Alternative-ness

In thinking about more of what an alternative body is and the interaction between the alternative and the non-alternative, I realized that (though this may be an obvious observation) there is a constant duality between the two; there cannot be one without the other. Without the other, there is no difference. In a library that I am designing for my studio practice class, I am currently playing with the duality of things, and how form and structure and other non-material ways could create a shared cohesive interaction. Taking opposite ideas and objects such as temporary vs. permanent, adults vs. children; to further sculpt the space and the interactions that the different users will have.

Race and Disability - Event FYI

Folks,
This is an excellent event on April 8 - 10 in San Francisco.  I will go on Friday, the 8th after class.
All welcome to join me.

SINS INVALID - a night of performance on race and disability by a group of extremely talented Bay Area dancers, spoken word poets, visual artists, and anyone I left out.

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/157288

Dr. T. 

Date/Time of ALT BODS Fashion Show and LAST CLASS

FRIDAY, APRIL 29    3-6 pm   FASHION SHOW
Location: Room 141, CCA San Francisco
Set up in Room 141:  You can use the install from ~9 am to 2 pm.  
Group Meditation: 215-230 pm-->mandatory
DESIGNERS: dress your models before 2 pm.  Take a break with the class from 215-230pm for group meditation.

FRIDAY, MAY 6  Noon-6 pm, N9    CLASS CRIT
Each student presents their work for group crit.
snacks provided, bring any you want to share


best, Dr. T.

ADA for Accessible Design - pdf

Here is a link you may find helpful: a pdf of the current from the
American Disabilities Act for Accessible Design

http://www.ada.gov/2010ADAstandards_index.htm

I Shot Andy Warhol

I'm not a big fan of Andy Warhol, so I don't know a lot about his history. I think I might of read the SCUM manifesto before for a different class, but the name Valerie Solanas didn't stick with me.

I think the thing that impressed me most about the movie was how it portrayed her life in a neutral manner. The director wasn't trying to make her out as a hero of feminism or a villain against Warhol. She was just a opinionated and outspoken girl with mental problems, and that really came across in the movie.

Variety

Last class we had to listen to many versions of the song mad world. It frustrated me because I really didn't enjoy almost all of the versions. It simply wasn't the type of music that I normally listen to. What I was doing while closing my eyes was actually listening to all the different rhythms and melodies that each song had. I was quite amazed that one particular song had that many versions. I always knew that there would be different versions of songs, but not that many. At first I was thinking that everyone that enjoyed the music had bad taste in music, but then I realized that the way I was thinking was wrong. It made me think, since there are that many versions, there must be an audience for every single version of the song. People are different, and enjoy different things. As a designer I need to understand that people have different tastes, and I cant force others to like my personal taste, and I cant think that my taste is the best, I've got to be flexible. This is what I got from listening to all of those songs.

The movie "I shot Andy Warhol" was interesting for me, because it showed me how to appreciate my own work, and not let myself be bullied around by a "better" well know artist, I should always believe in my own work.

Reading Vs Listening

The listening session on the last class, makes me wonder of our senses' ability. Speaking and writing are considered as instruments of transmission, while what I want to discuss is the opposite of those, reception, which are hearing and reading. Which one works better?

For me myself, I found that reading works better for me. I think that reading require more effort for me to keep myself focus and on track, I also remember more thinks when I hear something compare to when I read something. But this is not an absolute answer, every person has different abilities for the senses.

After did some research. I found that in 1894 a person performed an investigation. What he did is to present a material using three different method. First is listening, second is reading (visual), and the last one is combination of both. His result showed that listening best works for young children, while reading works best for adult and older children. But those two things does not answer the question yet.

The best of the three is actually the combination of both, visual-auditory method. This method came up to be the best way to impart information for majority people.

Braille Bracelet

Eun may like this - and all of you check it out!  This design recieved a 2010 People's Design Award. The Braille Alphabet Bracelet.  http://bigthink.com/ideas/24604


By the way, in light of some of your concerns, tomorrow's lecture is entitled: Connecting Design to Advocacy and Educational Awareness: An Alternative to Being Super Radical

One student asked me this question, so I am answering en masse: yes, we will be dedicating more time to working on our projects in studio after Spring Break.  

EVERYONE WHO HASN'T BLOGGED: You Must Blog Regularly or receive a zero. Get to it! 

my best, Dr. T. 

Wearable Smart Technology

Just went through these websites and relevant info in my Interdisciplinary Studio class recently, and thought these links might be helpful for Eun's vest/jacket with GPS. These links are amazing, and should be interesting to others too.

http://www.gtwm.gatech.edu/
http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/

Being found in a world of madness

Last week when we had to listen to the song Mad World, it was interesting to hear such a variety of versions. Having only really listened to the version by Gary Jules, it brought back memories of dance, not only of choreography, previously done with my studio, but a dance choreographed by Stacy Tookey from the TV show So You Think You Can Dance. This dance immediately popped into my head when we listened to it, because Tookey talks about homelessness and the idea that one who may be homeless is someone who may be an old friend or relation who became an outcast. Two people who once knew each other; one character is a successful businessman and the other has become homeless, this dance talks about the reaction between the two when they meet up after some years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jykFBUHZqfA

Empathy vs Sympathy

Last week we discussed in class the difference between empathy and sympathy. And then I realized "snap...I used the wrong word on the blog post a couple weeks ago" Pardon me for the misuse of the word when I said "Sympathy is the key", I actually mean "empathy is the key".

sympathy |ˈsimpəθē|noun ( pl. -thies)1 feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune
empathy |ˈempəθē|nounthe ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

One thought about "I Shot Andy Warhol"

Before I start, I should mention that this post may not be so related to Valerie Solanas's feminist aspect. But since this keeps resonating in my mind I have to write about it here! 


That one question resonating in my mind is if it is okay to sell your body to support your soul (and body too actually). What most disturbed me while watching the movie was the fact that Valerie Solanas supported herself by prostituting. I have been trying to answer this question: why and how could she just sell her body to men when she actually loved women? I tried thinking that she could do so because survival is the first and foremost thing in life, and probably because she was mentally ill. But still, I kept remembering the lyrics of this song called "Girl Talk" by a Korean singer-songwriter Yuna Kim (not the figure skater!). In the song she looks back at her life thus far and says that she would, if possible, sing to her young teenaged self that she would not sell her soul to feed her body. I think this means she wouldn't abandon her own convictions and pride simply in order to make a living. I think this is what most artists should already be thinking, too. But then what Valerie did is the exact opposite of the lyrics: she sold her body so that she could keep writing, and she never changed the subject or style of her writing according to the standards of the publishing industry or the mainstream artists. Would Yuna Kim say this is better than selling one's soul to feed one's body, though? Should I not think of what Valerie did as something wrong?


Watching the movie, and after class also, I kept trying to answer which option was right if there were only two options: to sell one's body to support one's soul; or to sell one's soul to support one's body. Probably the first option is better. Probably none of the two is right. I am not sure at all, but trying to come up with an answer to this question will hopefully give me a lot more insight about how to live as an artist.


P.S. If any of you would like to get the sense of what song I am talking about is like, here is the Youtube link to Yuna Kim's live performance of the song:

I am mad madam

It was interesting listening to Mad World 10 or so times in a row. I certainly got sick of the song by the end but realized how many varieties people can make of the same thing. This truly shows how unique we are as humans and as creators. It seems no matter what you do, there will be 10 other versions of it out there. This fact of variety also appears in mental ability, where there is someone out of the ordinary mental ability, so to will there be 10 varieties of that ordinary person in abnormal form. This means that people suffering from mental disability are just varieties of an original whole or type and therefor are not that different. Sadly though, it seems, they are often treated like the homeless and given a wide berth. When it comes down to it, we are all varieties of the original whole and should therefor treat our fellow varieties with respect.

Criminal of Poverty...and Health Care!

I have read barely about the first half of Criminal of Poverty, but what I have felt most strongly so far is that the U.S. needs health care for sure. Especially because of the homeless and the lower-income population. Reading the book I felt many of those in the book might have led a better-quality life if they had benefited from a government-supported health care. I am from a country with a national health care myself, and have no fear whenever I get sick, however big the disease/problem is. If I caught cold, I would have to pay around 3 dollars only to see a doctor and get a prescription. If I caught cancer, I would have to pay a lot more but still I would not have to make my family go bankrupt. But coming here I needed to pay for an expensive health insurance, and was always afraid whenever I caught cold or whatnot, because I wasn't sure about what process I had to go through to use the benefits and how much I had to pay. Every single time I ended up not seeing a doctor and instead taking a DayQuil or Advil. I am pretty sure it will be a lot more problematic when homeless people get sick. I'm sure they won't even have chance to get a surgery if they become in need of one. Same for people from lower-income families, like Mr. Rodriguez in the book who had to kill himself to save his wife from going broke and homeless when he was diagnosed with cancer. This country indeed needs health care for the sake of the homeless and lower-income population.

Good work - Mad world

Good work with radical listening today, all.
We dug into some difficult material, and you all engaged with it like champs.


These seemed to be two songs that were popular:


by Elisa:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjAf38VYd2Q&feature=related


and this is a different harp version, but give it a try:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4qXwOu4df0


Have a nice week, catch up with things, and come back to class with some bright ideas for your team and the PRODUCTION!


~Dr. T

Homelessness

Reading more of Criminal of Poverty I have a greater appreciation for the lengths people are driven to in order to attain the things we take for granted. Good food, shelter, and transportation are the fundamental building blocks to our comfortable capitalistic society. I did find it interesting, though, that the protagonists are forced into poverty and homelessness, where some of the homeless I have spoken to made it seem like they chose it as a way of life. We must appreciate what we have and not think differently of others for not having the same.

Tokyo Godfathers

Reading Criminal of Poverty reminded me of an animated film, Tokyo Godfathers. The movie is about three homeless people who live in Tokyo, and they find an abandoned baby girl on Christmas Eve. The whole movie is their attempts to care for the baby and returning her to the birth parents.

I really like the movie for all the little subtle actions in the movie that demonstrate how people usually treat homeless people, like standing as far as possible away from them on public transport. Another interesting aspect of the movie is the back stories of how each of them became homeless, like running away from a large gambling debt.

Anyway, it's a movie that I'd like to recommend for everyone.

Poverty

Hi, I was actually not feeling well and that was why I missed last class, but I think I understand a couple things what poor people feel. When I was little I went to a school located in a very poor area in Jakarta for a couple years. I went to school with lots of poor kids, I saw and experienced their lives. They were living a very tough life, I saw them struggle to pay for school tuition which was only 50 cents a month. I was invited several times to their homes and saw the standard of living that they had, it was very sad to see that they even struggled to get running clean water. I always tried to help my friends that had some financial problems, and I always tried not to make them feel uncomfortable when they were around me. By having these poor friends as a boy, I grew up always having the will to try to help the poor.

Common thread of homeless

After I started reading the Criminal of Poverty I started to give more attention when I encounter homeless people. I also try to remember the homeless people in my home country, how do they look like, their ways of survival, their problems.

They definitely have more than one reason of being homeless, some share same reason, while others have other reasons. Most of them look the same, they use same clothes for quite a long time, looks dirty. They seems to be able to survive in their semi permanent home, maybe some of us have noticed that some homeless have lived in their spot for quite a while. But they do not get their spot easily or without any extra effort. I noticed that in US as well as in Indonesia, police continue to raid them, distracting their well being for the sake of good looking city. I somewhat agree that it is a good thing to try to pursue a perfect urban management. But on the other side, I found that some homeless were evicted from their spot without being provided with any new place to live. They will just be neglected and need to start over their journey from the beginning, they need to find a new place to live. It will just become an everlasting cycle in their lives.

Do people ignore the homeless more than any other stranger?

I have no clue, It is provably like that for some. Since last class thought i have been paying close attention to the way i act when i see homeless people and i don't think it really makes a difference.
I give the same attention to homeless than people who seem to have an actual home, NO difference.
Although i am more aware of homeless that i am with "regular people"
i haven't figure out why yet.

Following the blind

This past weekend, for my interiors studio we had gone to Seattle, WA to observe the Seattle Public Library. Not only is this a phenomenal library to go to, but it handled accessibility issues extremely well. There is a section for ESL as well as providing technology for physical disabilities such as blindness and deafness. The floor that this area is on is a relief sculpture of words, similar to a letter press. What is interesting about this is that the floor boards act as a guiding system that I don't believe the architect planned for. They lead people toward the walls where the technology for deaf and blind people were.

In observing this area for quite sometime, there was someone who was blind who guided themselves fairly well through the space, with a great quickness speed and agility that I would not have initially assumed. This made me think about how (if they have had blindness for quite sometime) they are fully functional and do not appear to be inhibited whatsoever. The only indicator was the blind stick that this person was holding.

Catch up on your Blogging, Reading, and Research

Hi Everyone,

Some of you have not blogged at all. Please remember that your grade is based, in part, on your participation in all activities -which includes blogging once a week.  Your blog can be a new post, or it can be a response to another student's entry.   I check this blog regularly - and take note of who/when you have blogged. 

Also, as stated on the syllabus: 10 minutes late to class = tardy.  3 tardies=1 absence.   3 absences=Failure of the course.  I recommend being neither late to class nor absent!

Tiny aka Lisa Gray-Garcia is the author of the book we're reading this week, Criminal of Poverty. She also started POOR Magazine http://www.poormagazine.org/.   

     
There is a mural by the POOR group up for public view, in the Clarion St. alley located between Valencia and Mission St.s / 16th and 17th Streets.  Check this mural out to see visual work dealing with the subjects of poverty and mental disability that we are covering in class.


See you on Friday,  Dr. T.

Religion

I have not been really religious all my life, but islam has been forced upon me by my parents since I was little. I picked my project because that I felt that if I could not really be religious than maybe I could contribute to my religion by thinking of an idea to help the traveling muslims. I was also impressed by the ideas and the projects that the others were doing, I think all of them are great.

I have been trying to contact islamic groups in Seattle and Jakarta, and trying to ask them if my project would be a good idea or not. So far i have received feed back from several and they say that it would be great if they could have a luxurious looking watch that could remind them to pray and show which direction to pray.

btw, I have seen "we were here" also, and I think that the movie was good. kinda sad though.

Stripes and Mohammed Ali

Hi all, 
Check out this new art installation in Los Angeles. It is called "reALIze," was created by artist Michael Kalish, and depicts the image of U.S. boxer Muhammed Ali -- a world-renowned fighter.  Muhammed Ali was also a member of the National of Islam. He was Muslim.


I am in interested in not only the installation's success at putting a 25 foot face of an African American Muslim man into clear view all over Los Angeles and the internet, but also its brilliant use of materials.  The piece puts stripes into three dimensions - using air, light, and stark color contrast.  The sculpture's use of stripes fulfills a double function here: to both depict and make ephemeral the image of Ali.  As the wind blows through it, the piece transforms and morphs.  Yet the choice to create an image in this way was purely practice: Kalish needed to allow the work to exist not only in 3-dimensions, but also to endure a 24-hour day outside (ex. wind speed, air passage).

As L.A. writer David Ng describes, Kalish teamed up with the LA architecture firm Oyler Wu Collaborative to create the 25 piece. See the full article here, including a close-up of the materials and how the sculpture is put together. Genius! 
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/02/giant-muhammad-ali-art-installation-to-be-unveiled-at-la-live.html

Project Revision

After introduced my idea to the class on last Friday and after i talked to some of my friends, i eventually realized that my "flatfree tire idea" is not specific enough. It is just something that can be applied for everyone, not an alternative group of people.

After doing some research and talking with my families and friends. I came up with an idea to make a "fashionable hearing aid". I got this idea from my grandmother's hearing problem. She is not deaf, but she has a partial hearing impairment, she can still hear, but she is unable to hear some frequencies of sound. So when i talked to her, i need to be extremely close to her in order to communicate with her. She has a hearing aid, but the problem is that she really often forget to wear that, instead she never forget to wear her earrings. I never saw her not wearing any earrings, but i really often unable to communicate with her well. Even though she is eighty year old, but she still concern so much about her appearance, so that she never forget to wear her earrings. But with the hearing aid, the problem is that her memory is not as good as us and due to its relatively small size she always forget that, second she does not want to look like a disable person by wearing that.

So my solution is to make a hearing aid earrings that does not look like a hearing aid at all and embodies function and fashion. By combining two things into one thing, it means that it reduce the number of things that my grandmother or other elderly should remember, secondly it looks more attractive. Thus they will have less probability to forget to wear the hearing aid.

The colors OF woman

I wanted to make sure that the actual idea behind being part of the Zapatista community is clear to me an everyone in the class.
There are many disrupted and unclear even false allegations about the Zapatista movement.
This group of people are trying to obtain their rights and be heard by the government, what they are trying to do is to avoid any kind of unnecessary violence. I am getting hold of this interesting lady that when to Chiapas and actually helped there, talked to the woman in this community, to understand where they are coming from. I wonder what she is have to share.

Sympathy & Sensitivity is the key?

As I was reading the RSA Design and Elderly People, it reminds me of a lot of stuff I learned in the UDIST "Design for the elderly" class. If any of you is working on this topic/community, I have some relevant resources and access to people in the network. Patricia Moore, a well-known gerontologist and designer, was in our class and had given lecture on campus.

Talking about the universal design principle (which is not to design special products for elderly), it is what OXO the kitchen tool brand is all about. The founder wanted to design kitchen tool for his wife who has arthritis and at the end those products become friendly and ergonomic for everybody.

The most impressive thing I learned from Patricia Moore is that the way we word and phrase things can show disrespect and reflect your stereotypes. She once says, "It's not a person in wheelchair, but a wheelchair user." It is important that we develop sympathy as well as sensitivity.

Here's another video speaking from the "disability community". It totally blew my mind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw_O-2EjTnM

Blindness

Hearing everyone's ideas for the project was really interesting; especially hearing how people thought to integrate their own particular skillset into the project.

For my own project, in talking to other designers about ADA requirements for blindness and reading up on it, it was interesting to discover the fact that technically you could not build things that hung from the ceiling at a certain level. In thinking about this, I still would like to make the heighth so that everyone can be impacted by this light. If it were hanging from a higher height, it would not create the same discussion of being fully aware of one's surroundings and the objects and people that inhabit it.

Recently I was walking to the Bart, and ended up walking behind a woman who was blind and used a finder stick to locate her way. The finder stick made me think of it as an appendage or attachment to her daily living, and what ways my design could be altered to factor this aspect into it. It made me think of ways that I could develop my design even more so that it could be initially felt from the ground.

It is so interesting how everyone are very creative even with same/similar topics.
I have slightly changed the direction for my project as well but I assume that is not a big problem.
So while starting on my project, I came up with a question:
I am trying to email the organization I am conducting a research on but the problem I have faced is 'what shall I actually ask the organization?'. The symptoms? The treatment? The cause? The statistics? etc.. All the accurate information are all over various webpages (and actually one of their answer was to send me a link of the information).

In addition, I am debating to send emails to families who are suffering. But, it is too personal, and also what shall I ask them?
What are they going through? how do they feel? the expense?

Well, this is what I am having concerns about and I have heard some people were actually going to contact organizations they are interested in so whoever they are and even who aren't, if you guys have any thoughts or solution, feel free to give me feed backs.

Project Revisions?

I have been thinking about my project this week, and I'm not satisfied with it. Since I'll be illustrating based on interviews, I don't know if I should really ask for my friend's stories, if they have personal sensitivities they don't want revealed in the art.

Since we haven't started research yet, I'd like to know if I can make revisions to my project proposal, or maybe even submit an entirely new proposal. If so, then we can discuss it during class on Friday.

Goodbye Boobies

I think it would be fair to share about my project since I wasn't in class last week.

My target community/users are breast cancer survivors who went through mastectomy.

The goal is to address their needs, both physical and mental, through garment design. Removal of breast(s) has taken away a huge part of "femininity"and can severely impact women's self-esteem. Thus breast cancer survivors' readjustment to their new body images is often difficult.

From the research I did, I found that some women who had mastectomy surgery refuse to have breasts implantation because after all they had gone through they don't want anymore surgeries.

Silicone breast forms/prosthesis, post-mastectomy bras are some of the products in the market that targets this group of people yet there still aren't much well-designed clothing for them.

Some of the physical needs/pain points include not being able the move or raise arms above shoulders (from immediately after surgery up to a couple weeks later), pockets for the drainage (due to the removal of lymph nodes, drainage is used to avoid the accumulation of lymph fluid) etc. Some other changes on appearance besides the breasts are the falling of hair, eyebrows, eyelashes etc. through chemotherapy.

"I never was someone who define myself by my breasts. I'm way more emotionally attached to my brain and my ability to do the things that I love to do, but even having said that, it's not easy to make the decision, to take both of your breasts off." - Marla

"You know intellectually that you are going to lose your hair, but when it actually starts to fall out, it's absolutely devastating. Women in our society, we define ourselves by certain things…" -Karen

many random thoughts with regards to last Friday's class

1)
I really loved how different everyone's focus and approach were. I am particularly excited to see what Eun's GPS navigation gadget for the visually impaired will be like. And the portraits of the homeless that we will have to step on, too. (Sorry I forgot your name...!) Can't wait to see everyone's brilliant final piece already!

2)
I gained new insight/knowledge when Professor Hammidi lectured about the LGBTQ terms with regards to Maria's project. I had not been aware of the existence of such terms as "ally" and "questioning" before, and I had not known that "queer" included allies, although I thought I had learned a lot of queer-related terms in Korean and English from a close friend of mine who is a bi. I am excited that I can surprise him next time I meet him by telling him I am an "ally"! (I love surprising him and he loves getting surprised by me!)

3)
The issue of bathroom signs for alternative people with sexual identities that do not fit the binary system literally struck me and made me think quite a long time, because I had never expected such issue to trouble some people. This weekend when I was looking at vintage fashion, all of a sudden I realized that the anchor icons/illustrations in fashion could be an interesting alternative to the combination of both gender icons.

+=

Do you guys see what I mean? Hopefully? I know probably anchors might not make perfect sense as the icon that combines both genders, but to me it looks better than this: