April 7: STUDENT GROUPS

Mary Mills Lyall, and Earl Harvey Lyall, The Cubies’ ABC (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1913), via Public Domain Review

GROUP 1: TOOLS FOR DELIBERATION AND DESIGN

Mia, Keaton, Steve, Collin, Orshi, and Sofi

Join Zoom Meeting (click the link for online access) — or call in via one-tap mobile: +16465588656,,971588561# US or International Numbers  |  Meeting ID: 971 588 561

Please note that, when you log in, you’ll be placed in a “Waiting Room” until I manually clear each of you for entry. Why? Because, apparently, some losers are “zoombombing.” Please make sure your Zoom user ID is recognizable, so I’ll know who you are — and if I accidentally block you, please send me an email asap to let me know you’re seeking entry!

Feel free to add resources and recommendations (for the group, for individual classmates, etc.) on our Shared Resource Repository!


TO BE REVIEWED FOR TODAY:

Mia  (traffic cones):

Ian Gonsher, “Orange Traffic Cones Edit The City,” Medium (August 27, 2018) [a nice and short sum-up of why and how street cones as a marker for attention edit the city and can have mutable meaning and functions].

Joe Black, “Traffic Code Production” {video: 2:45} [for those of you who also enjoy “Process Porn” or are just curious how those traffic cones are made].

Safest Street in the World” {video: 1:14} [a short clip about the humorous side effects of misplaced (or strategically placed?) cones].

Transurban, “Robo Traffic Cones” {video: 1:12} [a small real-life glimpse of a future in which cones might have a networked life of their own – including data].

Keaton (Al- driven furniture design):  

Phillippe Starck partnered with Kartell, a furniture company, to produce a chair designed with AI from the software company Autodesk. The chairs are also made using 100% recycled materials: “A.I. – Introducing the First Chair Created with Artificial Intelligence” and “Katharine Schwab, “This is the First Commercial Chair Made Using Generative Design,” Fast Company (April 16, 2019).

Maurice Conti, “The Incredible Inventions of Intuitive AI,” TED (February 28, 2017) {video: 15:23}.

Steve (music rec algorithms):

Peter Evans and Sam Pluta, Live at Routlette (2014) {video: 13:10}: This a video of two improvisors. One is acoustic, and one is electric. Pay attention to how Sam Pluta is altering the live sound of the trumpet through electronic mediation. There is a way that these two sources feed off each other — Peter Evans’ choices are influenced by how his own sound is being altered! Feel free to listen to the whole thing, or 30 seconds of it. Definitely not everyone’s cup of tea but give it a chance :~).

Boil the Frog: Play around with this! It will take two seemingly disparate songs and use Spotify’s matching algorithms to create a list of 10 songs that will slowly link the two original songs together!

Collin (e-government):

These readings come from two separate implementations of Liquid Democracy:

Jan Behrens, Axel Kistner, Andreas Nitsche, and Björn Swierczek, The Principles of LiquidFeedback (Berlin: Interaktive Demokratie e.V., 2014): 14-28 [annotated here for an easy skim].

Pia Mancini, What Is Liquid Democracy (2018) {video: 7:24}.

Orshi (visual memes as tools of governance and resistance):

Vera Zakem, Megan K. McBride, and Kate Hammerberg, “Exploring the Utility of Memes for U.S. Government Influence Campaigns,” CNA Analysis Solutions (April 2018): skim through this report with particular attention to pp. iv-v and pp.12-42 [note: there are many interesting and disturbing memes]. This is an interesting example of how a government-related non-profit research organization thinks about memes as potential tools for governance, resistance, and international influence.

Sofi (cultural probes for migrant reintegration):

An experience of migration through photographs: Jon Lowenstein, “Family, Hope and Resilience on the Migrant Trail,” TED (2019) {video: 13:51}.

Design bringing light to the “problem” of migration: Ronald Rael, “An Architect’s Subversive Reimagining of the US-Mexico Border Wall,” TED (2018) {video: 11:29}.

Optional: if you want more informatión about how families experience migration: Duarte Geraldino, “What We’re Missing in the Debate About Immigration,” TED (2017) {video: 7:57}.

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