2020年4月27日星期一

week 9. thought experiments

1. Students share photos of speculative aesthetics
Practice:
choose a speculative photo
1. identify the multiple possible worlds (1) by the photographer (2) by the objects, (3) by the possible users, characters
2. give annotations to describe the qualities of speculative aesthetics

2. Thought experiments (Speculative Everything 一書的文字)

"One way this might be possible is to treat design speculations not as
narratives or coherent “worlds” but as thought experiments—constructions,
crafted from ideas expressed through design—that help us think about
difficult issues." p. 80. SE
"一個可行之道是不要把設計推測當成敘事或條理分明的「世界」看待，而要視為能幫助我們思考困難議題的思想實驗――用經由設計表達的構思，精心建造的物品。 " P. 105

"Thought experiments are usually done in fields
where it is possible to precisely define limits and rules, such as mathematics,
science (particularly physics), and philosophy (especially ethics) to test
ideas, refute theories, challenge limits, or explore possible implications.
They make full use of the imagination and are often beautiful designs in
themselves."

"思想實驗通常是在有可能劃定界線和規則的領域進行，例如數學、科學（特別是物理學）和哲學（尤其是倫理學），來測試構思、駁斥理論、質疑限制或探究可能的後果。¹ 它們充分運用想像力，本身也常是美麗的設計。"

"One of our favorite forms of thought experiment uses reductio ad absurdum,
a type of logical argument in which one assumes a claim for the sake of
argument and derives an absurd or ridiculous outcome by taking it to its
extreme, concluding that the original claim must have been wrong because it
led to such an absurd result."

"我們最鍾意的一種思想實驗是採用歸謬法（reductio ad absurdum），在這種邏輯論證中，我們為便於討論，假設了某個主張，並將之推演到極致而導出荒謬的結果，進而斷定，既然原來的主張會產生如此荒謬的結果，它必是謬誤。" P. 107

"Another well-established form of thought experiment is the counterfactual. A
historical fact is changed to see what might have happened, if. . . . It is
sometimes used in history to understand the importance of key events and
their influence on how the world turned out."

"另一個已廣為接受的思想實驗形式是反事實（counterfactual）：改變歷史事實來看看，假如……可能會發生什麼事。歷史學有時會運用這種實驗來了解關鍵事件的重要性，以及它們對世界如何演變的影響。" P. 107

"...we are
more interested in using props to transport viewers’ imagination into a
thought experiment, or what-if, and allow enough room for them to make
their own interpretations." p. 93, SE

"我們更有興趣利用道具來將觀者的想像力移轉到思想實驗，或「要是……會怎麼樣」，讓他們有足夠的空間做自己的詮釋。" P. 121

Generally speaking, there are seven types of thought experiments in which one reasons from causes to effects, or effects to causes. (wikipedia)

(1)

Prefactual (事前) (未來導向，事前推測)

Prefactual (before the fact) thought experiments — — speculate on possible future outcomes, given the present, and ask "What will be the outcome if event E occurs?"

(2)

Counterfactual (反事實) (過去導向，事前推測)

Counterfactual (contrary to established fact) thought experiments — — speculate on the possible outcomes of a different past; and ask "What might have happened if A had happened instead of B?"

(3)

Semifactual (半事實) (過去導向，事前推測)

Semifactual thought experiments — — speculate on the extent to which things might have remained the same, despite there being a different past; and asks the question Even though X happened instead of E, would Y have still occurred?

(4)

Prediction (預測) (未來導向，事前推測)

The activity of prediction attempts to project the circumstances of the present into the future.

(5)

Hindcasting (後報) (過去導向，事前推測)

The activity of hindcasting involves running a forecast model after an event has happened in order to test whether the model's simulation is valid.

(6)

Retrodiction (追溯) (過去導向，事後推測)

The activity of retrodiction (or postdiction) involves moving backwards in time, step-by-step, in as many stages as are considered necessary, from the present into the speculated past to establish the ultimate cause of a specific event (e.g., reverse engineeringand forensics).

(7)

Backcasting (未來回溯) (未來導向，事後推測)

he activity of backcasting —involves establishing the description of a very definite and very specific future situation. It then involves an imaginary moving backwards in time, step-by-step, in as many stages as are considered necessary, from the future to the present to reveal the mechanism through which that particular specified future could be attained from the present.

See Blade runner 2049 ->2048 nowhere to run -> 2036 Nexus Dawn -> Blackout 2022

Bladerunner (1982) 2019

Next week:
Bring one artifact to classroom, related to Neuromancer Chap1 & 2, to do material speculation.

2020年4月21日星期二

week 8. design fiction (revisiting Neuromancer)

1. students present images of Neuromancer chap1,2
2. What is Design Fiction?
What is Prop?
What is Diegetic Prototype?

Design Fiction: Something and the Something in the Age of the Something from Julian Bleecker

source: Design Fiction: A Short Essay on Design, Science, Fact and Fiction

Bruce Sterling
ACM Interaction 2009 cover story, Design Fiction by Bruce Sterling

Examples:
Postscape Design Fiction
Core77 Speculative Design

The Solution Printer: Magic Realist Design Fiction

HawkEye - Deploying a Design Fiction Probe

Real-Fictional Entanglements: Using Science Fiction and Design Fiction to Interrogate Sensing Technologies (Biosense Berkeley)

Discussion:
1. What are the differences between Design Fiction and Speculative Design?
(clear fiction v.s. techno-poetic speculation)
2. Aesthetics of speculation: What if an an everyday object is a diegetic prototype of another possible world?

How about science fiction?

also see TEI 2017 student design challenge references:

Watching/Reading List

We encourage wild, obscure references to any kind of sci-fi media. Here’s some our favourite to get you started

https://tei.acm.org/2017/sdc.php

九龍城寨

【神奈川‧川崎】電腦九龍城寨～仿香港鬼城遊樂廣場

奉天宮媽祖廟

Scifi

EX:

觀察生活周遭, 拍照片表達對照的概念

例如:

未來 vs. 過去，推測的世界 (what we have the potential to become) vs. 現狀 (what we are)

都市場景, 交通工具, 廢墟/大樓, 生活用品, 信仰, 政治, 國際經濟, 權力, 社會制度, 家庭制度, 教育, 身體, 運動, 休閒, 品牌, 符號, 文字, 自然環境, 物種....

Reference:

Design fictions an introduction and provisional taxonomy

by Derek Hales

Neuromancer
Part I : Chiba City Blues

"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."

神經喚術士
第一部: 千葉市藍調

"港口上空是電視的顏色，電視調至死頻的顏色。"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1kJI-UvYwQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNVbrHjX-xs

2020年4月14日星期二

week 7. aesthetics of speculation

1. design fiction slides by Bleecker:

Pecha kucha v2_rotterdam_2011 from Julian Bleecker

2. Practice "Poetics of design fictions" design process

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetics

Questions:
What is "speculation"? What is speculative design? What is aesthetics of speculation?

naive realism 素樸實在論. modal realism (MR) 模態實在論, possiblist realism 可能主義實在論， speculative realism (SR) 推測實在論

pragmatist aesthetics 實用主義美學 (Dewey), speculative aesthetics 推測美學

學生報告分享 (4/22):
用一張照片(拍攝或下載均可)或繪圖，詮釋"神經喚術士"第一、二章的一個情境，(可以搭配書中句子)

學生報告 (4/29):

speculative aesthetics around the life world:

請觀察生活周遭, 拍照片表達奇異的推測美感(aesthetics of speculation)、技術詩意(techno-poetic)、類平行世界、almost impossible reality。

參考: Lynne Cohen, Lucinda Devlin, Mike Mandel and Larry Sultan

Lars Tunbjörk’s Alien at the Office　(2004)　 (mundane spaces that seem extraordinary. Yet these alien spaces are where many people spend their working lives)

Lucinda Devlin's photos:

http://www.lucindadevlin.com/

Lynne Cohen's artworks:

http://www.lynne-cohen.com/
Lynne Cohen’s Occupied Territory (1987)

Taryn Simon’s An American Index of the Modern and Unfamiliar9 (2007)

Richard Ross’s Architecture of Authority10 (2007)

(The above three examples reveal spaces that we know must exist but have no idea how they look. They have a harsh, inhuman quality, stripped down to the absolute essentials, emphasizing their purpose.

Lucinda Devlin’s The Omega Suites (1991–1998) provides glimpses into extreme
but ghoulish spaces—execution chambers, the places where the state, on its
citizens’ behalf, takes people’s lives. They are clinical, easy-to-maintain,
brutally engineered environments designed to achieve one purpose—the
humane killing of human beings. They include safety measures, provision for
last-minute retrieval, and the need for the event to be witnessed.

Larry Sultan's Untitled Evidence:

http://larrysultan.com/gallery/evidence/ : gathered images from the archives of research centers,
laboratories, test sites, and industrial facilities, presented without captions
or other information. They compel us to interpret what is going on, to project
stories and meanings onto them, illustrating that even objective records are
rarely neutral.

For us, these are the proto-images for an aesthetics of speculation. They
suggest a techno-poetic landscape situated somewhere between what we are

and what we have the potential to become.

Deadline: 2020/4/29

印出兩張與同學交換。

Questions:
What are the possible qualities of speculative aesthetics? for example:
out-of-place,
out-of-time,
multiple possible worlds,
hidden truth,
object's viewpoint,
other unknown actor's viewpoint,
other species viewpoints
withdrawal,
resistance,
object's enjoyment (allure, emotion),
non-human (machine, AI)'s perspective,
strange object-to-object relationship,
...
Constructively identify at least 20 qualities by concluding classmates' sharing.

Example :

國家歌劇院的試作模型

Reading:
Speculative aesthetics

Speculative Aesthetics and Object-Oriented Inquiry (OOI),” by N. Katherine Hayles

Graham Harman: “Aesthetics as First Philosophy"
p. 159:

The essential move here is to identify aesthetics with “enjoyment” (Levinas’s term) or “allure” (Harman’s) so that the sensual qualities of objects in which other objects “bathe” is understood as an essentially aesthetic response. Thus aesthetics is generalised so that it applies not only to humans but to all objects, including inanimate ones.

p. 167:

Following Harman, Bogost accepts that “all objects recede interminably (沒完沒了的) into themselves,” which implies that putting things “at the center of a new metaphysics also requires us to admit that they do not exist just for us.”

p. 168:

"we never understand the alien experience, we only ever reach for it metaphorically.”

p. 169:

"Where I begin to depart from Bogost and Harman is on the issue of how objects manifest themselves. Whereas they emphasise an object’s allure, the attraction it emanates for other objects, more important in my experience is the resistance objects offer to human manipulation and understanding"

"The difference between resistance and acquiescence is that acquiescence is always metaphoric, whereas resistance is decisive: “Whatever I am, I’m not that,” an object can respond to human probing."

p. 178.

"I ended by arguing that the way to escape anthropocentrism is precisely through an imaginative projection into the worldviews of other objects and beings, based on evidence about their ways of being in the world,"

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2020年4月27日 星期一