Month: January 2022

Documentation of tasks that precede the CRP Outline

14 October 2021 : Six Degrees of Separation

Following the introductory CRP session with Margherita Huntley, each student was assigned an image that is extracted from one of the three platform themes that will be guiding us through the research paper. This first CRP Task entailed finding 5 images that connect to the assigned image. Through connection, nothing that exists in isolation.

The assigned image (top right) evoked a sense of familiarity in me — I realised that the distorted script looked a lot like the ones used in CAPTCHAs (or Completely Automated Public Turing Test to tell Computers and Humans Apart). Consequently, the first image I chose is a gif of an online CAPTCHA. I related that gif to the second image; a poster of the movie her, a movie in which the lead character and his AI device develop a romantic connection, an otherwise exclusively human experience (so far, at least). The third image depicts a cameraperson on the set of a movie and the fourth image depicts a person putting on a contact lens. The fifth and final image is one of an Iris, a genus of flowering plants — it is widely different than the given image.

21 October 2021 : Personal glossary of Keywords

The second CRP task entailed gathering at least five words from the proposed research themes and defining them, to the best of our abilities, without having to rely on existing definitions. The outcome of the task is a thematic and personal glossary of words.

Glossary:

• Anti-hero

Not quite a villain, but just not the hero you were expecting to idolise. This individual does not add much thrill to the plot but instead, navigates through the story using a moralistic approach.

ex. Meursault, the main character of Camus’ book L’Étranger (or, The Stranger) is famously known for being the epitome of the Anti-hero. The character navigates the reader along his journey through a detached lens.  

• Diaspora

A population that migrates from its place of origin due to unfavourable living conditions.

ex. The Lebanese population has witnessed several waves of migration. Long-term political instabilities have rendered the country unliveable and the diaspora has made its way to various regions of the world across several decades.

• Re-territorialization  

The act of reclaiming a (material or immaterial) territory.

• Transhumanism

A state of being in which an individual acquires and embodies qualities that are beyond human limitations.

ex. The 2014 science fiction film Lucy follows the story of a woman who experiences the activation of the otherwise obsolete parts of her brain and in consequence, gains and exhibits transhuman and psychokinetic abilities.

• Unorthodox

A state in which a subject does not conform to a given set of guidelines, but rather expresses itself in an unconventional (and, sometimes, blasphemous) manner.

28 October 2021 : Comparative Case Studie(s)

The third CRP task entailed:

• Fully immersing ourselves in the Platform Theme that we’d chosen (I have chosen the Proximities and Encounters Platform Theme)
• Exploring the case studies that are presented within the Platform Theme
• Choosing a case study that interests us (Somebody by Miranda July)
• Choosing a case study that is outside the Platform Theme (The Unsent Project by Rora Blue)
• Conducting a comparative study that compares and contrasts both case studies

Here are my findings:

During the CRP session, we were paired with another person on the group. We explained our findings to our peer and then presented their outcomes with the rest of the group. We got to explore and discuss several projects between each other and with Margherita’s guidance.

04 November 2021 : Mapping your interests

This week’s CRP task entailed creating diagrams that represent potential themes for our projects. Here’s what I came up with: 

11th November : From Description to Analysis

For this week’s CRP task, I grouped up with Dhvani and Shriya to discuss a reading from the platform theme. We chose chapter 2 from Are We Human? (2016) by Colomina and Wigley (>https://moodle.arts.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/1227600/mod_tab/content/41067/The%20Plastic%20Human%20.pdf<).

What does the text invite you to think about? Does it remind you of anything?

The text prompts the reader to question the relationship between objects, their creators and the environment they dwell in. It also sparks curiosity about how frequently humans use certain objects and how that contributes to human adaptation. It challenges the definition of Human and it also prompts the reader to question the legitimacy of the idea that humans have agency over artefacts – it is an illusion.

What are the key points in the text? What is the author arguing (for or against)? Pick out a few important quotations or excerpts.

The author is arguing that the object cannot be isolated from its creator and the creator itself adapts to its creations. The evolution of design is not as black and white or as linear and uneven as we categorise it to be. It makes us question who really is the creator – the artefact or the human.

“The human is inseparable from the artefacts that it produces, with the human body having the extended shape of all the artefacts it has made and each artefact being an intimate part of its biology and brain.”

“In the sense, histories of the human are histories of artefacts and the interactivities between artefacts, seen as potentials rather than accomplishments, as if the earth is a vast design studio in which human capacity is being tinkered with in unexpected ways.”

What wider themes does this text connect to? Find some related secondary sources to back this up (ie books, websites, journals, films etc)

The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman relates to the theme of how we are completely suspended in design. This concept is prevalent in the text as well as this book. The book talks about adaptation and focuses on the interplay between artefacts and human. One theme it connects to is the idea of personifying something that is scientifically non existent.

One example can be found within the 2014 film Lucy, in which an AI device embodies human emotion. There is evidence of personification of an otherwise inanimate artefact.

Object Oriented Ontology by Graham Harman can also be connected to the text as it encompasses the personification of objects. It challenges our perception of objects and their universe beyond the conventional understanding.

What do you think is the motivation or intention of the writer? Why do you think it has been written in this particular structure / format / writing style?

We think the author intends to challenge the notion of progress as something that humans have the ownership of and take pride in, by being ‘self congratulatory’.

Furthermore, we think that the author questions whether or not the Artefact is the link between the interaction of Earth and Human… or even a catalyst, rather than being its own entity.

Is there anything your group disagrees with in the text?

The last paragraph aroused conflicting thoughts within all members of the group. Isn’t the mentioned ‘question mark’ what leads us to make sophisticated capacities, linear or uneven? Perhaps it is naive to think of it being a linear progress as we better our relationship with the Artefact. But with apparent uneven progress that goes in different directions and also includes loss of capacities, the question mark (that we assume refers to curiosity) is the starting point of this entire process. The history of Design resides in curiosity but the history of curiosity is the ‘uneven progress’. If it is hard to differentiate between Human and Artefact, it should be equally hard to differentiate between the question mark and the history of Design.

How could you use the writer’s approach in your own work?

The objectifiction of Human, the personification of Artefact, as well as the otherwise unconventional use of Scale in the synopsis offer a rather unique and fresh perspective. This broadened our horizons by prompting us to question our relationship with the everyday objects we interact with and by pushing us to re-examine the influence that these objects have on us. This dynamic, inward and outward relationship will inspire our writing process.

‘Women’s identity is not fixed by destiny, anatomy, genes, biology, or DNA. Rather, it is capable of change, fluid and malleable. Once it is admitted that women’s physical, material and biological nature does not determine them, but social trends, customs, beliefs, and prejudices limit and prescribe their roles, then the door is open for re-education, transformation and social change.’ (Chanter, 2007, p.14)

Quantifying the Invisible

In her 2007 book Gender: Key Points in Philosophy, feminist author Tina Chanter points out the extent to which women’s crucial role in society has long been disregarded and excluded from analyses of production. Indeed, apart from being active members of the workforce, women have long provided domestic work — within the social unit of the nuclear family and outside of it— that has not been accounted for in patriarchal systems.

The question of unpaid labor that Chanter touched upon was also acknowledged by British feminist author Caroline Criado-Perez in her 2019 book Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men. The book explains that between housework, child and elderly care, globally, women do ‘three times the amount of unpaid care work men do’ (Criado-Perez, 2019, p.40) – this unpaid care work is often times compared to a job shift.

Looking to explore the relationship between individuals and Invisible Work (or house/care work that is unaccounted for), I took it upon myself to create a survey that I then sent around.

Link to survey

>https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Wq7tNN7Gndki4diVcRTKohbQUdYY_9N9mwwyD_VH–U/edit?usp=forms_home&ths=true<

The survey did not garner a large enough audience to be valid, however, here are some of the questions and responses:

Do you feel like you have enough time for your career, hobbies and aspirations?

• It’s either one or the other. Time slips through, I never have enough time to do what I want to do. I end up having days/weeks where I’m working and neglecting all of I want to do on a household labor (&hobby) front or only doing household labor (and a bit of my hobbies). I don’t know why it takes me so much time, other people always look like they manage.
• I would feel better if I had more time for exercising and enjoying a healthier lifestyle
• I have 2 full time jobs. Managing and caring for others, including doing the household labor leaves me with little time for leisure activities and hobbies
• I’m retired so I have time
• The overwhelming amount of work doesn’t allow any “me” time which is equally important
• I usually do my part of house work during my free time

Do you feel like the Household Labour (housework and care-giving) you provide is recognised and appreciated?

• It’s difficult living in a flatshare. Household Labour/caring is a strange one when you live with strangers.
• Occasionally recognized by my daughter only
• I give more than I take

The Underrepresentation of Women in the Media

As mentioned by Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley, in their 2016 publication Are we human?, ‘human dimensions become the dimensions of the designed world’ (2017, p.150) By extension, it would then be difficult to achieve a gender equitable societal model in a world where half of the population is consistently underrepresented (and misrepresented) in popular media.

In her 2019 book Invisible Women : Exposing Data In a World Designed for Men, Caroline Criado-Perez states that ‘women make up only 24% of the persons heard, read about or seen on Newspaper, television, and radio news’ (Criado-Perez, 2019, p.11)

Curious about the figure, I acquired one of the daily newspapers that were displayed at a local store to analyse its ratios of man:woman journalists and man:woman subjects.

The Daily Express is a conservative tabloid magazine in the United Kingdom with a high daily circulation rate. Political tensions were on the rise during the week in which the newspaper was acquired. Irregardless, the figure that was proposed by Criado-Perez seemed to be fitting as the results stayed consistent past the pages addressing those tensions and through the various sections of the journal. The journey was documented on video (>https://youtu.be/Z_9iqCxLRmo<).

I would like to re-create this experiment. For any future attempts I would like to pick out newspapers that pose themselves across various points of the political compass.

The Misrepresentation of Women in the Media

An array of pink-coloured mainstream lifestyle magazines occupy the vast majority of the magazine shelves in corner/book stores in London. According to Vevila R. C. Dornelles and Edward Wigley in their 2021 research article Blue is for boys: postfeminist continuations of gender, body and hue in UK magazines, those mainstream lifestyle magazine – much like other mass medias – ‘play several roles in capitalism, one of them being the assertion and reinforcement of the gender roles and relations sustaining it.’ (2021)

In their article, they expand on the various ways through which those magazines reinforce and sustain the primitive gender roles that hinder the process of gender equity within our society, notably:

COLOUR SYMBOLISM AND ASSOCIATION

‘The association between gender stereotyping and hue or colour is firmly established and can be seen regularly in everyday life, most notably in the deployment of blue to signify boys/men and pink for girls/women.’ (2021)

Nearly all of the covers of lifestyle magazines that are intended for women’s consumption contain vivid pink hues.  The colour ‘pink is consistently linked to femininity and exposed to girls from an early age, as products such as toys and clothes marketed to girls, continuing through adulthood.’ (2021)

This persistent association of colour with gender reinforces gender norms and ‘evidences a subtle yet stubborn refusal for change in attitudes and associations’. (2021)

ETHNICITY

Several feminist theorists that I have studied throughout Unit 1 (c.f. Secondary Research page) have established a link between inequalities in race and gender (Firestone), some going further and taking on an Intersectional standpoint and stating that all modes of discrimination and privilege are directly interrelated (Chanter).

FINDINGS IN LOCAL CORNER STORE

The magazines that are displayed in my local corner store:

Of of all the magazines at the store, nearly all of them mentioned weight-loss and age/age difference (which exacerbates body dysmorphia and insecurity) as well as violent wording. The media often relies on scandalous stories and shaming which further pushes dangerous stereotypes (e.g. dramatic, insecure and subservient).

Bibliography:

• Chanter, T. (2007) Gender: Key Concepts in Philosophy, 1st ed. London: Continuum
• Colomina, B. and Wigley, M. (2016) Are we human?. 1st ed. Lars Müller Publishers
• Criado-Perez, C. (2019) Invisible women. 1st ed. London: Penguin Random House UK
• Edward Wigley & Vevila R. C. Dornelles (2021) Blue is for boys: postfeminist continuations of gender, body and hue in UK magazines, 2009–2018, Gender, Place & Culture, DOI: 10.1080/0966369X.2021.1891864
• Firestone, S. (1970) The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution. 1st ed. United States and Canada: Bantam Books

The Catalysts of my Research

Four texts have primarily catalysed this research: The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution (1970) by Shulamith Firestone, Gender: Key Concepts in Philosophy (2006) by Tina Chanter, Are we human? Notes on an archeology of design (2017) by Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley, as well as Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men (2019) by Caroline Criado-Perez.

The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution (1970)

• submits the idea that the social class system that impedes equality in society is rooted in the biological reproductive differences between the sexes
• conceptualises a post-revolutionary cybernation in which technological advances are utilised to eliminate ‘sexual classes’ and conceive an equitable structure that is freeing to both sexes (1970, p.202)
• ‘requires the revolt of the underclass (women) and the seizure of control of reproduction’ (1970, p.11), which entails threatening the ‘social unit that is organised around biological reproduction and the subjection of women to their biological destiny’: the family.’ (1970, p.206) 
• calls for the creation of tools that would dismantle the nuclear family and by extension, the patriarchy
• is written at a time when racial tensions ran high and brings forth the ‘intricately interwoven’ relationship between ‘sex and racism’ (Firestone, 1970, p.105)

Gender: Key Concepts in Philosophy (2007)

• addresses contemporary questions of gender and sexuality 
• questions the relationship between Marxist/Psychoanalytic Theory and Feminism
• reformulates questions of power and ideology
• emphasises the importance of intersectionality
•  quotes Feminist French philosopher and theorist Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949) which highlights the extent to which ‘maleness is understood to be the norm’ within our societal structures (de Beauvoir, 1949)
•  submits the idea that the ‘conflation of universality with masculinity’ extends to several modes of discrimination and privilege, including race, class, sexuality and gender
• points out how women’s crucial role in society has long been disregarded and excluded from analyses of production
•  describes how ‘social trends, customs, beliefs, and prejudices’ ‘limit and prescribe’ Woman’s role in Society (2007, p.14)

Are we human? Notes on an archeology of design (2017)

• discusses the omnipresent nature of design
• sheds light on the malleability of human identity
• explores the maladjustment between human, tool, and environment 
• discusses how design ‘routinely contracts radical inequalities’ as ‘the expansion of the capacity of one group’ is always ‘done at the expense of another.’ (2016, p.70)

Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men (2019)

• shows how globally, women do ‘three times the amount of unpaid care work men do.’ (2019, p.40)
• expresses that in a world largely built for and by men, women, which represent half the population, are being systematically ignored
• shows the ways in which invisible bias with a profound effect on women’s lives
• illustrates the hidden ways in which women are forgotten, and the impact this has on their health and well-being

Initial set of Visuals

The initial set of experiments in my Portfolio was inspired by an article written by Caroline Criado-Perez for The Guardian (>https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/28/invisible-women-by-caroline-criado-perez-review<).

Titled The deadly truth about a world built for men – from stab vests to car crashes, the article criticised how mens’ lived experiences have been taken to represent those of humans overall – thus ignoring half of the World’s population. This female-shaped ‘absent presence’, as Criado-Perez describes it, is the gender data gap. The consequences of this gap range from uncomfortable to deadly.

Despite being less likely to be involved in car crashes, data shows that women are ‘47% more likely to be seriously injured’, ‘71% more likely to be moderately injured’ and ‘17% more likely to die.’ That’s because cars have been designed using car crash-test dummies based on the ‘average’ male.

It is not until the mid 2000s that female crash-test dummies were introduced and even then, the female dummy is not representative of the female anatomy as ‘It is just a scaled-down male dummy.’

1. Women are Not Scaled Down Men is a quote by Criado-Perez (quoted above)
2. One-Size-Fits-Men is the title of a chapter in Invisible Women by Criado-Perez
3. OMEN represents the marginalisation of women in our contemporary societal model
4. WO MEN emphasises androcentrism
5. Represents the exclusion of women
6. DUMMY represents two dolls in a car; a crash test dummy as well as a sex doll. This piece represents, both, the trivialisation of women’s wellbeing as well as the objectification of women.

Contrasted against a black background, the capitalised bold white text sends out a plethora of important messages. The red accents represent power and passion.

In commerce, a level playing field is a concept about fairness, not that each player has an equal chance to succeed, but that they all play by the same set of rules. In a game played on a playing field, such as rugby, one team would have an unfair advantage if the field had a slope. (Level Playing Field via Wikipedia)

This visual represents the unlevelled playing field that contains men and women. The grainy green background is overlayed with faint white text to emulate white paint on grass that would be found at a professional sports playing field. The tennis court is distorted and the man is serving in what seems to be an unfair game. The woman is weighed-down by the burdens of her everyday life.

Unfolding Connections: Koto : What is Branding?

This Unfolding Connections lecture was given by Deanna German from Koto. 

Koto’s design process can be boiled down to the following four steps:

Research: understanding

Strategy: substance

Identity (visual & verbal): inspiration

Delivery: implementation

Fundamentally, a brand is made up of: 

• Brand identity: The core elements that define how a brand looks, sounds, behaves – logo, colour palette, imagery, typography, motion, illustration etc
• Brand strategy: The vision, mission and positioning of a company, how it’s placed in a market, what makes it different
• Brand personality: The emotional qualities we associate with the brand/its overall tone
• Brand communication: How the brand lives across marketing and comms (adverts, brochures, app and website etc.
• Brand experiences: The physical interactions people have with the brand (customers/users/team members)

According to German, a graphic designer is ‘a person who assembles images, type, and/or motion graphics together to create a piece of design.’ A brand designer however, ‘assists in assessing and defining a brand.’

The Paradox is a satirical representation of a woman that is unable to reach the kitchen cabinets. In a world in which women are consistently taking on 3/4 of the World’s care-taking responsibilities (see primary research folder), one would hope that kitchens would be accommodating to them.

Addressing androcentrism

Based on Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, this set of drawings aims to show that male centrism marginalises other individuals and identities.

This series is heavily inspired by a chapter in Are We Human? (2016) by Colomina and Wigley. Indeed, in the context of architecture and design, Colomina and Wigley state how ‘human dimensions become the dimensions of the designed world’ (2017, p.150) That claim has consistently proved itself to be exclusively valid through the lens of the average caucasian man. Aiming to remove these ‘maladjustments between human and environment’ (2017, p.156), human-centring architectural systems (see Kiesler and Le Corbusier) have long been developed to dimension ‘the designed environment on the basis of an idealised “normal” male body.’ (2017, p.157) If design encompasses the capacity to grow the highly-malleable species that is Human (2017, p.23, 205), then design that habitually centres one half of the population must hinder the marginalised half’s capacity to flourish.

This body of work was created using Adobe Photoshop by overlaying drawings on a textured surface to emulate the feel of Da Vinci’s piece.

Caroline Criado-Perez: Gender Data Gap

In her 2019 book Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, Caroline Criado-Perez mentions the various areas in which women are ignored. The marginalisation of women is evidenced accross several realms that are represented in this labelled riso print:

Exhibition at the Hayward Gallery : Mixing It Up: Painting Today

 This art exhibited contemporary painters whose works are drawn by contemporary political discourse.

An empowering piece by Lisa Brice was particularly interesting to me. Brice reimagines paintings of women from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by liberating them from the restrictive male dominated art history.

‘Sometimes the simple act of repainting an image of a woman previously painted by a man can be a potent shift’, Brice observes. In this painting representing ‘female artists and models in studio settings’, the subjects are said to be performing for themselves and one another and not the male gaze.

Exhibition at the V&A : Bags : Inside Out

This exhibition was attended with the intent to explore the Human / Tool relationship, particularly in the context of women and purses, a long-lived historic relationship.

Described as both an ‘everyday necessity’ as well as a ‘style statement’, bags have been considered as a ‘private possession and a public statement.’

Whilst the (highly ad-placing) exhibition displayed a creative array of bags, I would have hoped that it would have mentioned the sexist undertones that lie under the history of bags.

A 2016 BBC article by Catherine Snowdon titled The hunt for women’s clothes with pockets discusses the aforementioned. Snowdon states how, during earlier days, women relied on their husbands to carry money and other necessities which rendered pockets as unnecessary. During the second World War, ‘women were encouraged to wear trousers and more practical clothing as they went out to work to replace the men who had been sent to fight at the front – this meant pockets became more the norm.’ (2016) In the aftermath of the war, there was a rise in the desire to be ultra feminine; that’s when populations witnesses the disappearance of pockets.

In contemporary times, there are ‘concerns about pockets affecting the lines of the garment, making it sit strangely on a woman’s figure’ (2016) which means that, for women, aesthetics are considered more important than utility. This topic has been brought up by Caroline Criado-Perez in her book Invisible Women (2019). Criado-Perez also states that one of the reasons that women carry bags is because of their inadequate pockets. (2019)

Unfolding Connections: Protest Stencil : Subverting the City

A non-televised, immersive Unfolding Connections lecture was given by a designer from the collaborative political graphic art project Protest Stencil (est. 2016). The group’s projects usually entail creating public-space interventions (or subvertisements) that protest against injustices. Often ad-hacking advertisement spaces using radical messages on carefully designed posters, the lecturer gave interesting pointers on various points of their process.

• Ad-hackers do not require formal art training – anyone can do it
• Simple bold graphic design can garner a lot of attention / legibility
• Ad-hacking can be used as an attempt to democratise public space and take it away from corporations
• Globalisation in the context of ad-hacking: standardisation of products around the world simplify the process
• Ad-hack manifesto is readily available via: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U64SvPXUAo8
• Subvertising is less illegal than other kinds of street art as it does not require any damaging

To amplify the voices of the voiceless, Protest Stencil aims to work as closely as possible with the groups’ they subvertise for.

BIOLOGICAL DESTINY : a series of abstract hand-made visuals

The root cause of the exclusion of women from contemporary society can be traced to a universal and rigid societal structure that routinely excludes women and places reproductive differences at the very core of its beliefs. Achieving the full immersion of Woman in contemporary society entails freeing her from the shackles of the patriarchal societal unit that confines her.

This first piece represents the hyper-sexualisation and shaming of women. It depicts a young person getting undressed. The green background colour represents youth. The word ‘shame’ is labelled several times over the piece of clothing that is being removed. In appealing to the male gaze, there is societal-induced shame.

The eyes in the above piece represent the ever-present male gaze. The audience in the bottom is witnessing the societal links between the woman and the biological destiny (represented by the egg) that has been ascribed to her (Shulamith Firestone). The contemporary newspapers aim to represent contemporary society.

An unstable societal structure is represented by a game of Jenga. The structure is held by women, who are both, misrepresented and underrepresented in the media.

Feminist Breakthroughs and Protests

In her 1970 book The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution, American feminist author Shulamith Firestone conceptualises a post-revolutionary cybernation in which technological advances are utilised to eliminate ‘sexual classes’ and conceive an equitable structure that is freeing to both sexes (Firestone, 1970, p.202). The creation of this structure requires the ‘revolt of the underclass (women) and the seizure of control of reproduction.’ (Firestone, 1970, p.11)

Feminist and women-lead protests have lead to several breakthroughs. Those breakthroughs are documented in the Feminist Breakthroughs in the United Kingdom publication (c.f. portfolio PDF).

Some of these revolutionary strikes/protests include:

• The Matchgirls’ Strike at the Bryant & May factory where women workers fought against the dominating, patriarchal world of matchstick making. 

Outcome: ‘abolition of the system of fining workers for being late, deductions from wages to cover cost of paste and brushes and the recognition of the Union of Women Match Makers by management.’ The strike also lead to several more strikes that aided in the ‘rise of New Unionism.’ (Source: >https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/history/2018/03/21/women-work-and-health-the-match-girls-strike-of-1888/<)

• During the 1968 Ford Strike, Ford sewing machinists halted production at all Ford UK plants to fight for equal pay

Outcome: the 1970 Equal Pay Act that ensured that women were paid the same rate as men for the same work. (Source: >https://www.citywomen.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/gender-equality-timeline.pdf<)

Conceptualising an Impactful Protest Sign

Inspired by the Subverting the City lecture as well as by the ideas posed by feminist theorists, notably Firestone and Chanter, I took it upon myself to create protest signs that would, at least, raise awareness surrounding the aforementioned feminist issues that I had been researching.

Creating an impactful protest (as proposed by Digital Content Strategist Brooke Tully via >https://medium.com/brookes2cents/how-to-design-an-impactful-protest-sign-2d12965f684<) entails:

PLANNING 

• What is the protest fighting towards?

The protest is fighting for the immersion of Woman in contemporary society

• What are the posters’ message approach?

Different approaches, as proposed by Tully:

1. call-to-action approach: clearly informs the audience on what to do/what not to do (eg. ‘Keep your laws off my body’)

2. make-a-stance approach: states why you’re at the protest and why the issue matters to you (eg. ‘Fighting for the rights our mothers won’)

3. get-attention approach: ‘utilises humour, wit, recent events/pop culture, shock value, etc. to get noticed and stand out.’ (eg. ‘Pussy grabs back’)

CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT

• Conceptualising the poster on paper or digitally

DESIGN

• Considering size, colour, font, spacing and busyness

For the above step, I referred to the Protest Stencil lecture.

Making an Impactful Protest Sign

The making process proceeds the conceptualisation. The posters were printed on glossy A3 paper (much like most of the protest signs I’d seen) at my local print shop.

Material to create handles were purchased from the UAL arts shop. They were trimmed to a desired length using a scalpel and a metallic ruler.

The materials were then put together using glue and double-sided tape.

The Protest

All whilst taking precautions, photographs of the signs being held were captured in Leicester Square’s streets.

Faking an AD-HACK

London is overwhelmed by advertisements. Inspired by the Protest Stencil lecture (see above), I captured a series of photographs of public places in which ads are exhibited. I then relied on Photoshop to ad-hack those public spaces.

Unfolding Connections: Greg Bunbury : Design on Purpose

Given by Greg Bunbury, this engaging Unfolding Connections lecture surrounded the topic of social-focused advocacy in design. Bunbury shared ethical ways in which designers could navigate their realms and, taking on an intersectional standpoint, pointed out the importance of acknowledging one’s set of privileges when designing. ‘The value we possess as designers comes from what we think, not what we do’ and ‘what we do impacts what we believe.’ Bunbury encouraged the audience to create and use tools that enable a positive impact on the world.

Bibliography:

• Chanter, T. (2007) Gender: Key Concepts in Philosophy, 1st ed. London: Continuum
• Colomina, B. and Wigley, M. (2016) Are we human?. 1st ed. Lars Müller Publishers
• Criado-Perez, C. (2019) Invisible women. 1st ed. London: Penguin Random House UK
• Firestone, S. (1970) The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution. 1st ed. United States and Canada: Bantam Books
• Snowdon, C. (2016) The hunt for women’s clothes with pockets. [online] BBC News. Available at: <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37084813> [Accessed 15 January 2022].
• Tully, B. (2017) How to design an impactful protest sign. [online] Medium. Available at: <https://medium.com/brookes2cents/how-to-design-an-impactful-protest-sign-2d12965f684> [Accessed 15 January 2022].

Synopses

– MA Research Methods – 01 October 2021

Introduction to MA Research Methods and What is Research and Research Design

This first MA Research Methods session elucidated the lecture series; indeed, over the span of 10 weeks, an impressive array of speakers are going to be discussing the importance of research in the context of design. 

During the lecture, Dr Danah Abdullah explained that whilst primary research is collected by the researcher, secondary research is data that has already been sourced and that can be found by said researcher. There are also several means to go about gathering primary and secondary research. Dr Abdullah also explained that there are two kinds of data that can be acquired: qualitative data focuses on characteristics and descriptions whereas quantitative data relies on measurable variables.

Research Design is the plan that the researcher comes up with to conduct a study. It implicates an objective, a research question, as well as the types of research and data that will be required. 

– MA Research Methods – 08 October 2021

Literature Review and Research Question(s)

A literature review is a text that ‘describes, summarises, evaluates, and clarifies the literature’. It is a body of work that is edited and iterated throughout the writing process. It offers insight on related studies and establishes the relevance, context and importance of the research. Furthermore, it helps ‘articulate the relationship between the literature and the field of research’.

Research questions take on different forms, depending on the information that they aim to distribute (how, what, why…). Good research questions are open-ended, evolving, and draw attention to the significance of the research.

Exercise: Take the work of a contemporary designer you are interested in and construct a research question regarding their work.

The contemporary design team that I have chosen is Koto Studio; a branding agency that I got to discover through a GDC professional talk at Chelsea College of Arts. The team has worked with a wide range of clients of various sizes and prides itself in its optimistic character.

The research question that I have formulated is the following: 

How do contemporary social issues impact Koto’s creative decisions?

– MA Research Methods – 15 October 2021

Mapping & research methods

This week’s MA Research Methods lecture was delivered by Peter Hall. Mapping is an engaging way to present information and can be utilised across several domains including politics and psychology. 

– MA Research Methods – 22 October 2021

Introduction to practice-based research ethics in art and design at UAL

Delivered by Tim Stephens, this week’s MA Research Methods lecture surrounded the topic of ethics, particularly in the context of writing a post-graduate research piece. Stephens explained that whilst most student-lead projects do not require an ethics form, ethically complex projects might require one. 

An engaging conversation with an interviewee might entail asking questions that might come off as direct, complex or challenging. Setting boundaries is a crucial preliminary step to the interview process; participant information and consent form might be helpful in setting the level of involvement that they might be willing to have in one’s project as well as the rights that they hold (recordings/data is management…). 

Values, beliefs, morals, principles, duties and ethics all play a role in the interview process. The hierarchy of these terms is personal and their involvement in a project might be conjured up during the interview. Stephens offered an interpretation of the terms — whilst principles add a level of formality to the work, morals are negotiated and agreed upon. Ethics were said to be the most important as they provide the framework of the other notions.

Dialogues help clarify ethical issues within projects. Within the University context, the dialogue process is presented as the following:

Ethical Concern -> Dialogue with Tutor -> Tutor dialogue with CL (Course Leader) -> CL dialogue with PD (Programme Director) -> PD sends to EESC (European Economic and Social Committee)

Finally, a project’s standard of ethics might be dependant on certain factors such as time, available resources, knowledge, and modes of representation & experiencing. Whilst most practice research dose not involve significant risk, some subjects and modes of speech/behaviour must be avoided (i.e. hateful, exploitative, obscene and indecent speech/behaviour). Some courses include risk-taking as part of their learning outcomes as it might help exhibit a sense of originality that might otherwise not be displayed. 

Manage risk and be ethically mindful and aware.

– MA Research Methods – 5 November 2021

 Visual research and Deconstruction

This MA Research Methods session was delivered by Caryn Simonson and Dr Sian Weston and touched on the complexities of visual imagery within creative practices — particularly its production, reception and interpretation. 

Visual analysis can help amplify visual literacy: visual imagery does not exist in a vacuum as it usually comes in the form of a ‘product of cultural construction’. Regardless of its form (e.g. an advertisement or a film), the visual imagery that surrounds us is, most often, carefully crafted to send a specific message. Imagery viewers have an active role to play: ‘using critical analysis and theory to uncover underlying potential meanings’. Visual analysis is therefore heavily reliant on the viewer, their ‘bank of knowledge’ (as referred to by Simonson). As previously mentioned, imagery does not stand in isolation: the viewer is constantly referring to other images, be it consciously or subconsciously. By deconstructing an image, one can find a lot about a brand’s record, ideologies and identity.

– MA Research Methods – 19 November 2021

Making and Prototyping

This online MA Research Methods lecture was given by Simon Maidment. Maidment touches on the topic of Intelligent Making which is defined as design that takes into account a material’s values, properties and capabilities. Existing methods of making can be deconstructed, applied in various ways and contexts and can lead to exciting results. Knowledge surrounding materials can best be acquired practically, by working in close proximity with them.

– MA Research Methods – 26 November 2021

Researcher Participant Place

This week’s lecture was delivered by Luise Vormittag and surrounds the topic of ethnography; the depiction of individuals within their cultures and environments. Often assumed to be a neutral act, writing about others is embedded with subjectivity and can only be considered a partial truth. Being mindful of biases, partial perspectives, and working closely with the individuals that one may be writing about helps in telling their story.

– MA Research Methods – 10 December 2021

 Data Analysis

This week’s MA Research Methods lecture was delivered by Dr Danah Abdulla and surrounded the topic of data analysis. Dr Abdulla kick-started the session with a reminder of the two main types of research that we can source for our research: quantitative data and qualitative data. Data presentation takes on several forms (e.g. research design, literature review, raw data) and can be sourced from traditional (e.g. letters to newspapers) or non-traditional (e.g. videos) sources. 

Analysing data requires a plan:

• Data Collection and Management
• Organising and Preparing Data
• Coding and Describing Data
• Classifying, categorising, identifying themes
• Connecting and interrelating data
• Interpretation, creating explanatory accounts, providing meaning

The researcher has to be selective in choosing data – the research might otherwise be too overwhelming. Analysing data early on helps the researcher understand if they need to collect more data to help them further in responding to their question. It also suggests whether or not the data is relevant or if they might have any questions that surround the topic. It is important for the researcher to be transparent with the reader (sample) and inform them;

• how/why they’re collecting the data
• what type of design they’re using and why

There are several tools & techniques for collecting data (e.g. recorders, cameras, notebooks, observational drawings, recording body language) It’s also important for the researcher to validate the accuracy of the information that they source and share. In terms of structure, on should be able to justify why one method/strategy is better/more efficient than another. 

Last but not least, it’s worth noting that writing is a reflection of one’s own interpretation based on several factors such as culture, social class and personal politics. The writer is conscious of the biases, values, and experiences that they bring to a study.

Printmaking Workshop with Eddie Niles

This workshop first entailed using tag-making techniques to create a symbol of our choice…

… that would later be scanned into Adobe Illustrator and printed on a Vinyl sheet…

… and painted on using relief inks to create the prints.

Screen printing Induction

Dhvani, Shriya and I teamed up and booked a screen printing induction. We first created a black and white design on Illustator that was later printed onto an A3 sheet of paper. The screen printing technician then processed the design onto a silk screen.

I later also received inductions in ceramics, woodwork, and riso printing.

Animating using Adobe Premiere

Letterpress

‘One-size-fits-men’ is an expression that was used by Caroline Criado-Perez in her 2019 book Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men.

I then edited the outcome using Photoshop to create a title that was more suitable for my project, One-Size-Fits-One.

Layering experiments

I was able to create depth in my pieces by layering newspaper and acrylic paints.

3D Modeling on Blender

Learning by following a series of Youtube tutorials by Blender Guru

This process rendered me capable of modelling and animating the following video: > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXHxKEC8f8c<