Statement intro / brief closer

I'm posting here a blurb we could use for the intro to our statement, and a shorter closer.

(intro)

Design and Industry 805, a graduate seminar in Visual Communications, first presented itself as what we might in retrospect call a classic hybrid. (Read on!) Three graduate students came together with one professor to explore three individual project threads, and found upon deep discussion and exploration that there were common themes running through all three. These common themes were stripped to their essence, leaving the class with a guiding framework of the interaction between the concept of “classic” and that of the “hybrid,” supported by readings about systems theory. Each student proceeded to explore her project through individual work as well as the classic / hybrid framework, such that our work came to take shape as a series of threads unraveling individually, periodically coming together in the knots of our class sessions, later to unravel from that new meeting point. This kit represents our exploratory processes and the research and visualization we conducted over the course of the semester.

(closer)

As you explore our research, we encourage you to mix up and layer together the contents of this kit, imposing your own inputs upon the information represented here. You are invited to redefine the classic, to create hybrid forms, and to catalog and recatalog your experiments with the materials found here.

prototypes

Sorry for the late update. Here are some preliminary prototypes for out "kit" from last meeting. We were thinking about making four folders with pockets and connecting them with fabric.

Testing: sewing oil paper with wool fabric.

Eva's sewing.
Wool pocket with window.
Wool pocket without window.
Testing: binding with ribbon.

An additional font possibility - Museo

I noted in the comments on April's earlier post that I have also been enjoying a font lately that has a few varieties available for free, called Museo. There are three weights of Museo you can get for free, and one weight of regular and italic each for Museo Slab and Museo Sans. Perhaps the Museo 700 or the Museo Slab 500 could work for headers, then to be complemented by Arial or Helvetica in body type? I'm posting a sample here of the different Museo fonts, as well as a header / subheader Museo and Museo Slab combo, with Arial in body text.

I've found it to be a quirky yet clean font that perhaps could embody the classic / hybrid aesthetic we are discussing. See what you think. And in case anyone would like to download for fun, here is the link: http://new.myfonts.com/search/museo/fonts/

Rough Introductory Statement

So here I've put together a rough draft of an opening statement for our project. I went about it by kinda Frankenstein-ing together pieces of our blog posts and elaborating a bit. Please revise/edit as much as you want! I know you can make it sound more sexy and more coherent! Also, I had no idea how to conclude, so I just sort of left it hanging. If you can think of a great way to wrap it up, please add it. Anyway, here goes:

Consideration of the word "classic" brings to mind several different associations. Something described as "classic" may have qualities that endure through time, or may be considered representative of a certain era, or even may be considered traditional or typical in contrast to others. It can be applied to classify design, art, literature, modes of communication, schools of thought, systems of accomplishing objectives, and more.Yet the passing of time yields change, and a variety of inputs barrage these original classic forms, forcing them to evolve. The newly adapted forms become hybrids, which contain elements of the initial form as well as new elements. Hybrids are often seen as "outrageous", as the offspring of the tame & the wild, in possession of both the familiar and unfamiliar. A useful tool for understanding the hybrids that exist around us is the catalog. Sometimes taking the form of a list, a register, or other methods of classification, a catalog offers a new way of understanding things that allows us to step back and examine various groupings and inputs related to a concept or object. Something cataloged is at once itself and something not itself; it becomes an element in a system, an object with markers, viewed as a collection of characteristics rather than a whole. The human desire to classify seeks new ways of understanding a thing; it achieves distance from it; provides perspective and separation.

A cataloge is in itself a system; the process of adding new inputs in order to re-catalog challenges its constructs and creates new systems within it. A study of systems theory is therefore helpful to analyze this process. Joanna R. Macy writes in Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory: The Dharma of Natural Systems,

"The processes by which the system sustains and creates order in Fleiss-Gleichgewicht are seen as twofold. One is homeostatic, whereby the continuity of structure or pattern is maintained. The other is self-organizing, whereby the structure is modified, its organization increased. In this complexification the system moves toward greater improbability and variety."

One can regard the catalog in its purest original state to be the homeostatic process, or the control. Adding an input to the catalog restructures it, increasing its organization and complexity and leading to a variety of observations that would have before gone unseen.

"An open system is characterized by what von Bertalanffy termed Fliess-Gleichgewicht, which means 'steady state' or literally, 'flux-balance'. Flux is stressed because the system is in a continual state of inflow and outflow; never in chemical or thermodynamic equilibrium, its substance is continually altered by interacting events."

What happens when these inputs interact? Can we reveal even more underlying information about our subjects? Can we create new forms from old? At what points do tension of interaction occur, and how can we apply these points to new systems? The original/classic form with new inputs and combinations of inputs can create new hybrid forms. As Macy describes, "Changing conditions, however, can produce a persisting mis-match between perception and construction." Methods of analysis can vary based on the answers or information sought. "In order to make the new data meaningful and useable, new constructs are evolved."

The act of cataloging and recataloging a group of ideas, objects or events can help reveal patterns that evolve over time. As Macy writes, "The system maintains its dynamic equilibrium by looking ahead. It keeps its balance not by standing still, subsiding into stasis, but moving forward, projecting its constructs into the future." Can the act of cataloging allow us to imagine the future evolution of our subject?

The format of this project follows these ideas in four major areas. In the first component, we illustrate our earliest conversations through our search for classic forms and icons. We choose to catalog and re-cataloge by using different inputs, and create our own hybrids by finding various unforeseen relationships. The next component splits into 3 different catalogs; one grouping of classic books, one of classic chair design, and one of the icons of Taiwanese culture. This section shows the control groups that will be used for further study. The "Process" component adds the inputs to the controls, and presents opportunities for interaction between the inputs and the possibility of new systems. The final component seeks to use information learned during the process in the imagination of new forms and future scenarios. Also presented are ideas for creating interaction between the 3 control groups, allowing for the possibility of even further complexified systems and more outrageous hybridity.

Project Fonts

I'm not sure if you guys saw this the first time I posted it, but for some reason its not showing up on the blog anymore...Anyway, here's a sampling of fonts I put together, let me know what you guys like best. Of course, if there are other fonts that I don't have on here that you prefer, feel free to suggest.

A Template of Sorts

So today in class we laid out what we had and tried to make a sensible flow of it all.

I had gone back through some of the systems theory reading and old blog posts and I felt that a few of the quotes would really help us establish a template.

For example, from Mutual Causality:

"The processes by which the system sustains and creates order in Fleiss-Gleichgewicht are seen as twofold. One is homeostatic, whereby the continuity of structure or pattern is maintained. The other is self-organizing, whereby the structure is modified, its organization increased. In this complexification the system moves toward greater improbability and variety."

"An open system is characterized by what von Bertalanffy termed Fliess·Gleichgewicht, which
means "steady state", or literally, "flux-balance." Flux is stressed because the system is in a continual state of inflow and outflow; never in chemical or thermodynamic equilibrium, its substance is continually altered by interacting events."

"As patterns interact, their interaction spawns new features,
new properties."

"Changing conditions, however, can produce a persisting mis-match between perception and construction."

"In order to make the new data meaningful and usable, new constructs are evolved."

"The system maintains its dynamic equilibrium by looking ahead . It keeps its balance not by standing still, subsiding into stasis, but by moving forward, projecting its constructs into the future."

Also, lets not forget about some of the key things we wanted to focus on:
+ Cataloging/re-cataloging as a tool to explore systems from multiple perspectives
+ Creating complexified systems by adding inputs to challenge classic constructs—examining hybrids
+ Seeking points where tension of interaction occurs, and applying those points to new systems

That said, here's the template we came up with:

INTRO
--Background
--Definitions (classic, hybrid, catalog, etc)
--General systems theory explanation (include statements above)
--Include our preliminary work, pictures of the hybrid game, etc.


CATALOG:
--This is the control of the experiment, the subject itself, a sort of map key. For mine, I laid out every chair in my inventory, gave brief info and statistics about it and made them baseball card size (since we mentioned how cool those baseball card holders can be)(see below). Elsa will be creating something similar detailing typical Taiwanese icons (pics of grandma fabric, Tapei 101, etc) This is what I see as the homeostatic part of our system.

PROCESS:
--This is where we show the work we've done this semester. For my section, it would be all of the charts cataloged and re-cataloged. For Elsa, it would be showing some of the influences/inputs into Taiwan and showing the results. This is the section that the homeostasis (catalog) structure is modified which will lead our catalog system to greater improbability and variety. Here we can get pretty creative with the way we display our work. Elsa is considering creating a sort of children's book template where you can match the influences to the result. I am considering printing on different kinds of paper like vellum, colors, kraft paper in order to overlay and show possibilities of combining and hybridizing the information in the graphs. This shows how our patterns interact and can be continually altered by interacting events.


FUTURE SCENARIOS/USER INTERACTION:
--Hopefully the way we set up the process portion will allow for user interaction and the re-imagination of our systems. This is where the system should be projecting its constructs into the future. What happens if we combine this and that? If ___ led to ___, what would ___ + ___ lead to? This is where we need to figure out if our subjects can cross-pollinate.

So, clearly we have a lot to do. What we didn't talk about today was a kit holder/physical organization for this system. Also, perhaps we can have some sort of symbol/typeface/whatever that starts in the intro and weaves throughout to tie all of our subjects together. We also need to agree upon a time/times to meet again. Thursday at 6pm is looking tough now, and the weekend is best for Elsa. I have no major commitments in the next few days to worry about, so whatever works for you guys works for me, except for Monday night. So lets get emailing in the next few days and figure it out!
See you soon.

More Kit Holders

Here's a few options that I found at Blick's:

This one's a kind of stacking box.

This one is more of a mini filing system.

This is an envelope made out of old billboard material.

An accordion file folder thing that comes together and has a built in handle.

This one's similar to ones that Eva posted, a sort of flat box.