how they influence us and how much they can influence us. Speak of Dawkins, <The Selfish Gene> is inevitably mentioned. We haven’t read that book yet but we know the idea of them is quite similar. Humans are just vehicles and tools for both genes and memes to propagate and parasitize. Cruel, but I love it. Thinking of myself as a puppet being controlled by the power of nature, makes me feel released.(Hard to explain, I just really enjoy those ideas reducing human into some very biological or physical dimension, throwing away the idea of pure initiative’s power. This gene-meme leading concept makes me feel that humanity is not that scary anymore.)

Then we were discussing how to relate memes with design perspective. Every time when you are telling something or some ideas to others, they will come up with their own ideas, not just receiving the messages as they were. Because of the “situated knowledge”, everyone will link their own experience with the idea they’ve got. It’s like the evolution of ideas, always involve the former one but never the same. For graphic designers, there’re some websites they always look through before starting a project. they would see others’ works and then get inspirations from them, idea passes via the image form. Then it brought us to another thought: “Is it possible to pass on a pure idea that won’t change no matter who receives it?” (Is it?)

I shared the situation of LGBTQI group in China nowadays and my own experience of receiving them. We found out the source of ideas received determines our acceptance of these ideas. The ideas we got from our friends(or families) are more powerful then those from TV or medias.

_______________________________________

Then it goes to the <The man in the middle>. I was a bit over-reacting: ) Thank you all for being patient listening to my complains… But I still insist on my opinion that in this article the second half part is pretty suck. (I totally get what the author’s point of view, seriously, and I agree with the situation he mentioned.)I don’t think being a craftsman is a good solution when confronting the society, it would only makes your life more disaster. Being a craftsman means your work is your life, if you treated every work with your full heart and enthusiasm, you would only make yourself unhappy because YOUR CLIENTS DOSEN’T CHANGE! There are plenty of things in the world worth doing and plenty of meaningless shits too. Be an idealist or craftsman with those things worthy, take the money from the meaningless stuff and just leave. My sincere suggestions for all human beings (especially client)is: take whatever Discourse in Design or Critical Design or Critical theories and READ SOME ARTICLES! Another sincere suggestion from Eeki and Anna for designers: MAKE YOUR OWN CONTRACT!

The end, sorry. 

(I really enjoy group meeting and discussing. Sharing ideas makes me happy.)

[deathgroup]

Summary, Reading II: Design and the Flow of Discourse. by Ilkka, 1 Oct 2018

Time has come to wrap up the second group meeting. Wiser than week ago, we met in a café in Töölö in Monday afternoon, hoping that the time and surroundings would be nicer than last week. And it was more casual and relaxed, not at all annoying but rather nice thing to talk over a cup of warm beverage. It was also partly because style and characteristic of Reading II was very different. This time we had more ideas and thoughts, at least about two of the texts. And they also evoked strong feelings in one of us, which led to good conversation.

We started with the Meme thing by James Gleick. Yi had good prior experience about the subject, and she was able give us a little insight on using memes in Chinese culture. It’s always interesting to learn about cultural phenomena in different parts of the world. For me Gleick’s article wasn’t too interesting, just something about spreading knowledge and chain letters and genes and memes and Richard Dawkins. I guess the term ‘meme’ was too vague and I wanted more accurate definition. I feel that just about anything can be called meme according to the text. We even discussed that every time we communicate we create memes, and our thoughts go through evolution when passed on to others.

Moving on to Mills and the Man in the middle. The ideas presented in this address were not unfamiliar to us. We live in a capitalistic culture where consumerism is virtue, and we all should realize that and also our role as designers in the society. 

Mills gave us good frame for discussion, as the text can be read from many viewpoints. I myself understood his speech more as an empowering statement to all designers: Stand up, demand better assignments, don’t give up to corporations. Yi on the other hand read the text as an accusation against designer, and got rather annoyed. Mills seems to be pointing at designers who sell their craft, and blaming them for that, but that’s not the whole picture. If designer is hired to do crap, then whose fault is it? In many cases designer doesn’t have too much to say about content or form, and designs change on iteration rounds as client wishes.

I was happy to be in this discussion as a bystander, as my knowledge from graphic design business is quite thin: But not that thin anymore as I listened and learned a few tricks of the trade!

We left the most difficult text for last, as it seemed that our group had some difficulties absorbing Graphesis. I was surprised a bit as I thought it was the best piece in this Reading. Like I wrote in the introduction, I really liked getting deeper in foundations of visual communication and visualizations. I almost cannot wait to read the book further, as there are interesting topics coming up. I also liked the writing style as it was kind of an chronological story about history of graphic design. I cannot say I understood or internalized it, as I didn’t, but I am happy this was part of the Reading, and I’m sure this knowledge will get useful.

To sum it up, we had good conversation, everybody had good ideas, thoughts and questions, some same same but others vastly different. This group meeting brought up divergences in our backgrounds and thinking, making the discussion more personal and also more life based than before.  And that made it a fun day.

[deathgroup]

Introduction, Reading II: Design and the Flow of Discourse. by Anna, 30 Sept 2018

The Second reading group assignment is titled "Design and the Flow of the Discourse". Again, all the texts are handling the the role of visual knowledge in our culture. I was hoping the the content would be easier to swallow than in the previous ones. 

The first of the texts, Johanna Drucker’s Graphesis: Visual Forms of Knowledge Production, published by Harvard University Press (2014) describes how we are able to read and understand visual presentations even thought visual language is not considered a form of language such as written language. Within years there has been attempts to create an explicit language of graphics. Some of those theories have a highly formal set of visual elements with rules for their use and a verbal description of this system and the ways it works. What Ducker highlights is the importance of learning to interpret how visual forms not only present knowledge but produce it. She underlines that it is important to recognise visualization as a primary mode of knowledge production. She examines a range of methods of presenting information to the eye and determines how the elements embed logical concepts into images. “The complexity of visual means of knowledge production,” she writes, “is matched by the sophistication of our cognitive processing. She is focusing, and her examples are mainly information graphics, interface, and other schematic formats, specifically in relation to humanistic problems of interpretation. The world we see is a world made by our cognitive ability: "We now know that the affordances of our senses and the capacities of cognition together construct the impression of a visual world”. 

She also writes: "Though we often use visual means to make images of invisible things, much of contemporary life simply can’t be shown”. “Most information visualizations are acts of interpretation masquerading as presentation. In other words, they are images that act as if they are just showing us what is, but in actuality, they are arguments made in graphical form”. When speaking of user interface design, what is in her focus all the way, this would mean that the clean and minimalistic interfaces of mobile apps we are using day to day, for example Facebook, hides all kind of information behind the clean presentation. To make it simple I guess that means that underneath the beautiful surface lies a series of decisions that have already been made for us.

Graphemes seems worth thorough reading because her book is current, just couple of years ago published, and Ducker’s background is in the history of graphic design, typography and digital humanities and close to my own interests. I was hoping to get even “tools” and methods for my own work and thinking. Her way to look at the theme certainly seems different and interesting and the examples are quite understandable and even obvious, but to fully absorb her thinking it certainly requires needs more absorbing. Maybe it is the academic style of writing what feels once again distancing. All in all it leaves me bit in the air and wondering what was the core of the text? I could not get so good grasp of the subject as I hoped. The second text, James Gleick’s essay ”Into the Meme Pool” (you parasite my brain) from his book a book "Information, a history, a theory, a flood" (2011), concentrates to the concept of the “meme”. What is a meme and how memes are born? In his text he represents evolutionionary biologist Richard Dawking who originally invented the idea of meme and introduced it his book The Selfis gene(1976): “Memes should be considered as living structures, not just metaphorically”, "Memes are complex units, distinct and memorable—units with staying power--", "Memes may be stories, recipes, skills, legends, and fashions. We copy them, one person at a time” writes Dawking. He thinks that information even if it is abstract, has a life of its own and behaves like organisms, and it even behaves like genes. He also introduces a french biologist Jacques Monod who said that ideas have "spreading power.": "Ideas cause ideas and help evolve new ideas. They interact with each other and with other mental forces in the same brain, in neighboring brains, and thanks to global communication, in far distant, foreign brains”. 

I like his findings and comparisons to biology, and I mostly agree with him, but kept thinking is it a bit vague to refer genes when analysing the structure and behaving of memes? The elements of culture change easily to qualify as stable replicators. They are rarely as neatly fixed as DNA. When compared with genes, memes are hard to mathematize or even to define systematically. 

Third text is from an american sociologist C.W. Wright and called The Man in the Middle (In Summers, John H. (ed.) (2008). The Politics of Truth. Selected Writings of C. Wright Mills. Oxford University Press). C.W. Wright writes about the role of an american designer and designers position in the society and especially in serving economy “His art is a business, but his business is art and curious things have been happening both to the art and to the business—and so to him”. Also "They cannot consider well their position or formulate their credo without considering both cultural and economic trends, and the shaping of the total society in which these are occurring”. 

He writes about cultural apparatus "By the cultural apparatus I mean all those organizations and milieux in which artistic, intellectual and scientific work goes on. I also mean all the means by which such work is made available to small circles, wider publics, and to great masses”. He declares that the cultural apparatus shapes up the world where we live in and the way we experience it. "The only truths are the truths defined by the cultural apparatus”."The only beauty is experiences and objects created and indicated by cultural workmen”. He points out how the dominance of over consuming commercial culture have spoiled the modern life. Also a term “craftsmanship” is introduced in his text when talking about designers. "That, in turn, means that he shares one cardinal value, that is the common denominator of art, science and learning and also the very root of human development. That value, I believe, is craftsmanship". The text is written in the 50’s and points to United States but the main content and notions seems to be timeless. It is easy to connect to the message from todays perspective. Even though Wright’s voice is quite provoking, as a designer I am aware of the dilemma that I am part of the machinery that creates and addresses concepts and images to people and hopes them to cause an action or sell something to them. I am aware and responsible for my part of how modern culture appears. 

[deathgroup]

Introduction, Reading II: Design and the Flow of Discourse. by Ilkka  30 Sept 2018

Mad Men making designers their business

AKA slightly biased, but rather generalized and exaggerated rant on furniture design.

I don’t really see myself as a graphic designer, not at this point at least as I never worked in the field – I’m more of a hobbyist. But I have been looking at furniture design from really close for quite some time. Every time I go to a furniture fair or show or any furniture event I cannot stop thinking that there is nothing to see. If you want to look at these pieces, just visit Asko or Isku or Vepsäläinen or any furniture outlet – the exact same items are found at any retailer. This of course is not because furniture designers suck – they sure don’t. It’s just that they need to compromise all the time because Producer or Marketer dictates what is commercially viable. Corporations decide measures, materials, manufacturing process, finishing, logistics, branding and so on. This leads to lack of innovation, dull and predictable results and designers holding their talent.

Corporations also are too careful, and won’t bet on new visions. Why would they when decades-old design sells? Meme is that Finnish golden era or mid-century design is great, and everyone has some pieces designed by a handful of deceased well-respected designers. These pieces of furniture are still being produced today, and some pieces are even taken back to production from archives. Golden era designers are patriarchal Stars who have overshadowed the whole scene since their days. Even in Väre, a building that should look in the future we can find chairs designed in the 40s.

But luckily there is the other side: Furniture expos usually have some sort of Young Guns section. Up and coming talents haven’t –yet– surrendered to commercial demands, so they can showcase whatever they want, giving the finger to flatpack logistics, rational materials and cost effective manufacturing process. They are still pure in their design, showing their craft, and the only thing on sale is their vision and skills. They spread their ideas and designs as never before with internet and social media, creating meme like content to get international audience – before economic realities force then to jump on the corporate bandwagon.

A few words on marketing based obsolescence

I used to work with mobile phones, doing B2B marketing for a distribution company to be exact. I used to love to have all the latest devices before they hit the shelves, and study future from “leaked” images and roadmaps, already planning which phone my boss will hand me next. Until one day it hit me: Marketing departments were screwing me big time. They told me that the NEW is so much better and faster and sexier than the OLD but it wasn’t. And the next one wasn’t either. Nor the next one. NEW just made OLD obsolete and ready to be recycled. They sold me their bullshit and I bought it. We all of course know what Mills is about, but it is hard to see what our choices as consumers are based on. It’s really good to think about it, and be aware of Marketing gimmicks.

A few words on Drucker

In my interview for Aalto I told that one reason for applying to study Information design was to get familiar with the foundations of the craft. To really understand why and how certain visual solutions actually work, and to learn to use them in effective ways. And Drucker gives just that in her reasonably understandable text. It gives so many answers, but also makes my mind even more curious. I’m sure I’ll return to Graphesis many times in future, and study the names and work mentioned, as well as references.

The very idea of graphic-ness, attention to the surface of a visual plane on which compositional elements interacted—not merely as representations of other things, but as elements in themselves—required a conceptual leap.

Coincidentally I’ll have real life use for this new knowledge soon, as I was hired to teach information visualization class. Reading Drucker gives me confidence, leverage and credibility at least. And a chance to show off a bit.

[deathgroup]

Introduction, Reading II: Design and the Flow of Discourse. by Yi, 30 Sept 2018

First of all, share a super Chinese style memes here: )

From 2013, the year I started college, memes became an important part of online chatting, well, for young generations at least. About 1 year later, I suddenly realized that it’s actually a really interesting topic to discuss because memes does play a super essential role in our social media. Here the words “essential”, is not exaggerated at all. We found it is hard to talk only in pure texts, but meanwhile, it’s possible to talk only using memes. Many of us began to have those weird feelings that if we don’t use any memes in our conversation, then most of the time, we don’t know how to communicate; when someone was discussing something with you or tell her/his feelings about something and she/he didn’t use memes as an assistant, then you might think “is she/he mad at me?” “Did I say something wrong?” However, at the same time, we hardly send memes to our superiors. These unwritten “rules” came from no where and they didn’t exist actually but, most of us follows them. It’s so wired but intriguing, so in 2016, I decided to make one project about memes.

In Chinese, this format of picture-with-words is called “expression package”, so when I saw the English translation, I was totally lost. I didn’t know what “memes” means so I couldn’t see any relativity between these two parlances. However, it became the starting point for me to do research and get to know the concept of “meme”. If we pull a line out of the whole concept to make it clear and simple then it could be concluded as:

Memes propagate themselves via imitation.

The existence of memes doesn’t necessarily helpful for human host, it might just because they are so good at replication in certain environments.

Some of the memes rooted in our brains are subjectively accepted, the other half is passively accepted.

Through reflection, the actively accepted meme is more likely to be beneficial to human host, and for the passively accepted meme, whether it is beneficial or not is unknown.

In Gustave Le Bon’s <The Crowd>, we know human lives as groups in society, we’re easily impulsive under a process of mutual contagion, we’re strongly suggestible and credulous, our opinions are extremely spontaneous and changeable. These characteristics build the bridge for memes to transmit from one brain to another. We don’t take this kind of memes on our own initiate, the accumulation makes us take some ideas or values as natural and universally right. Though the bridge is still there, the whole environment changed a lot these days. We are in a rapid developing era of information. Everything runs so fast, updating ideas appears more and more frequently. Under this high-speed strike, so-called ingrained conventions are not popular among young generations any more. We are more easily to embrace new ideas and open thoughts. Although not all of them are consistent with our values, we wouldn’t see them as monsters at least.

I like the idea of “Unknown”. Unknown means possibilities. It can be very evil and fatal such as Fascism, but it can also be the opportunity for this brand new technological world to discard outward viewpoints which caused bias and misunderstanding. “Cultivation theory” believes that the media has a subtle influence on people, we are not learning the information and values thrown by the media under conscious all the time. Which means even though we face plenty junk infos and contradict values everyday, we know they are shit, but we would still be influenced slimly after accumulation. Those slight change wouldn't appear in our conscious layer of brain, they would shake those deep-rooted values in unconsciousness. One thing to declare, although I’m talking about “discard outward ideas and go for new world values”, I know there’s no such determinate definition for them, because values change in different era. But we can see the tendency. Due to the development of science, we’re getting to know ourselves as biological human beings better and better, which gives us a more equal and inclusive vision to face distinction. Though we can’t assure where exactly the world will head to (not Utopia for sure), equality and freedom would always have their places in jury. What I want to say is Viral transmission can also make some actually-good&positive ideas that were being judged in the past get more chance to survive or even have the hope to become mainstream because of the accumulation of unconscious invasion. Admit it or not, they do shake you.

James Gleick, the author of <The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood > once said “the concept of meme, force you to realize that as for information, our humans, are not standing in the central of the universe —— we are just tools, not even the controller. And that should be something makes us humble.” People might be interested in this question: can we get away from the power of memes? How can we tell it is a meme? Well, in my understanding, the first idea/opinion/thoughts/desire come into your mind are usually the production of Genes or Memes, what you can do is to reflect them immediately. It doesn’t mean you have to reject your instinct or strong feelings after reflecting, you can accept them just as they are. The only point is you whether you reflect or not.

Our Worlds Are Second-Hand

“Our images of this world and of ourselves are given to us by crowds of witnesses we have never met and never shall meet.”

Our experience itself is always indirect and always guided. Like Haraway mentioned: “there’s no sight of god, every vision has its limit.” No one can stand in front of the solid facts, even with your own eyes, not mention the truth you heard or see from others’ sight. Different standpoints always lead us to different truth, when it comes to media, a slight difference in the words you choose can cause totally different public opinion. This is how power controls crowds.

        so decisive to experience itself are the results of these communications that often men do not believe what they “see before their very eyes” until they have been “informed” about it by the official announcement, the radio, the camera, the hand-out. Communications not only limit experience; often they expropriate the chances to have experience that can rightly be called “our own”.

I am particularly sympathetic to this opinion. Eastern society is undoubtedly more traditional than the West. Because of this difference in social culture and values, we’ve been educated under two different systems, so the experience in teenager times will be distinct. Since I came here, the environment totally changed, I met a lot of new people, tried a lot of new things which I saw as "not supposed to do" in the past. Then I suddenly realized in fact, many so-called “terrible things” that might hurt you should be reconsidered. The principles and bottom line I set for myself in the past were actually vulnerable, because at that time the construction of these principles was based on the cognition and social norms from others. However, I took them as my own and smug about these “solid facts”. Although I am not sure whether these new experiments will take me to a better spot or a worse one, I only know it is necessary. If too many second-hand social norms are taken as our own standards and boundaries, we will lose many possibilities in life. Possibilities can be good or bad for different individuals, only self-experience and exploration can define that.

________________________________________________

What comes next kinda pissed me off. Most designers have experienced these dilemma for sure.

-It’s in this economic situation that the designer gets his Main Chance. Whatever his esthetic pretension and his engineering ability, his economic task is to sell.

-That dogma is that “we only give them what they want.” This is the Big Lie of mass culture and of debased art, and also it is the weak excuse for the culture default of many designers. (Well, If the design they want is a shit, if the taste they have is just a shit, no matter how good we are, they just don’t want it, what else can we do? )

-By brand and trademark, by slogan and package, by color and form, he gives the commodity a fictitious individuality, turning a little lanolin and water into an emulsified way to become erotically blessed; concealing the weight and quality of what is for sale; confusing the consumer’s choice and banalizing her sensibilities. The silly needs of salesmanship are thus met by the silly designing and redesigning of things. The waste of human labor and material become irrationally central to the performance of the capitalist mechanism. (Extreme. Come on, we all know advertisement isn’t credible at all, it’s also your own judgement to tell whether it’s worth or not. If you don’t buy it, then just don’t buy it! The function of design and art is different. From my own perspective, design born to serve physical things or invisible thoughts. These fictitious human-adding elements are not immoral, they are just tools. Designer should have their own values towards forms but it also depends on the clients and situations. It’s silly to only judge designer, especially under economic context.)

-It is not only the designer who commits the cultural default (Of course not🙃if had to say, then designers are more like forced accomplices)

-For the highest human ideal is: to become a good craftsman (Well, I doubt it.)

Alright, calm down. Try(pretend) to be a good kid. If there’s any reflection I got from the second half of this article, then it would be: a designer should have social responsibility, should have some insistence for their own design value. So make your design process more logical and research-supporting, so that you get a slight chance to persuade some clients: )

I have nothing to say about <Graphesis: Visual forms of knowledge production>, because I feel like I’m reading a textbook. I need much more correlative background knowledges to help me comb.

[deathgroup]

READING I SUMMARY Situated Knowledges in Design Practice, by Eeki, September 25th 2018

THE WIND, A TERMITE

Group Death meets up at ten o’clock on Monday morning, September 24th 2018. Everyone seems a bit tired, some more than others. We walk up two sets of stairs and make our way to a space on the uppermost floor of Väre. A room with nothing more than a table and too many chairs. The room is not bleak, but lacks warmth. Three ceramic plates, in the colours of a blue and white sky, hung on one wall. Opposite to it an emergency exit. I’m facing a glass wall of an aquarium.

It is rather cold outside, despite the sun pushing it’s rays through the veil of clouds. It is fall again, I think, while I unwrap my neck from a scarf, take off my coat, layout my belongings near the edge of the table and set myself somewhat comfortably on one of the chairs. Others ensconce themselves around the table in a similar manner. How was your weekend, someone asks. Good, another one or two or three answers. Great, someone concludes.

I spent my weekend at a cottage in Snappertuna, near Raasepori: five friends gathered together to spend quality time. Cooking, eating, drinking, smoking, a gust of wind grabbing a bucket and tossing it in the Baltic sea, swimming to get the bucket back, sauna, singing, laughter, laziness, loveliness. Oh, and reading. And writing. Wrapped in warm garment I sit on a beanbag out on the porch, a laptop propped up against my thighs, and read about knowledge, thinking and other abstract concepts. What does ‘apparatus’ mean? A friend knows. My friends are smart. Behind the screen: bulrushes dance their worries away with the wind, a swan flies over the water and bugles.

A friend reads out an article about termites from the New Yorker. Something about their cathedral-like buildings and their complex ventilation systems. Something about how they farm and feed grass to fungi in their underground gardens. Something about how the U.S. military tries to build bug-inspired killer robots. And something about “swarm intelligence”: how a single isolated termite is confused and unable to function, but as a unit in a group of many it finds its place and starts to work in a coordinated manner.

The meeting proceeds clumsily in moments, sparklingly in others, and in a calm agreeing tone. We exchange thoughts, and I finally come to an understanding that situated knowledge is a recurring theme in all of the texts in reading I (which certainly explains the title Situated Knowledges in Design Practice). What I have yet to realise is how exactly does one apply or implement the themes presented in the writings to one’s design practice. However, I do think it is important for one to realise that knowledge of all kind is tied to a time, a place, a space, a culture, etc., and one should always endeavour, no matter the oxymoron, to see outside one’s own perspective, and to show compassion towards other beings and non beings.

Time has passed. The water in a river has changed. It is 1 a.m., Tuesday 25th, and I stare at the screen with the eyes of a lonely termite. I apologise to you for leaving this short and light.

To conclude: life is full of wonders :)

[deathgroup]

Summary, Reading I (Situated Knowledges in Design Practice) by Anna, 24 Sept 2018

The first face to face meeting of our reading group was very fruitful and useful, even fun! it was a relief to notice that we shared same issues concerning the reading assignment itself and also similar thoughts about the first three texts. We all find it quite challenging to absorb this big chunk of academic, theory based text in this tight time frame. It felt that each text required multiple readings, making notes while you are reading and also some background searching from the internet and after that some time to process everything in your have read! But we also assumed the reading gets a little bit easier the more you do it, and that the typical academic language what is used in the texts will hopefully become more familiar. We also noticed that the small group discussions are very helpful and pleasant way of getting in to the themes. Having a joint conversation opens up s the subjects in totally new way. We all came to the group meeting a bit confused but probably after the session we were all felt a bit wiser.   

From all the three texts, the most easiest one to swallow was Estelle Barret’s essay of Foucault’s theory (Barrett, Estelle (2012). Foucault’s ‘What is an Author’: Towards a Critical Discourse of Practice as Research). Even thought the text kept repeating itself making the reading challenging, at some level it still was possible to reflect the essays topics to your own life and design practise. The two other texts, Donna Haraway’s Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective (1988) and The Way We Think Now: Toward an Ethnography of Modern Thought) by Clifford Geertz demanded more absorbing just to be able to relate to the themes at least a some level. 

 Even though Barret’s text required lot of concentrating while reading it, we thought that the language she used was colourful and quite entertaining. She used very provocative and bold expressions for example: "---This gaze signifies the un­marked positions of Man and White, one of the many nasty tones of the word "objectivity" to feminist ears in scientific and tech­nological, late-industrial, militarized, racist, and male-dominant societies, that is, here, in the belly of the monster, in the United States in the late 1980s”. 

As a result of the discussions we managed to found some linking themes between all the three texts. For example the dilemma of the term objectivity emerged somehow in all three contents. What does objectivity actually mean? Who is objective? Is it ever possible to do researcher work objectively?   

That lead us to other main topic that all the texts covered, the importance of an individual's experience. How everything we see and are as humans is a sum of each persons experiences, background etc. All the texts emphasised the value of each personas own thoughts and knowledge and the knowledge everyone has is always situated. Especially Haraway’s and Geertz’s texts underlined the appreciation towards different ways of seeing world and life. Each individuals knowledge is a sum of their own experiences and that is valuable in itself. It is important to be aware of the different backgrounds and value the diversity. It is useful to always stay curious and question your own and others peoples acts. We also thought that for each person their own knowledge is for most part unconscious. And when thinking and doing is unconscious it is typically difficult to identify your own doing. What are you doing, why are you doing what you are doing? To be able to analyse your own doing is very useful and leads to better understanding of yourself and also other human beings. You can never really know some else completely but you can learn to understand the motives mechanisms behind someones thoughts and acts. 

This whole theme of understanding other peoples basis raised some interesting thoughts in our group. We went through some practical work related cases where setting your self to some one else shoes is some way necessary. For example when doing user centred design you should know your end user. All in all the texts started to resonate with us better through practical examples.