Archive for June, 2014

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Network: Ryan

Friday, June 27th, 2014

Where are you and what are you doing?

I’m studying on the Design Futures & Metadesign MA at Goldsmiths, University of London. The keywords that clarify my research focus are sustainability, sociability and technology. I lived in Shanghai for more than 10 years before moving to London. Globalisation and cultural mixing have created significant similarities and highlighted differences between London and Shanghai. I’m intrigued by dynamic changing cultures. After a few years working in advertising agencies, I returned to education – which allows me to step out of the box, to probe my beliefs and values.

Tell us about your DJ Electric Eel project

 DJ Electric Eel (DJEE) is a practical project, a part of my MA dissertation which I’m working on currently (summer 2014).  The DJEE project involves several different topics, such as biology, music, programming etc. So I tried to use the term “DJ” to embody the complicated project as a comprehensive common sense form.

Eel1

The project, in general, is constructed by a group of electric sensors, devices and an electric eel which can generate electricity and use electric fields to perceive the outside world.

The electric eel is kept in a glass water tank. Several electromagnetic field (EMF) sensors measure the electric fields generated in water by the electric eel. The data from those sensors are organised and transformed into sounds by software (programs such as Processing and MaxMsp). The data is also transformed into visuals and music that accompany the sounds. The electric eel indirectly changes the pitch and tone of the sounds by emitting unpredictable electric signals.

How are people responding to it?  Have you been surprised by any of the reactions?

 One of the most interesting things about this project is that there are always many different responses when I talk about it and show some of the video footage to people.

On 6th June 2014, I presented the idea in public for the first time. On that occasion I also showed a single soundtrack of music generated by a small electric eel and an Arduino device prototype.

I got a lot of feedback around Nature – definitions and forms of interaction. Although Nature as a big narrative in my topic, I haven’t clearly defined it yet as a specific concept or content. Meanwhile, I realised that understandings of Nature in terms of epistemology and traditional ideology, between Western and Eastern cultures, are very different.

There were two interesting notes in the feedback to my first presentation of DJ Electric Eel: “My body is nature” and “My body is technology”. They were probably written by the same person but separately and in different colours. It was very interesting for me because the DJEE project, explicitly or implicitly, caused the participant to think about the relationship between him/her, nature and technology. The two comments are a sort of argument or conflict. They raise an interesting point to think about.

Eel2

You ask people an open question: “In what ways would you like to reconnect with nature if the technology were available?”  What would your front of mind answer be to that question right now?

 The open question is a sort of prompt to bring audiences into my topic at that moment. For me, the more interesting thing is how to reconnect nature with modern society and changing cultures. As a designer, I’m interesting in using different technological approaches to build up new dialogues between human and nature. The future expectation of the DJEE project will be a live music performance. Hence, it will not only engage with individuals but also a group of people in a social context.

You talk about the uncanny aspects of the electric eel project.  How did your interest in the uncanny come about?  What were the main steps in its development.

 The uncanny causes intense feelings. Everyone has these sorts of experiences more or less. Theoretical research, such as studying Freud and Lacan, brought me towards understanding the power of the uncanny. Actually a lot of art works, films and advertisements take advantage of the uncanny in order to create strong empathies and synaesthesis which can impress the audiences and encourage their self-reflections. I think it also works in the DJEE project. From a human DJ to an electric eel, from rhythmic music to abstract sounds, from looking at creatures in an aquarium to watching and listening to an eel making sounds. The familiar and unfamiliar experiences contribute to an uncanny experience.

Tell us about your experiences in advertising and what draws you to the world of applied cultural and semiotic analysis.

 Working in the creative department of an advertising agency, I used to look for stories and topics to connect the targeted audiences and the brand values in creative ways. The brand itself may be essentially meaningless – but advertising renders meanings and stories into brand voices. It’s just like how people create languages – advertising produces new languages and signifiers in order to clearly represent the complexity behind the brand. Furthermore, semiotic analysis helps us to better empathize with our targeted groups and potential audiences.

Where would you like to be and what would you like to be doing in 5 years from now?

 I’m quite an active person with a lot of expectations. One year of study made a lot of difference. Now, I’m planning to get back to work, and I’ll slightly shift my career focus if that’s possible. However, there are a lot of fascinating areas I want to explore in the academic context. Many things will have happened in 5 years, but learning and reflection will be deeply infused into my future life.

One year of living in London has had great significance to me. I love the city. London has a wonderful bio-environment for designers. I really want to continue my studies and discovery of the diverse cultures in London in the future.

Tell us about the pictures you have chosen to illustrate this interview.

figure 1 : the effect picture and the principle of the device

figure 2 : the relationship between these four elements will be discovered in the future

More information about the DJ Electric Eel project:

http://djelectriceel.tumblr.com/

© Ryan Hu

Posted in Art & Design, Asia, Emergence, Europe, Fuzzy Sets, Global Vectors, Semiotics | No Comments »

Network: Emma

Sunday, June 22nd, 2014

Where are you and what are you doing?

I live in London and I’m writing my next novel but I also teach and collaborate on other projects.

How would you describe the relationship between your creative writing and your interest in the broad area of cultural and semiotic analysis?

Writing is a way of examining the human experience, along with our thoughts, analyses and reactions to the world, and putting it all in a form that can be transmitted to and shared by other minds over time and space. That makes it a philosophical, historical, psychological, cross-cultural, cross-time endeavour. Through literature, we see a singular yet diverse thread of humanity.

I’m a thinker, a traveller and a philosopher and those features colour my writing: I longed to travel even when I was a very young girl and as soon as I could, I went off with no plans to return. I travelled for many years, lived in other countries and cultures, and still work with students from all over the world. Just looking at a world map can bring tears to my eyes because I’m fascinated by this planet, the variety of life, the landscapes and the languages. I love moving across lands seeing how people live, and observing and discovering what their experience of life is. Although our lives are personalised by culture, history and circumstance, they’re replete with associations, interconnections and responses both profound and subtle. Those perceptions colour my writing but also mean that cultural and semiotic analysis is a natural place for a mind like mine.

Tell us about Dream On, Amber – how that project came about, your experience of writing and publishing the book, the kind of feedback you have received.

I grew up not knowing my Thai father and although I read hungrily when I was a child, no books I knew of had characters going through the same things I was going through. I wanted to remedy that.  Amber Miyamoto is also half this and half that and is growing up with a space where her father should be and I felt it was an important to express the feelings that arose from that experience. It took about eight months to write but I went slowly and dipped in and out of it in my spare time. I met a publisher by chance at a SCBWI event my friend took me to just after I finished writing it. We had a brief chat and he told me to email him with some sample chapters. I did and he liked them and asked to see the whole thing. A few months later, he sent an email saying ‘We really want to publish your book!’ The publishing and editorial process has been a huge learning curve. I’ve had very positive feedback: the rights have been sold in five countries so far and reviews have been great.

DreamOn

What’s next in terms of writing and publication?

I’m writing a stand-alone novel for the same age range (8 -12) that’s due to be published in 2015 by the same publisher, Chicken House. The main premise of Dream on, Amber is fatherlessness and my next book has an equally important premise. I can’t reveal what it’s about yet but I’d be happy to talk about it once it’s published. Amber is half-Italian and half-Japanese, and this next character is also Asian and living in the West. Those cultural differences are interesting to me. And Western children don’t know much about the Far East or its people, so that’s something I’d like to expose them to.

What’s the most important unanswered question that comes to mind for you?

How can humans do such inhumane things to one another?  We treat people as ‘other’ and not as versions of ourselves walking around in different casing, making the best of a given set of circumstances. Our lack of empathy for other life – people, animals, the planet – is baffling. It’s the root of racism, sexism, elitism, self-centredness, abuse, war, murder, rape. It’s the central to all the awful things that go on in the world. It’s why Angelina Jolie met last week with William Hague, and it opens the gates to so many other questions: is there a God? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why are we given a luminous mind and a strong moral compass but can’t control our animal drives and the ability to be brutal? Man’s inhumanity to man is the thing I get most despondent, angry and exasperated with.

Tell us about the image you have chosen to illustrate this piece.

I’ve chosen the cover of my book, Dream on, Amber, as Amber is tiny and scared of everything but believes there’s a fearless warrior in her trying desperately to get out to help her stand up for what she believes in. The illustration shows a girl kicking high and hard, and that’s a message in itself. Overcoming ourselves is half the battle.

Where does your interest in applied cultural and semiotic analysis stem from and where are you planning to go with it?

I think I’ve answered the first part of this question above – it feels a natural home as I have a particular kind of mind and skill set. I would like, ideally, to study, observe, travel and write for the rest of my days, and to make my observations and insights useful and have meaning. This will partly be through writing books but I hope I can also use it in the commercial world to help bridge understanding and shed light on influences and behaviour. I’m an ideas person and writing books is a long, solitary business. I need to use my skills in more social and immediate ways too.

© Emma Shevah 2014

Posted in Culture, Europe, Making Sense, Network, Socioeconomics | No Comments »