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I just wanted to say a few more words. Last year I was quite disappointed with my elective so I tried to be really careful with the ones I have chosen this year and I can 100% say that it was worth it! I really wanted something more practical and creative and as the saying goes, be careful what you wish for, though in my case it acted in a really positive way! Pop goes the now was such a unique experience. We went through highs and lows and learnt to expect anything and be prepared for every situation. I guess that’s a life lesson, huh? Anyway, Adrian, Caroline and Nuala are doing an amazing job. Each of them has a unique personality, way of teaching and offering feedback and their knowledge is amazing. I totally recommend this module and hope everyone will have a great experience no matter the obstacles they would face! It truly was a great experience! Thank you!
Week 12. It’s here! We are finally here! Presentation day! So many emotions were running through my mind and body. I couldn’t believe we were finally able to show our work. It was all great, until about 10-11 o’clock when I was supposed to meet with Tyson to paint his arm for level 2. After spending the whole previous evening watching videos and saving photos of bionic arms and paintings of them, I had to wake up to our group colleague telling us that he can’t attend. I was extremely disappointed and had to think of a way to replace his part. Unfortunately, he was the one who was supposed to bring all the special paint and brushes and I had no time to go get some and finish in time so we had to figure out something else. We knew it was not our fault but we really wanted to present something for our second level. Therefore, I asked one of my good friends who was also taking the module to act in a 30 seconds video and become the guy who decided to cut his arm and replace it with a bionic one. Good thing he was kind enough to spare a few minutes from his preparation for the presentation to help us out!
However, the show had to go on, as they say, so we mobilised, prepared our presentation space, which was one of the small houses found on the roof of the Harrow campus library and went through our main points again. A better description of our final storyline will be following now:
Level 1- 2018 (cultural level)
Touch Bionics is a family business, who have been working on creating bionic limbs since the company was created in 1990. In 2018 they can now proudly say they are the first ever company to create a fully functioning bionic hand. The founder of the company, Bob Johnson has been working towards this goal his whole life and wants to provide the less fortunate with new opportunities. With this goal in mind he decides to host a Touch Bionics Charity Ball to raise money for people in need of a bionic hand who cannot afford it. A-list celebrities from across the globe are invited to attend the event and raise money for this worthy cause.
Level 2- 2040 (commercial level)
22 years later, Touch Bionics have blown up as a company providing millions of people with bionic limbs across the globe. With bionics becoming so popular they have now morphed into the ‘latest trend’. People are now choosing to cut off their limbs to install the latest bionic arm. The bionic arm is more efficient than an average arm therefore people are willing to give up their normal human arm. Like iPhone’s were the latest trend in 2018, society has upgraded in the form of bionic limbs as they are now acting as the new IPhone’s.
Level 3- 2300 (social level)
Now in the year 2300 Touch Bionics have taken over and after Bob Johnson’s passing many years ago his newest grandson now rules the company. He has been given the position as the Minster of Health and is in charge of all hospitals and health centres across the world. The majority of the population now have fully bionic bodies being seen as ‘robots’. The government are working with Touch Bionics and are encouraging people to become ‘fully bionic’. The bionic bodies keep track of people and have sensors when people are trying to harm someone and restrain the person from doing so. The following question being raised is if you are not getting any bionic limb, are you a threat to society?
Level 4- 3300 (political level)
1000 years later, Touch Bionics have created a new form of contact lenses that give you immortality. The lenses have a memory chip that stores a person’s entire self that can be moved from body to body. Only the privileged people have access to them based on their wealth and social position. As not all people in society can afford them and people are starting to feel like they’ve lost touch with their original human side, there has been a rebellion group started against touch bionics. They feel it is unfair that only the wealthy people can access immortality and they have lost their original values of ‘helping people’.
Even with all the problems we’ve faced, I think we managed to do a great presentation. Everyone seemed really excited about our hologram and I am really proud of the way we have handled everything in such a short amount of time. The girls were amazing and this experience was unforgettable!
Week 11. Oh, God! We are almost there! This week was all about the hologram. Before this class I spent a few days going through countless ideas and YouTube videos in the search for the best way of creating it. This was the most futuristic part of our project so I had to come up with something good. Luckily, a day before out class I managed to find a great small project we could implement. Therefore, this Friday, I met with Ella and started working on it. I started building the hologram with her assistance. Although the first try failed, I could not give up, so I tried another version of it. With two CD cases, glue, a box, black paper, some scissors and my iPhone, I managed to create our final artefact.
As we were not yet sure of the place of the presentation we decided that it would be a good idea to seal the box a bit more so that the hologram would work perfectly. I was so happy to see my idea come to life and quite proud of my work, although it did take quite a few hours to sort out every detail. The hologram needed a 180-degree video to match our project and luckily, I managed to find one of what seemed to be a male human made out of different lights that would connect. I thought it would be perfect and implemented the idea. I can’t describe how excited I was to share my little project with everyone else!
Moreover, Minnie worked on her rebellion transmission and it sounded great! I was so proud of her work! We had a previous talk about it and to be honest, it sounded better than I was expecting. She managed to capture that struggle, desire to fight for a better world and everything else we wanted to encapsulate. We were so close to our presentation day and it all seemed to go as planned. Tyson was a no show again but I tried to not lose faith. We did have a talk with our lecturers about his lack of involvement in our project and continued working on it with my girls. When asked on our group chat he said he was working on his part so I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. That was quite a bad decision! I guess working in a group is quite hard when it comes to some members but it’s also great when everyone else gets involved and you realise that you all want it to go great!
Week 10. Wait, what? Was it already week 10? Time does fly when you’re doing something so creative and interesting! This week we had to mobilise ourselves because our time was limited. Therefore, we had to give 100% to make things work! As you might have noticed from the previous posts, the group members I have always mentioned were Minnie and Ella, my girls dream team. However, although he was not present throughout our planning for the group project, we had another team member, Tyson. As we wanted to give him a last chance, we tried to involve him in the last steps of our project with the help of our online group chat.
As we were starting to work on our artefacts I thought he could help us with level 2. Thus, I asked him to take the concept I have already created with the girls, the one of a guy deciding to amputate his healthy arm, to get a bionic one, just because of the new trend, and write a small speech. I also thought of what we could do as an artefact and came up with the idea of using some of my other skills. I offered to paint a bionic arm on his, thus him becoming our living and breathing artefact. We all thought it would be such a cool idea and things were starting to come together. To be honest, I was happy to finally see that he was willing to get involved, but that did not last long.
Moving forward, this week, I met with my colleagues quite early on the day and started working on the artefacts for level 1. With the help of my previous notes, I asked Ella to write the storyline for each year, separate them and print them on four different pieces of paper, resembling the boards you would find in a museum and that would explain each artefact. At the same time, I came up with our idea of immortality: contact lenses. While discussing with Ella the last level, it just hit me, totally out of the bloom. What if we had some indestructible (at least that would be what the government would say) contact lenses, containing your persona on them? This way you could move from a body to another and our rebels could be searching for a way of destroying them! Also, we decided that only the extremely wealthy people and the ones high on the social scale would be able to afford them. Therefore, Minnie could also start working on the rebel radio transmission for level 4. We thought a radio transmission would be a great way of making their message known because it seemed like it would be a forgotten way of transmission that would go unnoticed by the authorities.
At the same time, I started working on the fake Instagram posts for our first level. I have chosen four known personalities from different fields and attributed them different roles when it came to our charity ball: Ellen DeGeneres, Victoria Beckham, Elon Musk, Lady Gaga and Emilia Clarke, each famous in their own field. Using my digital skills, I have accessed their Instagram posts through the developer tool you can find on any internet browser. I have changed their statuses, the date of the post, hashtags and tags. It all seemed so real and all that it took was a bit of hacking. In the end I have taken screen shots of my work as it would have disappeared with the first refresh. Ella also worked on an invitation that would be sent to the guests of the fundraiser ball and it looks amazing!
Our presentation date is so close! However, we are working hard on our artefacts and it seems to be going great! It feels so good to see everything materialise and how we are all using our knowledge and skills to create something great!
Week 9. Sickness got me this week! Because of a food poisoning I could not attend this week’s class. Minnie could not attend it either so I tried to make myself available on our group chat despite how poorly I was feeling.
An important topic for this week was to decide upon the way people would become immortal with the help of Touch Bionics in level 4. Inspired by a new tv series I was kind of binge watching, Altered Carbon, I suggested that we could do something similar. What if we would all become AIs stored on small microchips? Our bodies would be disposable as long as our microchip would not be affected. To be honest, thinking of the way our society is heading this might actually become possible. However, we decided to brainstorm it a bit more because I thought that it would be so much nicer and interesting to create something of our own, see where our own imagination could lead us.
Another thought that kept haunting me was the fact that I wasn’t sure if people would allow themselves to lose so much of their connection with their human side. This is the reason why I have also insisted on the rebellion. People have always been reticent to new things, even writing was considered a threat to oral expression! Moreover, as I have also noticed during last week’s presentation, some of our colleagues were on the same page as me, fact that reinforced my belief.
Although this week was not as productive, we were bonding even more as a team. Girl power!
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Week 8. This week, it was just Minnie and I. We had to go over our last week’s presentation and decide on the artefacts. We found a quiet place in the library and brainstormed some ideas for each level. After that I made a word document with all our idea and although it was messy and still not 100% clear, we were closer to our final destination. I’m writing down all the bullet points from the word document so that you can see for yourself:
Level 1 : 2018
- Charity event, fundraiser ball: raise money to build the bionic hands for free for people in need who can’t afford it
- We can make a video or make a collection of photos with photoshopped celebrities talking about receiving an invitation to this ball. Maybe we can take a recording of scrolling through an Instagram feed and all the photos will be about the event
- Also, for this level we could make a fake invitation to the event
Level2: 2040
- Big wooden board with a human figure on it and the head cut out. Also, one of the hands is 3D and it’s actually a glove looking like a bionic arm
- Or maybe we can take this idea further and say that the company has now expanded and they are started to create some other things like the pill from Black Mirror that was implanted near the temple and you can go through your memories with it, replay them and let everyone see them as well. We could print it in 3D
- Also, here comes the recording of the guy who says he decided to cut off his arm to get a bionic one and that it’s the latest trend and it’s super cool.
- The idea would be to make an advert related to this recording
Level 3: 2150 (we should rethink this year)
- Here we thought about creating some kind of a hologram. One idea would be to buy the transparent fishing string and tie beads at the ends of them and try to put them together and make them look like a human form. I’ll search for some alternatives, see what could we do to resemble a hologram.
- Also, it’s an advert that promotes the benefits of having the hand, therefore we could make another recording that would list the benefits, one of them being: a more secure lifestyle (electroshocks you if you are trying to harm someone)
- At the end we can also say something like: If you’re not getting the hand, does it mean that you are a danger for this society? Maybe having something to hide.
- Another idea was to say that now the governing powers are the biggest companies of the world from different sectors. For example, the owner of the company that we are talking about can be something similar to a minister of health
Level 4: 2400 (rethink year)
- Secret rebellion transmission maybe
- We still need to figure out what this ultimate level is. How do they become immortal? Can people still be considered human? Are they 100% cyborgs now?
Extra
At the same time, as I said we could make some white simple boards on which a short story would be written explaining the artefacts. Just like in a museum. There would be 4, each placed next to an artefact
Week 7. Pitch idea presentation day was upon us! As the previous week held us away from University with all the snow, we had to meet earlier, before the class to discuss our idea a bit. We decided that we should keep the bionic arm story and decide on the company whose future we would like to analyse. In our online searches we found a firm called Touch Bionics and agreed on imagining its future.
We understood throughout the first part of the class that we need to define 4 years, starting with the present and think of how everything could evolve. At the same time, we had to capture four levels: political, social, commercial and cultural. Therefore, we started with 2018, where the company was creating bionic arms for the people in need who could afford them. Moving on, we set the next year to be around 50 years later, therefore 2070. Here we tried to encapsulate the commercial side of our project, imagining a time where everyone could get a bionic arm and where maybe it could become the next new thing everyone wants, even if they would still have all their limbs. A new trend maybe?
Another 100 years later, we imagined a world where everyone was forced to get a bionic hand for social and political reasons. Letting our imagination run wild, we thought that maybe everyone would need to get the arm when reaching a certain age (maybe 13?). Moreover, our next idea was to reinstate social stratification with its help. People would get points depending on different reasons, one of them being also the wealth of their parents. We also thought that we could create a new political system.
Our last step was immortality. We weren’t sure yet how we would reach it but it was in the plan!
The presentation was better than we expected and the feedback from our lecturers and colleagues helped a lot. We decided we will create advertisements for each step and that we need to think again about some of our ideas and expand the others. All in all it was a great week and we were one step closer to our final goal!
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Week 6. If you weren’t aware of it, I’ll tell you a “not so secret” secret: it actually does snow in London! And quite heavily this year! I don’t mind snow, but I was expecting it Christmas time. Moving on, the sad part about it was the fact that classes were cancelled and our campuses were close. So, no Pop goes the now class for us this week. However, as the following week we had to present a pitch idea for our final project, we created a group chat and together with Minnie and Ella, we went through some ideas.
As the first step of our project was supposed to reflect the present, we started thinking about the previous notion of zeitgeist. What could we take from our present and conceptualise in the future. After going through a few subjects, we got to the notion of 3D printing and more exactly its use in medicine, in the creation of organs. And that’s how it all started! We were to analyse the evolution of our race and its human body. Going further we thought we could go from 3D printing to bionic limbs as they seem to become a great part of the future. My initial idea was to write the story of a family, starting with a girl, named Anna who could not walk and, therefore had to use a chair. Moving on to the next stage, her great granddaughter, which hereditarily got the same disease as Anna was about to be cured as medicine has advanced greatly. She was now about to get bionic limbs installed for free. It would have been a nice story to tell but we’ve decided against it. However, we did not want to give up on the idea of bionic limbs and that’s how we agreed on writing the story of a company that creates them. We imagined the company in four different time stages across a period of a bit over 1000 years, thinking of changing its name throughout time, but making sure it will still be passed on from father to daughter or son. We ended up creating a society where everyone had a bionic arm, where your social status and wealth mattered and the political system would change.
Even with all the snow, I think it’s been a productive week and we are finally starting to see where we are heading with our group project. Proud of my girls!
Week 5. Throughout the first four weeks we kept hearing this word: PALIMPSEST. Each time we would look at each other confused. And before you say it, we did ask what it meant but we were told that we will find out when the time is right. We could have just searched for it online or in a dictionary but I guess we liked the suspense of not knowing yet. But guess what? The time was today! So, without further ado, a palimpsest, described in a simpler way, would be something reused or altered but still wearing visible marks of its past form. This time, we were back in central London. Although, it was quite a cold day, our treasure hunt for palimpsests on Carnaby Street took our mind off it. With the help of an app mapping the history of some of its buildings through some audio recordings, we walked around this beautiful historical rich street of London.
I think I have never been as attentive to every small detail. I was noticing small drawings on the pipes, sealed windows and reading all the small plaques I could find on the way, in the search of our palimpsest. With my colleague Ella, as we were the only ones present on this day, we were discussing every tiny object that could have worked for us.
In the end, we bumped into it when we were expecting the least and in a place we were just quickly trying to pass by, a small off licence. In front of it was what seemed like a gas box, that was supposed to keep us safe from what was inside. However, on it, you could see some adds and magazine covers. Moreover, you could also see the traces of the old issues or commercials that were ripped and replaced. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, you can identify our palimpsest in the photo above!
Happy with our finding, we headed back to our campus and presented our “treasure”.
Week 4. The week of the ZEITGEIST. What does zeitgeist mean? Well, in a few words, it defines the mood, vibe, atmosphere of a particular period of history as revealed by the ideologies and beliefs of the time. After a presentation of today’s topic, led by our lecturers, we were asked to create a piece of art that would capture the zeitgeist of our present. Therefore, my group colleagues, Minnie and Ella, and myself went to a creative studio based in our Harrow campus and started brainstorming. While we were still searching for an idea, Minnie found a big piece of plastic and some material and joked about making a skirt out of it. My reply was: “Why not? Let’s actually do it!”. Inspired by our lecture today, I suggested we combine fashion and politics as nowadays designers are making more and more political statements with the help of their clothing lines and throughout Fashion Weeks.
As we had to carefully choose the political statement accompanying out creation we started thinking of what defines our society and the answer was simple: Social Media. We are living in the Era of technology, such a fast-paced time, based on consumerism but at the same time with an easier access to the world. Nowadays, getting your voice to be heard is so much easier with the help of the numerous social media platforms out there. And which was the topic that dominated our feeds? Feminism! Therefore, we decided to use different hashtags from diverse campaigns such as #timesup to make our statement. At the same time, as our creation was to reflect pop culture, we decided to add some magazine cut-outs.
I was amazed with the level of creativity and diversity we’ve had within each group. We’ve all created such different things: pieces of fashion, radio recordings, short videos and art artefacts. It was so interesting to see how each group interpreted our assignment and I was quite proud of everyone present, including ourselves.
The feedback for our little fashion project was great. Everyone seemed to embrace our project and appreciate it. However, there’s always place for better and hopefully, with our next projects, we’ll get even more creative!
Week 3. Winter is still here! Unfortunately, the cold weather has given me an unwanted gift, a pretty bad cold, forcing me have to pass on this week’s class. However, after talking to some of my colleagues and looking over the lecture slides I managed to grasp some of the concepts presented. It seems to have been a really interesting one and I’m quite upset because I had to miss it.
One of the notions that grabbed my attention is Structuralism. The part of the slides that made me think was the one that stated that systematic patterns and structures can be found across Western structures, as highlighted in Roland Barthe’s book, “Mythologies”. The example I decided to analyse was none other than the worldwide famous chef Gordon Ramsey. His success is unquestionable and it seems to be simply based on shouting and being rude. Or should we call it a “strong leading personality”.
Looking at his show, “Kitchen Nightmares”, with each episode we can identify quite a clear pattern. Ramsey is called into action when a restaurant needs saving. He shouts. The restaurant owner is reticent to his changes. He shouts. After that he shouts a bit more. Then guess what?... More shouting. Opening night comes and it’s all a success. I guess everything is great when it ends with the restaurant being transformed and saved.
Patterns can be identified even in his mean remarks. I’m posting a few above so that you get the idea.
An interesting question is why people are so attracted to this tv show since it is practically a repetition of the same steps. Are we comfortable with following a clear pattern and knowing the ending already? Western society is known for searching for that happily ever after everywhere, be it movies, tv shows or real life.
A clear influence in the high audience is Gordon Ramsey himself. He’s so funny, right? With all his mean jokes. However, would we see things in the same way if he weren’t a straight white male? Would we enjoy all his racist, misogynistic and discriminating jokes otherwise?
Week 2. 2018 is said to be the year in which we should be paying great attention to diverse life-changing creations. Skype translator, sunscreen pills, megapolises, autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence and head transplants can become our tomorrow’s reality. If we were to envelop them all into one category, which would be it? Well, they can be clearly described as disruptive innovations.
This introduction is all about one of the most interesting topics of our second week, the one mentioned at the end of the previous paragraph.
People have always been scared of the new. Even the act of writing was once considered harmful to society! However, nowadays, we are more welcoming towards it. In our fast paced technological era, it feels as if we are living for the thrill of the next big discovery, one that would change the course of history and the path of any domain.
Going back to our module talk, week two was meant to introduce us to our team members and give us our first project: finding the next big thing, a disruptive innovation. In 30-45 minutes, each group came up with someting interesting: VR cinemas and recreations of movies, Bumper speedways, safer tinders and student friendly apps. Some were trying to break the mould whereas others wanted to play it more safely, get to know each other and how our brains work together. We were on the safer side, but promised ourselves that next time we will let our imagination run free.
Maybe by the end of the module we will be the ones to amaze the world with another disruptive innovation. Who knows! However, picking each others’ brain has already proven to be great fun and resourceful!
This installation made each of us feel like a kid again. A nice walk down memory lane. Don’t let yourself be fooled, though. It does take a team effort to do it right!
Installation: Superflex One Two Three Swing! Tate Modern
Week 1. New term. Different modules. The thrill of the unknown. After reading the Module Handbook and going through the schedule, I was really excited to get more details about everything that will be happening within this module. Before attending the first workshop, I was keeping my fingers crossed, hoping it will involve more practical work and creativity. And guess what? It was a lucky strike! Although, the theoretical part is still present, knowing that my imagination will be put into use weekly, makes me look forward to each step of the process. At the same time, another aspect that has drawn me towards this module was its diversity. Students, as well as module leaders, come from different backgrounds, and therefore, I feel like we all have a lot to learn from each other. By putting our minds together, working in groups, sharing, discarding and reshaping ideas, who knows what we can achieve. Maybe one of us is the next Andy Warhol, or Roy Lichtenstein and we are setting the basis for the next new Pop trend. Creativity implies seeing the world through another perspective, in different colours, and being brave enough to put your innovations out there, as crazy as they may seem at the beginning. I believe that this is what Pop culture is all about. P.S. The second photo shows one of the latest installations found at Tate Modern: Superflex One Two Three Swing! We went there in the second part of our first workshop. Pretty cool, right?
