SCREEN Group Discussion

DESIGN DISCOURSE | SCREEN | 21^st MON 2011

“Is Google Making us Stupid?”

By: Ladi, Peter, Jaron

• The online medium is reducing the amount of quiet space we have to think and reflect
• The author, Nicholas Carr, doesn’t seem to articulate his own position on the subject very strongly. He seems to spend a lot of time referencing other people and their opinions rather than using those opinions to support his own.
• He asks the question of where artificial intelligence (AI) is leading, and whether we have to look to such AI in the future to create a moral compass for us since we will be completely reliant on technology. At the same time there’s an irony in what he talks about when he talks about Frederick Winslow Taylor,
• We are relinquishing our power over our own minds and thought processes, slowly but surely, to technology. The internet is the latest incarnation of this sort of transaction which has occurred again and again throughout history. Such as in the example of the invention of the clock which ushered in a ‘new reality’. The clock now thinks for us, and we no longer need to listen to our bodies or make the mental effort to determine for ourselves when to work, sleep etc. The second example, of ‘industrial choreography’ shows how in our race for maximum speed, efficiency and output, human operators have been reduced to merely cogs in a machine. Their roles no longer leave any room for individual thought and creativity, therefore there’s nothing that would stop them from being replaced by machines.
• Taylor’s experiments into creating a algorithm, or system, for factory production can be likened to how programmers have constantly been perfecting search engines, browsers etc all with aim of maximizing the fastest and most direct way of getting information from the internet.
• The online medium engrains in us an expectation of immediacy, a need for information at the snap of a finger.
• What can we do to save the ‘old way of reading, and therefore thinking’ (if it’s so valuable to our thought processes)? Well, is it even a problem given the course of our history in the light of new technologies (going all the way back to the creation of writing, the printed word, and now the online word). In truth it’s probably not possible to turn back this process, which as unstoppable as evolution. Is there any value in de-learning our current internet culture? Because if we took our nostalgia for the past to the extreme, we would be technologically and therefore mentally de-evolving.

READ ME! :)

Just a quick memo from your friendly neighbourhood admin 😛

Name issue: Firstly, I managed to fix the issues with names not displaying on posts. As you can see now, you no longer need to sign your posts since your name automatically appears in the post details along with the date etc. YAY!

DO THIS PLEASE: Please go to My Account > Basic Details and fill in the details for your FIRST NAME, LAST NAME, DISPLAY NAME, and (optional) add a picture of yourself in your ‘Gravatar’ so that we know who is who

Navigation Bar fix: The navigation bar at the top now lets you navigate according to categories (text, rhetoric, screen, manifesto)

REMINDER: And as bit of a follow up to what I just said, please remember to select one or more of the category options (found in the right hand column) when you are creating your posts … this will make it a lot easier for people to search up posts that relate to specific texts.

Theme: This current theme seems to the be the one people liked when we were setting the blog up, but if you have any suggestions of other themes that are flexible and easy to navigate (MUST have option of adding the author’s names to the posts though) feel free submit your suggestions on here.

Thanks! Ladi.

P.S. For any other issues, questions, or queries, you can always find me on Facebook under ‘Ladislava Fricova’ (as well as through the members list on our LCC Graphic Design group)

Rhetoric Discussion

By: Ladi, Jaron, Peter and Annina

A parallel between “Steam Roller of Branding” (RHETORIC) and “The Crystal Goblet” (TEXT) … According to Beatrice Ward, design should be a crystal goblet for the content it hopes represent or communicate. It should be invisible. Nick Bell argues that branding is, to a degree, the opposite, an expensive solid gold goblet. The branding of culture (such as art galleries) is an example of how, according to Bell, the goblet (which is the identity and brands of the galleries in this case) is overwhelming the content (being the artists and artworks).

Not only is branding being applied to culture and the arts, but it’s also leaking into our personal lives, such as through Facebook. It could be argued that, we are creating a persona for ourselves through what we affiliate with whether it’s the music and movies we like, the places we go, status updates, profile pictures etc. You basically project an image of yourself, an identity, that you want to aspire to. A Nowadays everything has a brand, an identity, so it’s no wonder that we are practically being herded into jumping on the bandwagon. Brand or identity would seem like quite an exclusive, individual thing, but when it’s suddenly applied to everything a brand/identity completely loses its when everyone is the same again.