Class Overview & Relationship to Our Computer

Currents | Week 6 | Kevin Cadena

Weekly Description

This week will be a introduction to our course. We'll get closer to our peers, you'll get to know more about your instructor. We'll start by talking about the computer. Why does it look like it does? How could it look different? What would you make it look like?

Agenda

Introduction
  • Name
  • Pronouns
  • Where are you joining this class from?
  • If you could navigate through information in a way besides the besides the internet or computers, what would it be?

Icebreaker

10 Things in Common!

  1. Split Into Groups

    2. Students will be broken up into groups of three or four.

  2. Figuring Out Things In Common

    3. You and your teammates will be asked to find 10 things you have in common with one another. The things you have in common should get more and more specific as you have you get towards ten.

    Do not be repetitive with the things in Common!

    They should all not be a version of the same statement. (i.e All ten things are a variation of "We like (insert 10 different artist names here.)")

Overview

 Syllabus Overview

Community Agreements
  1. Think about this community we're building for the next five weeks.
    2. What are some rules you want for it?
  2. Write down one rule or agreement per post-it note
  3. We will start to sort them into categories.
    4. We will keep going with this until we end up with at least five different categories.
  4. Next week we will sign agreements
    5. We will put them into a google document for all of us to sign.

Land Acknowledgements Activity
  1. Break into Groups
  2. Discuss the following questions for 10 minutes
    • Discuss what you know about the history of the land we’re all on right now. Examples of discussion points might include the names of indigenous nations, names of treaties or settlement agreements, other historical events in the area.
    • Describe a place that is important to you. What makes it so special?
    • How would you feel if you were no longer about to access this place? How would you feel if this special place was destroyed?
    • This isn’t just a historical event, people are being displaced right now so if anyone annot answer this, that is okay. How would you feel if this place was destroyed and remade to fit someone else's vision?
    • What do you know about the Lenape People and their relationship with the land?
  3. Regroup as a Bigger Group
    4. About the Lenape

BREAK

Computer History & Its Influences Presentation

 Presentation Link
  1. History of Computers
    • Textiles
    • Ada Lovelace
    • Punch Cards
    • Xerox PARC
    • Apple Computer Company
    • Google
  2. What Does This Mean?
    • Technology comes from inherently feminist practices
    • The production of them still extremely gendered while the profits swing the other way
    • A lot of how the computer looks was decided by a very small group of people and businesses
  3. What went into the computer we've ended up with?
    • CUT, COPY, PASTE
    • Abandonment of Technologies
    • Uni-directional Linking
  4. Who was the computer made for? Who was it made in mind with?

Community Computers
  1. Students will be broken into groups and assigned one of the following community members:
    • Artists
    • Performers
    • Mothers
    • Children
    • Community Organizers
    • Activists
    • You and your group will be asked to think through what a computer would look like if it was designed for collaboration with this community member.
  2. Design Requirements
    • Your design for a computer should think through the following:
    • Think of the metaphors that govern our current computers (Navigating like a businessman)
    • What would be the shape of this new computer?
    • How does one navigate information through it?
    • How does one communicate with others with this computer?
    • How does this computer morph to the culture of your community member?
  3. Sketch Phase (15 Minutes)

    4. For the first 10 minutes, you'll only be asked to come up with different sketches and ideas in your group. You'll be handed sticky notes so that you can post things in your corner and space.

    We're in the ideation phase. You should be writing, sketching, etc.

  4. Development Phase (30 minutes)
    • Create a finalized version of your chosen computer.
    • How you choose to present your computer is up to you
    • It can be a visual or formal output, it could be a performance of how the computer works.
  5. Share Out (15 minutes)

Homework

Read Watch

A Brief Rant on The Future of Interaction Design

Stop Drawing Dead Fish by Brett Victor
Do

Revise Your Community Computer

  1. After Watching and Reading the Materials Above, You will individually revise your group Community Computer Design.
    • How does it provide feedback to its collaborator?
    • How can the computer be made to make better use of your hands?
    • How can the computer program behaviors into what you create with it?
  2. Final Deliverable
    • Create A Polished Final Representation of showcasing this computer
    • How you show the final speculative computer idea is up to you! (i.e It can be performance, written, visual, )
    • As long as it communicates all the aspects of the computer we did during class and the new revisions! Anything is fine.
  3. Submission
    • Submit for final interpretation via CANVAS