More generally speaking, I also plan to survey Design/Art work being done which overlaps with scientific research. At least two classes I’ve taken this year, including Bio/Nano Art this semester, and Fish Futures last semester, were focused on projects in this area. I’ve always been interested in Science, but until recently I hadn’t imagined it being an area of study that would again overlap with my studies. I think this work may inform my thesis, for which I am considering designing an exhibit, because though I haven’t exactly determined the subject of the exhibit, I imagine it being science/ecology related.

To supplement this, I also plan on trying to volunteer at an environmental research and education organization, such as the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, NY, as a way to explore the role of ecological stewardship in our relationship to ecosystems. The Cary Institute is a private, non-profit institution that conducts various types of ecological research in Dutchess County, N.Y. They also have an educational division that educates the public through tours and other means.

I plan on going to a few conferences including the Society for Environmental Graphic Design (SEGD).. Environmental Graphic Design is the name of the larger field of work, which includes Exhibition Design. Last year I attended the SEGD conference and it was a great opportunity to meet with people working in the field and discuss their projects. Another resource in this area that I’d like to explore is the American Museum of Natural History. They are one of the few science Museums I know of that has their own Design Team.

Lastly, I am currently working on a game project that I’d like to continue to develop throughout the summer. The game is for the Red Cross, and I’m working on it with Julynn and an undergraduate Communication Design student, Kristopher Louie. It’s a board game that introduces students to the challenges involved in the international humani­tarian effort to provide temporary camps for displaced people, through discussion of the current disaster situation in Haiti. I mention it because it’s been an experience that has influenced my direction this semester, and may influence my thesis as well. I plan to attend the Games for Change Festival this month, and will also be researching the field of educational games.

Throughout the whole reading, I kept on thinking back to Mark Weiser’s ”Ubiquitous Computing”, and our earlier discussion involving the release of the ipad, so I was almost relieved to hear Weiser referenced on the first page. In Weiser’s reading I saw the importance of ubiquitous computing, and re-evaluating the GUI and the omnipresence and adaptability of computers, but for some reason, not the value of TUI in this reading.

I appreciate the depth that can come identifying and utilizing a humans concentrated and periphery attention, but the Ambient Room, the transBoard, and Tangible User Interfaces within the context of our department, (and the thesis projects this year) seem like a passing fad. I think using the idea that data and source feeds are being used to interact and manipulate a tangible interface is more exciting than the actual visualization. I could draw a similar parallel to a contemporary artwork who’s importance is dependent on the context surrounding the piece. I believe that even without the context, the viewer/listener/ user should find some value or impression from the piece without having to hear the whole backstory on how and why it was created. I feel that the context should enhance and supplement, but not be the sole factor that drives any interest surrounding it…. which seems the case with most of the pieces presented in this reading.

I went to Whitney biennial last week and had the chance to see some installations and documentaries. I got fascinated by Kerry Tribe’s work which was touching upon perception and subjectivity and memory. I also just got her book called North is West/South is East where she was asking strangers in LA airport to draw pieces of memories related to events, environments that were significant to those strangers. By doing that she was laying out the real LA and the imagined-perceived LA and so interestingly she was doing that in an airport that is perceived as just a non-place that takes you from one place to another! This was very inspiring for me to work on perceptions and how technology is affecting them. The way we utilize and sense the technology and then how this persuasive technology is messing up with our mental cognitive maps that shape our perceptions. How we move away from rituals like having family dinner around a table and how we value our memories and our data is being changed so fast!

Open sources, cloud computing, sharing, sharing and sharing. Today Anezka said something like “digital slavery” and I loved it since these two words were describing what I am feeling and willing to work on. So what is happening to our subjectivity and our perceptions in this technologically motivated metropolitan world. In my thesis, I want to get my hands dirty by building physical objects that can attract attention on the loss of subjectivity by showing how the way we perceive space, time and objects has changed!

In my mini-thesis I chose a web-oriented medium however I enjoy building things and I do believe that to point out this alteration on the way we live our lives should be through a contemporary communication between us and the objects not between us and a screen.

At this point what I am thinking is using the body and physical objects to display these messages related to technology and its affects on our space and time perceptions. That’s why I am planning to read tangible interface research and the objects semantics. Since the message is how the technology is affecting the way we value things and I am using objects to tell this, I should be able to figure out what objects can signify this message more intuitively.

I am still thinking in a broad sense but next semester I am taking social psychology from social research department which can help me out to make a framework for my research and can show me some resources to read on the social affects of technology on our subjectivity as an individual and as a society.

Miscommunications…

Adaptive Behaviors…

Super-Humans…

My Thesis idea deals with Communication Disabilities.

It’s a theme that I feel like I’ve been encountering more frequently this semester than ever before in my life. From the friends I’ve been making at school, to the readings and “Design Fictions” assignment we had last semester Major Studio, and on a more personal note, in my own daily encounters in NYC as a stutterer. It’s definitely a topic that I hold close and one that I haven’t been ready or emotionally able to delve into until now. Initially, I would like to focus on bringing awareness to some of the communication disabilities that exist, in hopes of gaining the understanding and patience of the general public instead of the ridicule or ostracism that comes from being misunderstood. Things are good, but they can be better.

In general, there’s a huge discrepancy between medical disciplines when it comes to stuttering, and it’s very difficult to address treatment from a wholeistic standpoint. Speech therapists treat it as a physical disability that the body can “relearn” over time through repetition and behavioral therapy. Psychologists recognize cyclical issues that feed stuttering such as stress levels and anxiety. Psychiatrists and general practitioners are open to discussing prescription drugs that can help alleviate or counteract hormonal or neurological imbalances that negatively affect stuttering. However, there’s no one doctor, psychologist or therapist that will recognize all of these factors that contribute to stuttering…. and I find this very frustrating.

In the past, I thought a lot of this disconnect was due to the particular city I was in or the lack of inter-disciplinary communication when it came to the disorder, but after moving to NYC and expecting a more knowledgeable field, I was really surprised to find out that it’s the same here… if not worse. It took me tons of phone calls, dead ends and references to track down a medical professional that was even remotely familiar with stuttering, let alone specializing in it. This leads me to conclude that this lack of communication and may be symptomatic of the disorder itself, and I’d like to really delve into some of the miscommunications, or even silences that have gone on within the stuttering community, and hopefully give a voice or provide an outlet for stutters to be heard or have their issues addressed.

Relating it to the Communication Field

Are those with disabilities related to Communication, (oral, aural, orthography) more likely to major or concentrate their career in a Communication related field? What attracts them/us? Maybe we are drawn to communication studies in search of alternative, innovative forms of communication with peers.

Adaptive Behaviors and Technological Advances

I would also like to really dig into the adaptive behaviors that the disabled have had to learn to cope with their disability, and how people with various disabilities have benefited and been hindered by digital social networking tools and methods of communication during both adolescence, college and today.

One of the conversations that sparked this idea was with my roommate about her boyfriend who has dyslexia. She recounted their early conversations via AIM and texts were a little slow and she thought it was odd. After getting to know him better, she found out that he was running all his IMs through spellcheck and running his texts past friends to make sure they were spelled correctly before he sent them. He was so worried that her first impression of him would misconstrued as being “stupid” for not spelling correctly, when his spelling errors were due to dyslexia.

Conversely, I feel especially free when communicating via IMs, e-mails and text messages. I feel like I can type or “say” what I mean without worry about judgements or negative feedback on the actual delivery. When first contacting a person, (if the situation is appropriate) I’d much rather prefer texting or e-mailing a person than calling them. I usually feel very uncomfortable calling a person unless I know them personally, and am sure that they are aware that I stutter.

A little-known fact about stutters are that they have extremely high reading levels/ reading speeds. There are many different theories about why or where this comes from. From a personal standpoint, I always had to read ahead during grade school, for fear that I would be called upon to read a paragraph or answer a question that included a word that I knew I would stutter on. When I read now, I realize that I’m not reading word for word, I’m looking that the beginning of words and syllables for phonetic sounds and associating a word with the first few letters. I’m assuming that this type of reading comes with a different level of comprehension and treatment of words in terms of semantics and content.

I also “stutter” when I play piano. When I’m alone and playing I have total control over my hands and movements, but when playing in a concert or for an audition, I find it very difficult to start the piece and begin different movements of the piece in the same way that I would stutter on the first word(s) during a speech due to performance anxiety. I’ve heard similar stories about people are deaf and “stutter” while signing.

I’m really curious to find out if there are additional stories like these, relating to other speech, learning and hearing disorders that would be interesting to bring out into the open, with the hope of a greater understanding/empathy for people with communication disorders and a shared history within the community.

Relating it to Technology/ Medium

How many mediums or forms can communication take that doesn’t involve a voice falling on and being comprehended by an ear? How have modern technologies helped people with communication disorders? How have they hurt? Is there a technology that can be made to filter or reform stuttered speech?

I described my idea for thesis to Clay, and he had a really interesting take on it. I was getting into a lot of the social implications of the project, and he was like, “I wonder if you could make an iphone app that would play back stuttered speech as fluent speech?” I had really never thought of this kind of implementation until now, (which is a total testimony on how important it is to talk to people about your thesis). I remembered editing our documentary for the LVMH project this semester. I hated listening to myself speak on camera so much that I often turned off the audio while sifting through clips and would just watch the waveform. Over time I realized I could literally see when I was talking compared to when other people were talking because of the size and shape of the waveform.

My plan for a summer prototype is to play around with protool filters, iphone apps, speakers… all kinds of things that relate to capturing sound and manipulating it to see if it’s possible to create a filter or reverb that could filter or adjust the waveform of stuttered speech to emulate one of fluent speech.

References/ People to Contact:

From Parsons:

-Michelle Levine, a PhD Psychology student doing research on how stuttered speech is comprehended

-Michael Schober, Dean and Professor of Psychology

- Dave Carroll

Medical References:

New York- based physicians who are familiar with or specialize in neurological differences between stutters and non-stutters

Dr. Crane, Christine Johnstone, Wendy Wolfson

Whew. A little hard to know what I want to explore, but I have been reading and learning about quantum ideas and consciousness. There is this magazine called EnlightenNext that has a large spread about these ideas of quantum physics and how new thought experiments are emerging to explain possible ideas of awareness and consciousness. (Spring/Summer, 2010). Some people I will be reading/learning about over the summer are anesthesiologist and consciousness researcher Stuart Hameroff who has these ideas about microtubules and how they could be the holders of consciousness, Erwin Schrodinger’s Cat thought experiment, Roger Penrose’s The Emperor’s New Mind, Robert J. Sawyer’s science fiction books, specifically Mindscan, Journal of Consciousness Studies, philosophers Bertrand Russell and William James, and the film What The Bleep Do We Know? (2004). Hopefully through my research, I can figure out how to explore these concepts of consciousness on the quantum level further, and brainstorm ways of expressing these concepts (split selves, near-death experiences, heightened awareness, etc.). Also, I would like to find faculty in/around the New School who could point me in the right direction (i.e. Victoria Vesna).

In the next several week I will be consulting with game designer Nick Fortugno and game producer Tom Akel to get feedback on the progression of my game’s development. I will also be reading books like ‘Rules of Play’.

Looking over my first year in Parsons MFA DT, I notice that many of my projects have involved toys in some way. I now realize that toys have proven to be the perfect vehicles to explore many—if not all the themes—I wish to explore in my thesis project. These themes mainly include:

• Ideas of play (particularly “dramatic play”)
• Imagination
• Memory/recollection
• Storytelling

The completion of my most recent narrative project, “Remodeling the Dreamhouse,” along with the projects I have completed for the class “Wireless Toys” have propelled me to reconsider the design values and abilities of toys. Toys have the ability to evoke the “inner” child within everyone, and the memories and experiences embedded within those toys can be wonderful material for constructing narratives.

Though I have not yet decided on a thesis project, I do think it will involve toys. I hope to continue interviewing people about their experiences with a variety of toys, and, as in the past, I’m sure I’ll find a great deal of inspiration from them. I also wish to continue exploring the process required to make toys. Although I don’t know whether or not it will be appropriate for my thesis project, I am excited by the idea of fabricating toys as well as investigating them narratively.

In terms of starting my thesis process, I mainly plan to collect a lot of research concerning toys and play in regards to the imagination, memory, and other interesting topics. I also plan on reading works of literature that deal with the same themes I am interested in. The first one on my list is the first volume of Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust, who is famous for the ways he narratively deals with memory. I also wish to heavily investigate current artists and filmmakers, such as Omer Fast and Kerry Tribe, who have worked with the same themes I am interested in.

I will also be working this summer with the Disney Interactive Media Group, which encompasses the online, toy, and game divisions of the company. As an intern within the Content Development department, I will constantly be exploring ways to develop content that resonates the iconic Disney themes of the imagination and wonder. I will also be working with people who will have had a great deal of experience working with these themes, and I certainly plan to pick their brains. I’m also greatly interested in the work Disney (mainly the Imagineering department) is doing to contribute to the advancement of technology in regards to the narrative experience. Although the company is acclaimed for its screen-based narratives, it also has stood out for decades for its exploration of implementing story stories within the physical world. These projects—which encompass rides, interactive installations, work in animatronics, etc.—mainly include designing experiences for the audience that enhances the narrative behind it. I’m greatly interested in the work Disney (mainly the Imagineering department) is doing to contribute to the advancement of technology in regards to the narrative experience. I expect that some of the work in this area will greatly inspire me as I explore potential thesis topics within the realm of Design and Technology.

Though I have a busy summer ahead of me, I certainly plan to constantly make small prototypes that resonate any idea that pops into my head while I’m conducting my research. As for the first low fidelity prototype, I plan to continue with the project “Remodeling the Dreamhouse,” and will begin to collect more interviews concerning self-representational toys (dolls, action figures, etc.) from people of all ages and genders. As of now, I plan to make several experimental prototypes that will aim to convey the ideas learned from the interviews within a narrative context.

Obviously theater moved to screen is film, so when you reverse it you have theater again.  I’m interested in how what we have learned on screen can change it into something else.  I suppose to analogy would be translating English to Chinese to English again…the first and last are similar but not the same.  So by doing this exploration, how can I provide insight into theater as well as create something new.

I am putting together a group of people to consult.  The top of the list right now is Marcos Stafne at the Rubin Museum.  He does a lot of work with object theater and would be insightful into what has been done before and why it was done.  his work with museum installations and theater make him invaluable for this project.

Other resource people will be added to the list!