3132 research outputs found
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What Cyborgs Can( ’t) Do about Japanese Identities: Japaneseness as a Product of the Internalized Euro-American Gaze
Get PDFThis art-based research project problematizes constructed postwar Japanese identity by unraveling the links between Japan’s Eurocentrism, the country’s active invitation of the Orientalist gaze, and the artificial amnesia of its colonial aggression towards other Asian countries.
Needing to take advantage of Orientalist projections by dominant Western powers, postwar Japanese national and cultural identity resorted to self-Orientalism. The “Japan Brand” Strategy— the government-owned production site of “Cool Japan” imagery and cultural policy, not only created a liberated and humane image of postwar Japan globally but it was also devised as a mechanism to induce a collective amnesia that allowed Japan to disregard its colonial past and engender a soft nationalism. This narcissistic discourse celebrates the rise of the Japanese economy, affirming the country’s superiority while distancing itself from the imaginary “impoverished” continent of Asia. Through time, Japan’s self-defined “pure originality”—which emerged as a counter-narrative to Japan’s being infamous for its ability to imitate to the West—became internalized by the Japanese, along with the new marketable versions of Japaneseness. Japan’s self-Orientalism was an unexpected side-effect of playing US’s “Japan” (a subordinate’s double identification) and its dependence on the dominant West.
Using shanzhai (meaning “fake” and the idea that nothing is original), my art project aims to rethink constructed Japanese identities as delinked from the idea of “originality” and devoid of internalized Orientalism. Employing speculative fiction tropes to communicate the contingency of Japanese identities, my art project defamiliarizes current discourses surrounding Japanese identity. Contributing to the fields of Japanese studies and visual cultures, my art project is a visual assemblage employing photography, videography, contemporary digital media, stock materials, and speculative fiction narratives to create a speculative world
Conflicting Modernities: Venezuelan art in the 1950s and 1960s
Get PDFCinetísmo (kinetic art) is the best-known artistic movement to have emerged from Venezuela in its modern period. The works of the major artists of this movement, Carlos Cruz- Diez, Jesus Soto, and Alejandro Otero, are prominently displayed in Venezuela’s major cities, and have been exhibited internationally. This movement, however, does not begin to cover the complex political, social, and economic realities experienced in Venezuela’s modern period (1945-1970s), but rather hid the uneven qualities of the modernizing efforts. For this reason, another collective, El Techo de la Ballena, under the aesthetics of Informalism, Dada, and Surrealism appeared in Venezuela in the 1960s, and sought to challenge the methods of Venezuela’s modernization and the works of Cinetísmo. The objective of this thesis paper is to examine and compare the works of Cinetísmo and El Techo de la Ballena in order to analyze how they represent Venezuela’s history of uneven modernity. I argue that the Venezuelan state’s embrace of Cinetísmo as emblematic of its modernist and nationalist ideals of progress—one which continues to dominate the history of Venezuelan art in the international community as well as inside the country as the most important modernist aesthetic movement—misconstrues and overshadows the importance of the complex relationship between art and politics in Venezuela’s modernization
In Forgotten Daydreams: Performing in Biosignal-Generated Visualizations
Get PDFThis research project is a performance in an interactive installation that projects the live human biological signals into narrative visualizations. It aims to cultivate consciousness of the participants to daydream about the unlimited prospects for their bodies and the world.
The objective of this master thesis is to explore the realm of art and technology in mixed realities by combining craftsmanship and narrative visualizations. It aims to unpack an immersive and interactive hybrid space for daydreaming and to influence everyday life experiences
Resilient by Design: Enabling Agility and Resilience in Ontario’s Small and Medium Enterprises
Get PDFAt the time of writing this report, Canada has completed one year of lockdowns and restrictions due to COVID-19. The world is grappling with disruption at a scale that we haven’t experienced in recent years. The devastation COVID has wreaked through the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) community is just starting to show and it is expected to get worse. In 2020, Canada lost almost 58,000 businesses and by Canadian Federation of Independent Business’ (CFIB’s) estimates, Canada could lose between 71,000 to 222,000 businesses which equate to 7% to 21%, respectively. With up to almost 3 million jobs at stake, it is not hard to imagine the devastation that this could unleash. SMEs make up almost the entirety of Canada’s economy, with 98.8% of businesses in Canada being organizations with 1-499 employees. Without question, where there is impact to Canadian SMEs, there is impact to Canada’s well-being. Agility and resilience offer SMEs a way forward. This study looks to answer the main research question of: what are the elements of agility and resilience and how might they enable us to implement resilience in Ontario SMEs? In answering this question, this study explores the relationship between the two concepts and adds in an original contribution that enumerates the dimensions of resilience that can be used to evaluate resilience at the time of impact. In addition, original contributions of this study also include seven elements of agility and resilience and an accompanying Agility and Resilience Maturity Model that can enable SMEs to not only identify their current-state resilience but also to have a roadmap of transformation for resilience
Feminist Visions of the Future of Women’s Work: A systemic exploration of the past, present, and future of women at work in Canada
Get PDFWe are still far from achieving gender equality at work, as our modern workplace is designed by men for men. Women’s economic participation and prosperity face systemic barriers and are further threatened by the digitization and automation that drive the future of work. These technological advances, along with demographic shifts, social movements, and political factors, lead to new disruptive employment systems. However, the impacts and discussion around the future of work are often gender-blind.
This research uses a systemic lens to explore the past, present, and future of women’s work. A systemic analysis of gender equality in the workplace reveals how our workplace, governance, social, and economic structures create systemic barriers to undervalue women’s work. Strategic foresight is used to explore the trends shaping the future of work using a gendered lens, and scenarios help us envision how our systems can evolve to value women’s work. Risks and opportunities from each scenario informed insights that can help us design our preferred future, where women can fully participate in the workplace and be valued for their contributions
Dementia Care during a Healthcare Crisis
Get PDFLiving through the COVID-19 crisis, Dementia care in Healthcare Crisis project highlights existing challenges faced by dementia patients in the long-term care system. Through this study, the field of study is explored using foresight methods to better understand future care provisions in the event of impending pandemics.
The project empathizes with patients in the Ontario system of long-term care while being cognizant of the dilemmas that emerge as a result of healthcare crisis. It reviews current literature and emerging forces of change to understand how things can develop in the future. With scientists assuring the occurrence of future pandemics as a result of globalization and migration, it is assumed the next pandemic will disturb the global environment 15 years into the future, in the year 2035. This project aims to develop alternative future scenarios that discover potential ideas which need to be further worked upon to provide the best form of care for dementia patients
The Need to Convey Experience
Get PDFOnline media has become a forum for heart-felt, first-hand accounts of what it’s like to live with Non-Verbal Living Disability (NVLD), an obscure, misunderstood neurological condition for which there is no clinical diagnosis. The personal stories of those with symptoms helps to validate the existence of their condition through the lived truths experienced. This Auto-Ethnographic study explores the question how might the researcher’s art practice support the NVLD community with a creative tool to convey their own lived experiences, and further, how can blog postings by the community offer insight and inspiration for the development of the tool? Narrative Inquiry is used as the primary method for data collection and analysis and the researcher acts as a proxy for the research subjects in the development of the visualized tool. The study reveals a range of common experiences from persons with NVLD and that these experiences are translatable into visual components (colour, shape, line etc.) that convey their lived experiences
RSD10 sketchnote gallery
Get PDFThe RSD10 sketchnote gallery is a collection of rich, visual records that combine drawings, shapes, visual elements, writing and hand-drawn typography.
Sketchnote artists, aka graphic notetakers, capture the big ideas within a complex conversation. Graphic notes are also a rich source for collecting ‘weak signals’, a foundational phase of the foresight process.
Designer Mike Rohde set out a loose method in 2006 and has published two books; however, no two sketchnotes are alike, and there’s no right way to sketchnote. The technique can be very liberating for visual thinkers and helpful for processing design and systems thinking.
RSD10 sketchnote artists
This year, sketchnote artist Alazne Echaniz joins long-time contributor Patricia Kambitch. Alazne also contributed to RSD10’s social media cards and managed RSD10’s social media
Designing Data-informed Intelligent Systems to Create Positive Impact
Get PDFThis paper explores several approaches for designing data-informed intelligent systems to create a positive impact. Two contrasting case studies in K12 education are used to illustrate design methods, questions and recommendations. The first case study addresses the poverty achievement gap in America and shows how product data can be used to identify areas of inequity in digital education. The second case study looks at the unintended consequences of automating data-driven optimization in the context of a digital math game. Together, the two case studies reveal generalizable knowledge that supports the design of intelligent feedback loops to create a positive impact. Further, this paper considers both the benefits and limitations of data feedback in complex social-technical systems
Mountain Water Management through Systemic Design: The Monviso Institute real-world laboratory
Get PDFThis research deals with the sustainable management of water resources in rural areas, through the study and design of integrated water systems in a mountain environment. The work promotes a new model of sustainable use and treatment of water in a real context, created to be experimented by the public, by the research centre and born from the need for the development of new environmental activism, based on conscience and awareness. Thinking across scales of space and governance, a scalable and replicable system is outlined, based on cooperation between local actors, addressing current tensions while thinking of long-term effects. The trans-disciplinary approach joins systemic projects from different fields, brought together to model a single cooperating system. We outline the regenerative water management model at the campus of the MonViso Institute, a real-world laboratory advancing sustainability and regenerative design in the Italian Alps, as an illustrative case for the design of regenerative water systems.
The delineation of the project came to life thanks to a careful initial research phase, which clarified the identity of the chosen site and the local culture. These were the foundations for the design project of water systems on campus, applying the development of natural technologies, creation of connections and circularity as of reusing water and nutrient flows. The interaction between the components highlights the desired dependence between one and the other, which generates the value of the whole system