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CATS&MICKEY&BOOKS

artisitic statement

(digital self portrait by vera dong, 2021)

Vera Dong, an oil painting artist who comes from an interaction & inclusive design background. Vera is passionate about arts & exhibitions and has a dream of travelling around the world to visit diverse galleries and museums. To date, Vera has been to exhibitions in many cities of China, Canada, and the U.S.

Vera enjoys sharing her thoughts and artistic reflection through blogs/photo narratives, a personal place that records important memories and ideas; an open platform for everyone to be visualized as well.

(The three exhibitions shared below are located in Shenzhen, China)

#youmaobing-tango (有猫病)

Artist: Tango

Date: April 3 - June 26, 2022 10AM - 7PM

Address: No.1187 Wanghai Road, Nansheshan District, Shenzhen, China

(an official poster that states the title youmaobing and the opening hours)

The printed title youmaobing on the wall means everything about a cat, which is what the exhibition is illustrating as well.

outdoor view of the exhibition

inclusive art, design & community

1) the doctor cat

At the entrance, there is an interactive component that visitors can play with. By handing over their arms into the box, the doctor cat will get the visitor vaccinated (not for real, but for fun). After being vaccinated by the doctor cat, visitors can go to the exhibition room. This installation caters to the theme/need of the pandemic, keeping everyone safe in the room; also providing the feeling of being safe and protected for those who could not get vaccinated in real life, like myself, who reacted allergies after the first dose, wanted to get vaccinated but had no choice.

2) art pieces - the cat

t-shirt cat

gitar cat

vr cat

this gif shows how visitor interacts with the vr artwork. After scanning the QR code, a cat with sunshine on her body shows up on screen. Originally, on the paper art piece, it did not include the cat, and the cat will only appear on the screen. By interacting with the artwork through different media, it allows visitors to explore different visualizations of the art and be surprised.

youmaobing (有猫病) by tango communicating different angles about our mundane life through his artworks as well as the lens of the cat. The cat angles enable the cat to be humanized and hold equal power as humans do; the cat brings joyfulness, surprise, and relaxation to visitors.

#mickey: the true original exhibition & beyond

Artist: art collections by 57 artists worldwise

Date: April 23 - July 3, 2022 11AM - 10PM

Address: No. 9668 Shennan Avenue, Nanshan District, L4 Art Project North District, Shenzhen, China

(official poster - Shenzhen exhibition)

This exhibition "mickey: the true original exhibition & beyond" is sponsored by Disney and UCCA Lab. It presents the works of artists from New York and Tokyo, also it specially invites 31 Chinese contemporary artists, through painting, sculpture, calligraphy, installation, sound, new media and other media to start a new creative practice about mickey.

inclusive art, design & community

1) me mickey

through interacting with the installation, I can see myself on the LED screen, in a mickey shape and in different colours. Mickey shapes tons of happy memories from my childhood. This artwork reminds me that mickey is still by my side even though I am no longer a child.

2) let’s dance, let’s social

mickey exhibition gathers people all together. This is the first time that I have met this many people in one place since the pandemic started. We wear masks, keep a bit of social distance, and dance with mickey. This hot and crazy vibe seems to say it is time to socialize and meet each other!

#books - the peerless beauty

https://www.red-dot.org/project/books-the-peerless-beauty-18706

Artist: artists from the Shenzhen Central Book City

Date: May 6 - June 30, 2022

Address: Heyi Club, 1st Floor, North of Building 423, Bagualing Industrial Zone, Futian District, Shenzhen China

Books – The Peerless Beauty is held by Shenzhen Central Book City in Shenzhen, dedicated to the value of books as well as the notion that creative designs can turn reading into a pleasure.

Above shows the official poster. The logo for these events embodies a purely typographic design concept: it is based on Chinese characters emphasising the structure of the writing system. Accentuating and stretching the horizontal strokes of all characters used, the graphic illustration turns the characters into formally abstracted shapes that trace the outlines of books. It aims to communicate the appearance of traditional paper books as well as the aesthetics of forms and materials of the book.

inclusive art, design & community

1) the 100 ways to visualize books

The main exhibition area displays a hundred samples of books with different structures and shapes.

Only by reading them, you will realize the ingenious and practical value of the forms.

soft plants seem resonate with the soft books

visiting the printing machines and discovering how books/pages are produced

questions to take away:

- how many books (in total) do you have in your room?

- how many of them were old, and how many of them are new? Can you tell their difference? on forms, colours, textures, layout, etc.

- how often would you go to the library or purchase a new book. What are the important reasons for you to pick up a book?

#shenzhenchina #exhibition #youmaobing-tango #mickey:the true original exhibition & beyond #books – the peerless beauty

Week 11 Reflection of Reflections

I really enjoy and appreciate what I learned from this class, since throughout the semester, the class provides plenty of positive and critical resources for me to read and reflect. From reading, it helps me to explore and interpret new ideas about diversity & inclusion; from reflecting, it enables me to further examine my takeaway on what I have missed out and never thought about before as well as how I could do better. For instance, the idea that the design process involves not only accountability, but also critical thinking that leads to destruction and change which is demonstrated by Mike Monteiro from the Youtube video titled How Designers Destroyed the World. This idea helps me to further extend that designers include a variety of communities such as people with disabilities who should be allowed and invited to participate into the design process. Everyone has different angles towards one thing based on their life experience and knowledge, in this case, everyone holds professions in their familiar field, and that is how design could be built-in with the idea of inclusiveness. I will take the idea that critical thinking brings destruction and change to the world with me for both life and career purposes. Thank you so much Jess for the difference class.

Week 10 Social (In) justice cont.

“Chess-playing robot breaks boy’s finger at Moscow tournament”, when I first saw this title, I was shocked by it and started having biases and crazy judgments towards the robot (some thoughts/assumptions about the robot might have its own intention) . However, after I watched the video which recorded the whole process of how the accident happened attached above the article; apparently, this is an accident, and it was not intendedly caused by the robot. From what I saw on the record, the robot was doing its actions back and forth in a regular cycle, which means what it acted was based on how it was algorithmized. Yet, the boy was not controlled by any algorithms, he has his own thoughts since he is human. When the robot finished his round and was doing a new round, the boy accidentally put his finger under the spot where the robot was going to place a chess. Therefore the accident happened - the boy’s finger was pushed under the robot’s finger with a chess. This was not either the boy’s fault or the robot’s fault, they were victims to some point. My quick thought is that if the robot was coded to be able to release his finger/action when it hits something other than table, this accident might be avoided.

Week 9 Design as Social Justice Tool

Indeed, as Sashaa indicates that “Design justice rethinks design processes, centers people who are normally marginalized by design, and uses collaborative, creative practices to address the deepest challenges our communities face.” (2) This design value that Sashaa summarized reminds me of a design justice that happened on streets. There is an instance from the article Decolonizing geographies of power: indigenous digital counter-mapping practices on turtle Island is the Ogimaa Mikana (Renaming/Reclaiming) project in Toronto held by Indigenous communities, the idea is to help Anishinaabemowin language/literatures to be visualized on street name signs, which means, alongside of the conventional English street names, they also have an Indigious language version created for the street based on its culture and history (Hunt and Stevenson, 378-379). In this case, I believe that the Ogimaa Mikana project focuses on acknowledging and valuing the presence of Indigenous groups in a material way; promoting the city’s creativities and justice through multi-cultural perspectives. As an international student here, I would like to hear from the class, what would you think of this project? Is it creating a sense of inclusion for you by living in the city, or does it seem offensive and create a sense of taking over the control?

Figure 1. Formerly Indian Rd. and Bloor St. West.

Week 8 Ethics + Design

At the beginning of this week’s class, we opened up a conversation around diversity, empathy, and inclusiveness, and how these concepts could happen in the space around us (e.g. our classroom), and how we might help to build our space inclusively by acknowledging everyone’s difference and avoiding making judgements just based on one’s perspective/bias.

During the break-out room, we discussed the ethics issue in design fields, a great example is the WMDs podcast, which is about an ethical concern of an AI technology that two scientists invented. The AI technology not only could be helpful for rare diseases, but also be possible for WMDs development. The question to discuss aims at what the two scientists including people such as colleagues who know about this technology and its possibilities. In my opinion, the AI technology should be saved for the medicine development for rare diseases and to be banned with ethical laws on using for the WMDs discovery, since the former’s purpose is to save patients’ life, the later, according to a study, “it is a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or any other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to numerous individuals or cause great damage to artificial structures, natural structures, or the biosphere.” (Safire, W). The podcast ends with a conversation that “In March, 2022, the US under its obligations for the International Chemical Weapons Convention destroyed its last stockpile of VX. It has now destroyed over 95 percent of its chemical weapons, and is slated to destroy them all by September of 2023. So mark your calendars, I guess?”

Would you think it is necessary to destroy the AI technology to go under the obligation for the International Chemical Weapons Convention and for ethical concerns?

Week 7 Opportunity Cont

Regarding this week's videos, they all share a vital idea that design can make a huge impact on the world in terms of life connection, with mindful consideration of what they are doing and what might be needed on the things that they are creating. The design process involves not only accountability, but also critical thinking that leads to destruction and change. Besides this, the insight that I took from the videos is that designers include a variety of communities, and everyone including people with disabilities could participate and design it. Everyone has different angles towards one thing based on their life experience and knowledge, in this case, everyone holds professions in their familiar field, and that is how design could be built-in with the idea of inclusiveness.

With the notion that design should involve diverse angles and possibilities towards ethical consideration and inclusivity, in last year, the New York Fashion Week explored the idea of adaptive fashion that inclusive fashion focuses on not only race, gender, sexuality, age, size, and religion, but also on one’s abilities, which means their exhibited new collection might appeal to someone with limited use of their arms or has a new trouser that would work for someone with a prosthetic (Farra, 2021). There is the link to the article, with photos of their adaptive fashion collections. https://www.vogue.com/article/whats-missing-in-inclusivity-movement-adaptive-fashion-disabled-community

After reading the article, there are a couple questions for you to consider:

What do you think of the idea of adaptive fashion? What does it mean to you?

Is it practical? Will it become a common trend into our mundane life?

Week 6 The Beautiful Opportunity of Design

After reading this week’s two readings, they created a solid sense of think before designing it. Firstly, the ideas which were discussed in How Diversity Makes Us Smarter by Katherine W. Phillips is thinking what effort and behaviour change should be made to promote collaboration successfully in terms of involving diversity, which further evokes creative innovation based on various information and perspectives gathered.

Secondly, author Sara Hendren opened up conversations around accessible consideration in the article All Technology is Assistive, that (assistive) technology is designed for all human beings, it should consider diverse barriers that might be dysfunctional for who. The idea is devoted to an inclusive goal which designs for a better life for everyone, by considering barriers in all contexts as much as possible before designing it. I call it barriers in this inclusive design context, rather than disabilities, because the word disabilities more likely causes confusion that disability concerns are for a specific group, rather for everyone; yet everyone would meet barriers/obstacles in the mundane life by age, by gender, by culture, etc; for instance, the text shown on a screen is too small to read, which is one of the accessibility concerns that should be addressed and figured out before users use it.

I would promote a discussion with the class, that for your MRP, or any projects that are prioritized to be worked on, what would you think before designing it? How might you define the word accessibility concern regarding your project such as its context? What are your stakeholders? What are their needs? By collecting these thoughts and research, how might you design your project for an inclusive purpose?

Week 5 Critique

This week’s readings are about the idea of critique. Critique is not scary, it reflects on one’s wisdom and spirit to either give or receive the critique; how giver and receiver moves on after the critique, what they learn and grow, and how they handle to react to it.

One of the concepts brought up regarding critique is called accountability, “true accountability, by its very nature, should push us to grow and change, to transform.” (Devon Price, 2019). Indeed, to take accountability to transform, we should appreciate and interpret each other’s differences prior to the point. To be transformative, the concept links to transformative justice (as in transformative learning), which “works from desired future states back to the present steps required to reach them.” (Morris Ruth, 2000).

To be clear, Morris states that “the issue is not whether the perpetrator may make a choice to do something similar again, but whether the community is willing to support the victim and perpetrator in some form of contact.” (2000). Since Morris believes that “it is possible for the community to choose to support the perpetrator and not the victim as defined by the law, but if they do so they may be obligated to support some re-definition of "equity" so that law comes back into line with the social concept of equity; for example, it is possible for the community to support imprisonment as a means of isolation but not punishment.” (2000).

Thus, according to Morris, accountability and critique should happen within equity, which is the goal of transformative justice, which is different from traditional criminal justice concepts.

Moreover, in terms of transformative justice, it reminds me of the Waste Colonialism. Journalist Ruth Michaelson published an article titled “‘Waste colonialism’: world grapples with west’s unwanted plastic” that Germany and UK are big exporters of plastic, much of which lies rotting in ports in Turkey, Vietnam and other countries with lax environmental regulations (2021). Waste colonialism is not new to me, since my home country used to take over the unwanted wastes from the East for many years. As a result, the ecosystem such as the sea and soil on my mother land largely suffered from the pollution and then seriously got damaged. Meanwhile, my mother land had to experience criticism from other sides of the world (mostly from the waste sender) by saying that you are not taking care of the environment aspects, the pollution on your land tends to affect the world environment, you should be responsible for that… Luckily, as we, my mother country, is having a better voice for herself, we have banned waste colonialism since 2016, and things (ecosystem and critique) got better.

By connecting this event to the critique (equal conversation/debeat) concept, I am questioning how might both giver and receiver in the context of critique, waste colonialism, etc, all take accountability to promote and make positive differences to the current condition? According to the steps such as self-reflection, apologizing, repair, and behaviour change that get into the accountability that were addressed by this week’s reading, what efforts should both giver and receiver be thrived for at this point in terms of being transformative?

To sum up, I would like to bring up the idea that Devon mentioned in his article that “It’s okay if you never stop screwing up. It’s how you handle the screw-ups that really matters.”

Week 3 Mismatch

I have read the Design Justice, A.I., and Escape from the Matrix of Domination by Sasha Costanza-Chock in my undergrad, based on my previous memory and take-away from the reading, now I would say I gained a different feeling and insight when I read it again this time. The first time I read this I was so shocked by the idea that Sasha addressed, which is how algorithms act harmfully to the concern of ethics/inclusiveness; I would never have thought about this before I read it in my undergrad, since I was too used to the lifestyle of categorization or the Convenience that algorithms bring to me. That is the starting point for me to look at artifacts critically.

The second time when I revisit this reading now from this course, I draw my attention particularly on the scanner, which opens up Sasha’s story. I look at the scanner through the lens of design: what does it do? Why do they have it? What is wrong with it (based on Sasha’s story), and how could it do better (what else it could be)?

Finding out my questions from Sasha’s words, firstly, what it does? The scanner reads a passenger's info to see if this info matches what is shown on the passport by wave scanning the body and reading it through AI analysis. Secondly, why do they have it? The prior sentence could answer part of it, on the other hand, the scanner also ensures security/safety reasons to see if the passenger hides something illegal on their body, through an unfixed algorithm defined on a normal size of chest area and groin area for both female and male body. Thus back to the question, what is wrong with the scanner? It does not consider the context of transgender needs, when it detects something that does not fit the unfixed algorithms, it will put passengers into a category that will be body checked by the agent. Moreover, by body checking, it also reveals ethical concerns such as the agent's manner is inappropriate, and the passenger feels uncomfortable by touching, etc..

Lastly, how could it do better? In other words, what else could it be instead of a scanner that ensures identity and safety? I would like to open this conversation with peers to see how they think of it.

Week 2 Questioning and Reflecting

The most inspiring insight that I obtained from The Science Of The Individual is the analyze-then-aggregate concept (Rose et al., 2013). Indeed, by thinking through the lens of individual rather than the lens of average, we would interpret the framework of individuals better as well as the value of it - the variation. Prior to this point, building empathy and appreciation regarding everyone’s differences is the key to interpreting the framework of individuals.

For those who were not in class synchronously, I would like to discussion these questions listed below with them:

Have you met someone who is different from you?

How are they different? By Looking? By feeling?

Why do they seem different from you?

How would you define the term difference when it applies to humans?

How do you see these differences?

Reflection Book Week 0

The first week class’s a great kick off to the difference concept. It’s been a year for me to become a member in the Inclusive Design program, but I haven't got a close chance to really get to know my classmates due to remote learnings/engagement. By opening up the self introduction around the difference, it helps me to better interpret who I am working with, who they are, where they lived in the past, where they live currently, why they moved (what drives them to stay here), and how their (migration) stories differ from mine, etc. By listening to the stories about differences, I got a close sense of who they are beyond names. I can receive a solid notion of how to look at variation inclusively when seeing someone hold something which is different from my previous perspectives/experience.

Reflection Book Week 1

Apparently, the meaningful ideas about ways to think inclusively that I have never thought about before reading this week's materials including:

Putting the adjective question into the inclusive box by asking how many? What kind? And which one?

The approach to dive into an inclusive perspective, to me, is to directly think of it in a specific context, who is the 20% group and who is the 80% group (how many). Often I will miss the last two questions to ask, what kind? And which one? By building them up onto the 20/80 rule inquiry, this will form a solid structure to think: what autonomy or benefits do the 20% group lose; on the other hand, what do the 80% group earn (what kind? ). Is there a design space for the 80% to be involved into the world of the 20%?, is it challenging or efficient compared to redesigning the 80% space that includes the 20% (which one?).

Regarding for those who were not in class synchronously, I would like to pass over the inclusive perspective question to them: in the past learning experience, what drives you to start thinking what is inclusiveness, how do you examine it in a context, how would you define if a space is inclusive enough, and what efforts would you take to challenge its current inclusiveness such as values, goals, etc?

What I want to learn more from the class is after discussion in the class, I would like to see some examples of how this week’s knowledge could be visualized in real life, the example could be a solid design, a movie, a documentary, an idea from an artist, etc. Or this real-life sharing can be contributed by students as well.

Week 0 - Baseline Goals

Everyone was born with unique characteristics when they come to the world, and they all have missions to complete. However, some of them might face being marginalized and forgotten because of their differences which seem not to belong to the majority world; as a result, they might lose motivation to discover the missions that help to shape one’s well-being as well as the belief that they are valuable to the world.

I am interested in unlearning and unpacking the means of difference. By doing this, I will think closely about the terms difference and majority - how they exist and connect one another in the world, what character they might have both individually and collectively, and how they might be affected in terms of relationships today and near-future.

Through these inquiries, I want to provoke the notion that everyone is meaningful to the world because of their diversity by encouraging them to visualize their missions and goals of life for those who are being isolated by the majority.

By achieving this goal, I would like to open up conversations around the differences and goals of life with participants who are interested in this topic and who want to share relevant stories to spread their insights on a weekly basis. Every week after a conversation, I will produce a piece of written work (including sketch) that reflects quick thoughts around this topic and ideas of how to move it forward in terms of provoking the difference and goals of life.

The support I would need is the resource of participants who would like to get involved into the conversation or help to form it into a large size of group. Support on producing a more valuable outcome regarding this inquiry would be helpful as well.

Week 11 - Movie Analysis

Coco - 2017

1. Background:

When: On the Day of the Dead (Mexican Festival)

What: Celebrate the return of the dead to earth and guide their ancestors home

Where: In the village of Santa Cecilla in Mexico

Who: Miguel and his family

2. Trailer

3. Shot Analysis

The opening shot shows us someone lighting a candle at an ofenda (offering made for the Mexican Celebration) This establishes/tells us when, where and what.

This limited space helps us focus on the decoration in the space, the conversation between the characters also is about the celebration. It establishes the story.

The colour is bright and refers to festival vibes.

This long take shows Miguel passes through a town and he drums the table covered in a LaBrie case, these are more details that filmmakers learned on their Mexico trip, celebre Hays are colourful, handmade paper mache wood carvings of fantastical animals. This tells us who, when, where and what.

I am also amazed by how animators bring a life to these paper carvings as spirit animals of the dead.

This movement shows Miguel practices his guitar while watching movies of his hero, the great Mexican singer/actor Ernesto de la Cruz (Benjamin Bratt).

The shot is a medium shot, in my opinion, this is a perfect size to show the relationship/position of Miguel, guitar, and his hero on the TV, and builds a triangle composition between them.

This reflection frame is the movement that Miguel interprets he should take control of his life and follow his heart when he is watching his hero.

This wide shot shows us a shiny emerald city in Miguel’s journey from the land of the dead to earth.

This over shoulder shot draws our attention on this wizard, who’s later revealved to ba a conman. in the shape of square, which is opposite from lovely shapes

The shape of guitar is the same shape as an upside down skull. A visual storytelling that conveys Miguel’s pursuit of guitar as one that will lead him into the land of the dead, and he will have to join his dead family members to give his passion and music real meaning.

Group shot creats family solidarity through rituals.

The lighting over body acknowledges the afterlife, having a passion for life, and tells us where they are at, the land of dead.

Week 10 - Shot Practice

01 - Absract Logo

This is a draft motion video for my logo animation. Play with composition, symmetry, movement. Motion design is on the way.

02 - Braille Textured Gloves_ Video Prototype

How might we develop an accessible communication technology to enable visually-impaired communities to autonomously perceive input and output information? Grad project is developing...

Week 10 - Tone and Colour

Before there was color in film

Black and white cinematography dominated the first decades of filmmaking. Companies like Technicolor began experimenting with color film proecesses in the '20s. But it wasn't until the 1950s that color cinematography replaced black and white as the predominant style.

With the explosion of color in film, a new approach to the movie color palette had to be created. The artists who’d used light and shadow to tell stories now had far more tools at their disposal.

It was what you might call a game changer.

COLOR PALETTES IN FILM

How can color tell a story?

The primary reason for using color in film might be obvious: to make the images colorful, dynamic, and beautiful. But there is a secondary reason that facilitates visual storytelling. That's right, the best uses of color in film also tell a story.