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Design for empowerment
Get PDFThis track explores empowerment as the primary focus of design for social change, rather than merely a side effect or outcome of design activity. While existing studies highlight empowerment through design, there is a pressing need for a nuanced discussion on how empowerment is planned, achieved, and articulated within design projects. Our aim is to reclaim the Design for Empowerment research agenda and advocate for a critical perspective. This includes discussions on biases, privileges, and positionality of designers, complex power dynamics in social design settings, and unintended consequences of social design interventions. Contributions explore how empowerment theories inform design practice, provide critical tools for power analysis, present methodologies for discussing levels of empowerment, and capture individual and collective narratives of change. We also examine some of the tensions and dilemmas arising in politically engaged design
Designing systems of systems: Connecting resources and mapping assets for ecological citizen(s)
No full textThe transition to sustainable modes requires navigating existing services and resources. In this paper we specifically argue for the role of design to rethink ‘system within systems’ but that this requires a fundamental understanding of ecosystem services. Our approach builds on The Green Skills gap, defined as ‘the knowledge, abilities, values and attitudes needed to live, develop and support a society which reduces the impact of human activity on the environment’. We reframe this ‘gap’ through the concept of ‘Ecological Citizenship’; by connecting opportunities with communities, enabling localised propositions, empowering citizens to benefit their contextual circumstances. Design (as a practice/tool) is becoming more democratised, accessible and systemic. Specifically, the designer’s role of ‘connector and convener’ is one of four drivers, in The Design Council’s Beyond Net Zero to help the gap in understanding between theory and implementation, in addition to the skills gap. In this paper we present an analysis of award winning UK and Nepali examples which sensitively comprehend what mapped resources and environments can be nurtured/protected. It looks for Systems of Systems: Connecting Resources and Assets for Ecological Citizen(s) through non-formal communities, charitable organisations, and sustainable businesses which embody the Quintuple Bottom Line, (Profit, People, Planet, Purpose and Place). It positions collaborative insights, and navigates ‘system to system’ crossovers, green assets with sensitive non-extractive design insights. We believe that identifying and aligning reciprocal systems can be regenerative, mutually beneficial. This contemporary ‘design-led review’ unpacks ‘strategic overlaps’ of these examples which embed a fundamental understanding of ecosystem services. The objective of our analysis is to identify and ascertain pertinent metrics (within civic and business) which sensitively comprehend what mapped resources and environments can be nurtured and protected. We thus propose that design is a key tool to leverage transformative change that can support and sustain ecosystem services
All that shimmers: Metals & printmaking
Get PDFThis is the third of my articles for Printmaking Today in a series where I have explored the potential offered to the expanded practice of printmaking through the use of alternative substrates and pigments such as ceramics, glass and for this edition, metal. The histories of the use of these three materials are strongly intertwined through their relationship with processes involving kilns, furnaces and extreme heat. Within this context there is a necessity that printed colours retain their hues at temperatures that range from 500 to 1300 degrees centigrade, and it is metal-based pigments, such as copper, chromium and oxides of iron, processed further into a range of colours, which are the mainstay for these printing materials. This quality of resilience, induced through heat means that metal pigments provide durable strength and permanence and when used together with metal substrates they offer tremendous strength of form. Metal also has a long history of and important relationship with printmaking technologies, due to this durability and the material’s inherent transmutable qualities, which allow it to be cast as type or incised as with printing plates, to form strong carriers of visual data. I aim to chronologically illustrate through the following works and objects, how the emerging technologies of printmaking have had and continue to have a relationship with metals, from movable type through to 3D printing. This is a story that dispenses with categories such as the fine and applied arts, and weaves from kitsch objects to artworks, from those made using incredible craft skills to the use of technological ingenuity, buildings to jewellery, lowly tin to noble gold
Exploring fungal morphology simulation and dynamic light containment from a graphics generation perspective
Get PDFFungal simulation and control are considered crucial techniques in Bio-Art creation. However, coding algorithms for reliable fungal simulations have posed significant challenges for artists. This study equates fungal morphology simulation to a two-dimensional graphic time-series generation problem. We propose a zero-coding, neural network-driven cellular automaton. Fungal spread patterns are learned through an image segmentation model and a time-series prediction model, which then supervise the training of neural network cells, enabling them to replicate real-world spreading behaviors. We further implemented dynamic containment of fungal boundaries with lasers. Synchronized with the automaton, the fungus successfully spreads into pre-designed complex shapes in reality
Unframing
Get PDFSeveral technical functions in film and video are either overlooked or taken for granted. One of the most important of these is the frame, especially in the cinema context where it functions as an image container, a subsistent, invisible barrier or cut-off between the screen space and its surrounding darkness. Several filmmakers have tested the givenness of the framing edges—it's called the frame but it’s really a mask—either by incorporating them into the work or by making them disappear. The strategy of incorporation, in the form of frames within frames, can generate a partial mise-en-abyme (Droste Effect), or gesture towards it. This essay discusses examples of film and video work by artist-filmmakers, in which the frame is variously incorporated into the image as part of it, redescribed or dismantled through a process of material reconfiguration. The essay begins with a key historical example, Hans Richter’s 35mm film Rhythm 21 (1921-23), moving on to more recent works, including William Raban’s seminal work 2’ 45” and Steve Partridges’ video work Monitor 1, thence to more recent examples by Bruce McClure, Cathy Rogers, Simon Payne and the author. The essay is intended to show how the frame is essential in the process of meaning formation in both film and, to a lesser extent, painting, and how the work of the artists discussed challenges the givenness that afflicts the photographic image. To this end, much of the work discussed is non-representational, though not all of it
Maternal exhumations
No full textSquare grids were used in archaeological excavations in Palestine to exhume bodies, vessels, tomb goods, and other valuable artefacts from the subterranean depths of the holy land. Hundreds of thousands of these artefacts were then looted by multiple global institutions over the course of the last century. The labour of excavation was taken on by Palestinian women usually from the village itself. Most of the time these women were also the landowners and those who nurtured the ground with their own hands as farmers. This 9 square grid installation is an ode to those women and an experiment in imagining the vessels returning to their soil. The second iteration of Maternal Exhumations was commissioned by Artvisor for this exhibition
Untitled (onion)
No full textDima Srouji participates in the group exhibition titled SOUTH WESTBANK - Landworks, Collective Action and Sound, a Collateral Event of the Biennale Arte 2024. The exhibition focuses on works produced by artists, collectives and allies in and around the southern West Bank in Palestine. The exhibition is organised by Artists + Allies x Hebron and presented in collaboration with Dar Jacir for Art and Research in Bethlehem. The participating artists look at aspects of land, agriculture and heritage in a rapidly ever-shifting topography. The artists share a voice centered on historical transmissions of memory and collectivity. The works embody the idea that ‘home’ is strongly rooted in many traditional practices, a reinforcement of the Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere theme of the Art Biennale. SOUTH WESTBANK - Landworks, Collective Action and Sound is on view at Magazzino Gallery, Palazzo Polignac, Venice from 20 April to 24 November, 2024
Transparent histories
No full textThis project aims to bring out a forgotten history of glass in architecture by celebrating historically significant stone carving techniques and glass inlays used in the Middle East. The partition depicts architectural monuments from the region that are seminal to the history of architecture and are often understudied. The wall, itself an architectural element, becomes the storyteller of architectural history and the history of craft through its material and design. The monuments engraved and carved through the surfaces take note from Piranesi’s Campo Marzio map of Rome and reconfigures it to the city of Jerusalem, Palestine. As Piranesi flattens time and space by inventing his own monuments inspired by the archaeological sites in Rome, this map does the same for architectural monuments in Jerusalem, a city convoluted in its strata with layers of hidden narratives to be excavated. The installation creates a speculative space to imagine a future liberated Jerusalem from below
Pauper's Press print residency
No full textA residency in several parts at Paupers's Press Print studio to create a pair of lithographs. This was a residency by invitation
Mixed reality in physical rehabilitation, opportunities and challenges
Get PDFMixed reality has begun to find applications in new areas as hardware, from smart phones to head mounted displays, have become more widespread, powerful and affordable. Research on effectiveness, acceptability and other issues related to the use of these technologies have been carried out in different contexts. While more work remains to be done, it is possible to envision new cross disciplinary applications with the potential to be highly effective. which would not have been possible without results from these different research streams. This paper will examine the use of augmented reality in the context of upper limb rehabilitation. Related research on the perceived accuracy and validity of of augmented (and tangible augmented) reality, integration with external sensors, supporting product-service-systems and customization will be examined. Potential applications to upper limb rehabilitation will be discussed and open issues highlighted