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This week has been crazy with the Knight Fellowship shifting into gear and sorting out my battle plan for courses: multimedia, digital video, human rights journalism and a possible intro to neuroscience.
Yesterday’s field trip to the city was great for the chance to visit the Yerba Buena Center for the first time, where we checked out the TechnoCraft Exhibition – a nod in the right direction towards all things crowdsourced, collaborative, hacked, modified and prototyped. Some of the products included: the design your own Puma shoe (in a bizarre partnership with Mongolian BBQ); hacked chairs made from assorted chair entrails scattered throughout London; and a company that allows you to custom-build your own fibreglass car (using the model to the left). Inspiring, but the price tag on all of the above was a bitter reminder of the niche elite urbanite target market for all this supposedly rethought design. Even if it is made out of a freight lorry’s tarpaulin cover.
I’ve been meaning to post this link on the two-fold face of digital activism, which, according to Gaurav Mishra of Gauravonomics is either:
1. you work with a disadvantaged group that suffers from limited access to even the most basic information and tools for self-expression. or 2. you work with a group that is anything but disadvantaged. This group is at ease with using always on internet and mobile devices, both for instantaneous access to information and for self-expression and social interaction. Here, the digital activist isn’t trying to solve a crisis of capability, but a crisis of caring.”
Needless to say, my Knight project is focused on the latter, bedecked as they might be in their custom-built Pumas.
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