å Thursday, February 26th, 2015

Choose a manual action to automate, or choose an automated process to make manual.

This assignment asks you to consider how what we make as designers effects human interactions on the micro and macro scale.

Note your everyday actions; go out of your way to notice where technology is present. When do human interactions occur? How would the introduction of automation enhance or hinder the interaction. What would the advantages or disadvantages be if automation took over? How can you use sarcasm, exaggeration, appropriated voice to make a point?

For next week: Make a presentation showing your source material, and propose various possible re-envisionings. Your proposal may use: other designer’s work as reference, texts, sketches, actual designs, etc.

How are the scenarios different? What are its effects on social interaction? What is your point of view about technology’s social role through the project you are proposing?

Extended Portion: Create a finished prototype or proposal

Required for March 5th

“As Robots Grow Smarter, Workers Struggle to keep Up”, New York Times
“The iPhone is the new Model-T”, John Caserta

Extended bibliography

“Will Your Job Be Done by a Machine,” NPR
“Automation Makes us Dumber“, WSJ
“Harnessing algorithms to create shape-change typography,” Wired
Nicholas Carr: The Glass Cage: Automation and Us (also see: video overview)
Lewis Mumford “Art & Technics”
Miranda July’s “Somebody” app & miu miu video
Dunne & Raby Speculative Everything
Anthony Dunne lecture: “What If: Crafting Design Speculations”
Jon Sueda, Ed. All Possible Futures
Eugeny Morozov. To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism.
N. Joseph Woodland, Inventor of the Bar Code, Dies at 91
“The Machines Are Coming”, The New York Times. An op-ed by Zeynep Tufekci. More writings by her on her website and on Medium