Wicked For

Last semester, I wished I would have written down a few of the important thoughts I had. Some of my thoughts had to do with systems thinking. It seems that the nodes of the systems are of equal value to the connections. Since, if you don’t make a connection, you never realize that node is out there. Also, I hope to live in a world where systems thinking is not “the way” for two reasons. One, it will mean that we have achieved it as a norm in society and there isn’t a need for convincing anymore. Two, if a person starts thinking it is “the way,” that person is bound to be missing out on other ways.

Which brings me to the major thought of the week: Designing for versus with something/someone is probably the most wicked problem of all. To have the self-righteousness to assume you know the exact way how to do something is to ignore what is actually needed in the system. Additionally, if you are fully immersed in the system, how can you actually attain the “big picture” and make the decision needed in that moment?

Thus, a person needs to both be connected without bias? We are taught that bias is bad when it comes to doing research, but if we don’t have any bias, what is our true stake? Does it take someone to have a stake in the issue to bring value to the possible solution? What makes a valuable contribution?

Lastly, we should be weary about sticking to only one thing. For example, its not just the left or the right side of the brain, it is both. In order to be a well-rounded individual in this universe, a person should be functioning in both capacities. If the person cannot, then it is the job of the universe to balance it out with another person, situation, skill and/or tool.

I am left-handed (but ambidextrous in early childhood), right foot dominant and with sports I go from left to right when it comes to throwing/pitching/hitting. I think that stressing musical instruments or sports that demand multifunctional capabilities on the body and mind are crucial for total brain development.

Maurizio Cattelan – The Game

In, “Who Cares” with Levi Strauss and Martinez, I was surprised to read this quote and then such a juxtaposition of praise from the Guggenheim on the artist:

STRAUSS Maurizio Cattelan was overheard talking to friends at one of his openings, apologizing for his phenomenal success in the art market by saying, “I am just really good at playing the game.”

Jonah Lehrer on Choices

Jonah Lehrer’s website

Intertwine Field Trip

This field trip is a part of a course offered in the MFA in Collaborative Design program.

“The Intertwine has united a broad coalition of public agencies, private businesses and nonprofits to celebrate, protect and improve this network of outdoor places and trails. As partners in what is called The Intertwine Alliance, we check our jurisdictional and geographical boundaries at the door to work side-by-side toward a common mission. By joining forces, we boost our effectiveness to increase investment in our parks and expand conservation efforts.”

Here is Joan birdwatching. Click on image to view the set on Flickr.

Sci-Fi Lightning Tornado

This is a part of a project that I hope will take off. I’m photographing everyone in my cohort and may make a calendar out of it. Danielle was the first model.

Critical Pedagogy: Paulo Freire, Chapter 2

After reading this, I can only think that Paulo Freire would want us to blast his theory out of the water so we can therefore transform into yet another type of learning.

The thesis is that the Banking Concept of teaching is oppressing the students and from their own humanity in conjunction with the actual teacher being the most oppressed of them all. Therefore, choosing the route of Critical Pedagogy will not only connect students with their own humanity, but promote creativity and innovation – therefore transforming the world.

I see a common thread with my other readings and interests as well concerning connections and valuing life. Friere stresses that biophily is much better than necrophily. And in some sense, I can relate on how this could be true. If we only value things that are not living (such as materialistic gain), then we really aren’t achieving are upmost potentiality in the world – and universe.

Below are my notes which are a compilation of quotes, definitions, etc. :

——–

“Consciousness if thus by definition a method, in the most general sense of the word.”

“Education is suffering from narration sickness.” pg. 30

“Words are emptied of their concreteness and become hollow, alienated, and alienating verbosity.” pg. 30

“The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop a critical consciousness which would result from their intervention of the world and transformers of that world. The more completely they accept the passive role imposed on them, the more they tend to simply adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them.”

“…reality is really a process, undergoing constant transformation.”

“Yet only through communication can human life hold meaning.”

“Liberation is a praxis: the action and reflection of men upon their world in order to transform it,” pg. 34

“The pursuit of full humanity, however, cannot be carried out in isolation or individualism, but only in fellowship and solidarity; therefore it cannot unfold in the antagonistic relations between oppressors and oppressed.” pg. 38

TERMS: co-intentional education, pseudo-participation, narrative, subject (the teacher), objects (the students), paternalistic social action apparatus, student conscientizacao, corpo consciente, authentic thinking: thinking that is concerned about reality, biophily, necrophily, explicit awareness

Banking Concept definitions:
1. receive, memorize, and repeat
2. “knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider to know nothing.”
3. “”maintains and even stimulates the contradiction through the following attitudes and practices, which mirror oppressive society as a whole
A) the teacher teaches and the students are taught
B) the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing
C) the teacher thinks and the students are thought about
D) the teacher talks and the students listen – meekly
E) the teacher disciplines and the students are disciplined
F) the teacher chooses and enforces his choice, and the students comply
G) the teacher acts and the students have the illusion of acting through the action of the teacher
H) the teacher chooses the program content, and the students (who were not consulted) adapt to it
I) the teacher confuses the authority of knowledge with his/her own professional authority, which he/she sets in opposition to the freedom of the students
J) the teacher is the Subject of the learning process while the pupils are mere objects
4. “men as adaptable and manageable things”
5. “minimize or annul students’ creative power and to stimulate their credulity serves the interests of the oppressors, who care neither to have the world revealed nor to see it transformed,”
5. “interests of the oppressors lie in ‘changing the consciousness of the oppressed’ not the situation which oppresses them”
6. “education to avoid the threat of student conscientizacao”
7. “the effort to turn men into automatons – the very negation of their ontological vocation to be more fully human,”
8. “assumption of a dichotomy between man and the world: man is merely in the world, not with the world or with others,”
9. “the educator’s role is to regulate the way the world ‘enters into’ the students”
10. “anesthetizes and inhibits creative power, problem-posing education involves a constant  unveiling of reality,”
11. “attempts, by mythicizing reality, to conceal certain facts which explain the way men exist in the world; problem-posing education sets itself thee task demythologizing”
12. “resists dialogue; problem-posing education regards dialogue as indispensable to the act of cognition which unveils reality”
13. “inhibits creativity and domesticates (although it cannot completely destroy) the intentionality of consciousness by isolating consciousness from the world….problem-posing  education bases itself on creativity and stimulates true reflection and action upon reality, therefore responding to the vocation…”
14. “fail to acknowledge men as historical beings; problem-posing theory and practice take man’s historicity as their starting point,”

Teacher vs.                          Student
Narrator                               Listener
Narrator                               Container
Necessary Opposite           Receptacle
Depositor                            Depository
Presciber                             Collectors
Demonsticator                     Cataloguers
Educator
Student/Teacher                  Teacher/Student
oppressor
welfare recipient
Marginals
Beings for others
Beings for themselves
Bank Clerk

Boris Groys: Self-Design and Aesthetic Responsibility

This article reinforces the ideas I’ve been having about interconnectedness with nature, however, in this case, it is talking about the boundaries of how people “view” art. I am in complete agreement with Groys when he writes, “the artist becomes the artwork.” There is no defining line between and artist and artwork – they are one in the same because a message is being produced from both. It reminds me of what Ghandi and Guevara were saying about being both receptive to change and being the change you want to see in the world.

Another aspect I’m noticing more of is peeling away the layers to get to the “truth” or core of the art. Even through sustainable practice in architecture one can see a movement toward not having facades for the sake of making things aesthetically pleasing. In the Biomimicry Challenge I was involved in, I also learned more about how nature designs. And even though a peacock may look beautiful, there are specific reasons for the development of the species. Why do we have skin? It’s not to make us look pretty, it’s so that we have a barrier to decrease contracting diseases/viruses and keep our organs in place. This brings me to when Groys writes, “Derridean pharmakon: while design makes an object look better, it likewise raises the suspicion that this object would look especially ugly and repellent were its designed surface to be removed.” Exactly, why in the world are these things hidden? What is the need to hide something if it is of whole-hearted intention?

Even though humans are complex organisms, it saddens me to think that, “we are waiting for a moment of sincerity, a moment in which the designed surface cracks open to offer a view of its inside.” Why are people waiting? Its because they’ve gotten lost along the path and their ego is telling them to look good. If the ego is imbalanced, then people are waiting because they are afraid to look bad. In addition, Groys writes, “Confronted with a world of total design, we can only accept a catastrophe, a state of emergency, a violent rupture in the designed surface, as sufficient reason to believe that we are allowed a view of the reality that lies beneath.” However, what is reality in the first place? How can one begin to define it?

All the things we are being told that are good or bad just don’t matter. 100 years from now, we’ll see how the history books recorded the successful artists. 1000 years from now, we’ll see if any of those records still exist. All and all, I think just being true to yourself in this life is about the only thing you can count on. Be the change you want to see in the world, and you’re bound to attract more situations that will enable you to continue onward.