Monday, August 30, 2010

Design + Social Entrpreneurship / JIII. The Beginnings.

Hey lovers.

Week one of classes begin. I've already found myself drowning in coursework, work-work, and various other obligations/and otherwise. But I've jumped on top of things and hopefully I'll stay there.

Design + Social Entrpreneurship

I usually absolutely hate posting so many pictures in one entry, because it elongates my posts to ridiculous lengths but I don't know how to block them the way I did on my Xanga. So I made them tinier. Haha.

Social Issues: Photographic documentation

obesity/overweight, or generally just bad eating
transportation
transportation (public)
vandalism... or public art??
clashing of religions and beliefs
national security
overcrowding
traffic!!
recycling (of course)

What IS social design? I went into this class blindly, just because Jan suggested I do, and because it's a requirement. So I didn't really think about what social design was. Last week's class prompted that I do. And so here it is.

It's everything, really. Anything that everyone encounters on a daily (or maybe almost daily) basis that poses as a confrontation, problem, or anything of the like whether it be as severe as the lack of water, nutrients, etc... or as trivial as a little vandalism. (Which, as shown, could be spun to be spicy art?) Most of these social issues don't really draw alarms until you step outside of your nice little home with mom and pop, stocked with food and clothes and the car keys they'll use to take you to school and such. When I spent a couple of weeks 2300 miles away from home this summer, I realized the extent of all this.

Granted, I still had my cash I had saved up and a handy little bit of plastic on call, but I noticed how frivolous I had to be to avoid over spending, and I learned the very frustrating evils of public transportation.

I also learned how expensive eating healthy is- AKA, not eating Taco Bell and Burger King every day. Ugh.

So for my NY Times excerpt, I read this article about online tracking. Not the illegal or creepy type, but the advertising type. You'll click on something you're interested in but then opt out; that particular item will start following you in various other ads. It's like when you "like" something on Facebook- come to find that on your right sidebar, there are ads suggesting, "TRUE BLOOD FAN?" ..."Why yes, I am! I really am!"

I haven't experienced it to the extent that the woman in the article did, but it's a strange new tactic. Sometimes, I find it helpful because that's how I found out about this contest to go to see my favorite band, among other things. But I dunno, it's just something to think about.





Jewelry / Metals III: Containers.

I went more in the direction of thinking, what is not a box, but still contains something in an area?





















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