#whtisabook

[dvtsr]

I SPENT SO LONG WONDERING WHEN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE WOULD TAKE OVER ONLY TO REALISE THAT WE ARE ARTIFICIALLY INTELLIGENT.

I've come to a point where I can’t spell without google or remember the dates of birthdays or the colour of my friends eyes without Facebook.

As touched on in The Age of Earthquakes by Shumon Basar, we’ve begun to store less and less in our own minds-- rather relying on the internet to hold our answers. Our IQ drops considerably when not within reach of a phone or device with which to access the cloud brain.  With only a vague knowledge of information what would occur in a cyber-apocalypse?

Our raw memory has become a blurry archive and our connection to the world wide web has become the glasses needed to decipher this self-encrypted data. Which begs the question, at which point do we ourselves become the “EVIL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE” dystopian fables have us fearing? We live half our lives online, communicating more with megabytes than audio waves. We pay with our fingerprints (ala cardless phone payments, logged into with biometric print) and use crypto currencies to buy both physical and intangible goods or thrills. If all network based infrastructure were to collapse would we as a society also not fail to crumble?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mweTc7tDO3I We’ve begun our “dissent” into human-tech hybrid with wearable technologies such as earbuds and smart watches. Visa MasterCard even released a waterproof wristband that’s tap and go enabled designed for festivals and events. Algorithms permeate every facet of our lives from your iPhone tracking and discerning your sleeping patterns to autocorrect learning how you speak. With our conscious mind uploaded and forever on the internet there is little more than organic flesh separating us from our machines.  However, it is hard to be afraid of the big bad robots when as opposed to Arnold Schwarzenegger, it’s 13 year old reddit dorks and cat video mums who we are facing. 

[mandarin-e-blog]

Digital Poetry

Alinta Krauth - 'Camberland' interactive digital poetry co-authored with Jason Nelson

Through a classroom activity, digital poetry was discovered. Although I can appreciate that it makes use of the digital devices as a vehicle to communicate literature, I feel that it’s a little nonsensical and more like text-heavy artwork, which is not a bad thing but I have trouble connecting with it.

This discovery has also led me to question: what exactly constitutes digital poetry?

[dvtsr]

post digital reader boiii

[mandarin-e-blog]

ABC3D by Marion Bataille

Publication x Science. An alphabet made through a series of pop-ups, die cuts, paper manipulation and optical illusions; underpinned by kinetic energy.

[dvtsr]

asking a fish to describe water - the post digital plane

 In an age where the phone has become an augmented vessel for the psyche and losing it is akin to losing a limb, it’s hard to apprehend how rapidly we are evolving. 13 years ago YouTube was non-existent, now it churns out millionaire moguls.  

We live on the crux of evolution, witnessing the digitisation of our worlds.

To design a publication fit for the post digital age, I felt it was necessary to take stock on our surroundings and identity what/who it is we’re designing for. Broken up into 10 categories I felt encompass our situation, I will update these weekly along with responses to class readings and projects. 


1. INSTANT GRATIFICATION ™️ IMPERMANENCE AND FINDING LOVE ON TINDER  



With all the knowledge in the world at our fingertips we’ve become reliant on instantaneous and rapid responses to our queries. From “Blonde girl in Sin City” to “Best focaccia recipes” we no longer have to venture out of bed to find the answers. Patience is no longer in Practice. With the rise of Netflix and Spotify, ON DEMAND entertainment has become the norm. Netflix binges and Uber Eats perpetrate a culture of mass consumption and minimal contribution. With this bombardment of availability we’ve come to crave the thrill of limitations. Impermanence has become a novelty.  This is evident in the rise of platforms such as Snapchat, which centres around the self destruction of sent images / text after a few seconds. An app that was originally designed for sexting became  mainstream by tapping into a cultural niche and exploiting our longing for something inaccessible and unavailable. 

 This sense of adrenaline is mirrored in the rapid rush of swiping past potential matches on Tinder. Whilst online dating sites have been around since the dawn of the internet, it has never been quite as socially accepted or adopted by the masses as the Tinder has. Sex has been commodified and available en mass. Begrudgingly labelled “the hookup generation” by baby boomers and crone-y fascists, sex has become as binge-able as Netflix. Liberated from the dance of ye old courtship, meeting new people is as easy as a swipe and as consequential as you let it. I overheard a woman on the train gushing to her friend that she just wasn’t meeting anyone “ORGANICALLY” but was able to meet her fiancee over tinder, as though implying that through the app she was subverting the will of nature and seizing her own destiny. This is supplemented by the plethora of posts on /r/tinder detailing tips and techniques for maximising output. It becomes a blend of basic psychology, statistics and algorithms with a key focus on quantity as opposed to quality. The ethics of maintaining relations with multiple people at once is disregarded as user after user detail how many different dates they’ve lined up for the week and a pro’s and con’s list for each. When individuals are boiled down to a statistic and 1-6 images it’s inevitable that the blur between pixels and people become almost indistinct entities.    



Societies infatuation with instantaneous content is both stimulating and highly addictive. Whilst there is nothing wrong with being able to access what we need fast and in vast quantities, it’s important to remember that dial up internet was a crucial form of character building.

 
 2. SNAPCHAT FILTERS AND OUR RAT RACE FOR PERFECTION (EVERYTHING ON THE INTERNET IS ON THE INTERNET FOREVER)
(( LOOKING UGLY CUTE ON PURPOSE IS BETTER THAN LOOKING UGLY WHILE TRYING TO LOOK CUTE ))



3. SHITPOSTBOT 5K/COLLABORATIVE APPROPRIATION/SIMPSONS SHIT POSTING, SOCIAL MEDIA AND RESHARING CULTURE. I SHOW MY MUM DOG MEMES.
 


4. BOOKS,, THE VINYL OF PUBLISHING? PUBLICATION,, THE PRIMITIVE FORM OF DATA SHARING?



5. GROWING UP TECH NATIVE/ THE PIRATE BAY DIDN’T DESERVE TO DIE



6. IMAGINARY INTERNET POINTS/ SELF VALIDATION AND THE SELFIE



7. PANDERING TO KIDS: TOY UNBOXING AND HYPERSEXUAL SPIDER MAN/ THE ETHICS OF CPV/AD SENSE REVENUE



8. JAPANS AGING POPULATION: 3DS GIRLFRIENDS AND TOASTERS IN THE TUB VS VR PORN



9. FINGER GREASE / HAPTIC FEEDBACK / KEYBOARD SFX
 WE CAN’T LET GO  - WE’RE NOT READY TO BECOME ALIENS.




10. CONES AND RODS ARE CHROME AND RASPBERRY PI, 
TRANSLATING OUR SURROUNDINGS INTO A FORMAT WE CAN COMPREHEND -- ORGANIC CODING -- CAN OUR REALITY ONLY BE ORGANIC? 


[mandarin-e-blog]

Flowcharts To Live By

Flowcharts To Live By centres on an exploration of algorithms in the post-digital experience; as it appears that such equations are the basis of human survival in addition to the 21st century digital world. From traditional easy-to-follow cooking instructions to complex mathematical formulae, the book aims to open a dialogue that questions the correlation between design and systematic methodologies and to challenge the notion of inevitable conformism.

Through the use of contemporary and traditional design elements this publication endeavours to manifest a contrast of algorithmic devices, reinterpreted through mundane everyday tasks.

[mandarin-e-blog]

Flowcharts

After realising a different perspective on my concept through a class activity, I was intrigued by the the way in which algorithms are presented and designed; it occurred to me that certain types of formulae were segmented into their own “style”. But why?

[mandarin-e-blog]

Vintage Cook Books

Upon visiting an op shop in the city as apart of research, many old 70′s cook books were acquired. It was endlessly fascinating to see the way they used to photograph and design these publications; they almost feel like a time capsule in book form.