Daniel Lara : Blog

The mission of the Museum of Prehistoric Future is to develop a better understanding of the three-dimensional writing systems that existed in the near future.  We have collected artifacts used in such systems and our Research Department has been trying to decipher the messages that they embody.

We know for a fact that the development of 3D Writing evolved in a very organic way. Multimedia installations created environments with non-linear and spatial narratives that slowly created a language that sink very easily into peoples’ minds.  These installations started propagating very fast also because people became used to be surrounded by displays and bombarded with information.  Art Museums’ pieces -such as “Listening Post”- validated non-linear/simultaneous readings at the same time that all the main urban conglomerates  developed their own version of “Times Square”. Parallel to this development, written language began to shrink.  By 2010 the Twitter Language was blooming and contagious to other spheres of written language. And then one event triggered a domino effect that changed forever the way humans communicated. On April 14th of 2010, Twitter started sending advertisements and people generated a biological response to the extreme diversification of their attention span. Something got rewired in the brain and people started perceiving in a natural non-linear manner for the first time. Lines of text and hence the Euclidean grid did not make sense anymore. People were perceiving space-time altogether, the way Albert Einstein predicted in 1905. The last fact we know for sure is that Sign Language influenced the development of three dimensional grammar, although we do not know exactly how. Also we know that the early writing systems borrowed shapes from the letterpress, because of two reasons: first, because of the tangibility of the letters and second because of the slow composing speed.  This slow speed should not be misunderstood as a drawback in effectiveness or in the amount of information exchanged.  In reality, a hyper fast brain of 2015 could compress very complex ideas in an artifact or two, in a shape that could be easily understood. In 2017 the alphabet became outdated and new forms of writing based on video and images emerged.  Also the 3D message printing systems became very affordable, and people were able to scan and send 3D messages that would update dynamically.  We were able to restore two of these printouts, but we are still developing the technology to decipher the messages contained.

Very recently, our Research Department was able to create a 3D translator that has given us a glimpse on the usage of 3D grammar. Because there is a simple “phrase” contained in the artifact, it is easier to see the changes that the position of the artifact have in the meaning of the phrase:

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REFLECTION:
In order to get a better understanding of the process of writing, I needed to strip language from the forms that I am familiar with and see what was left.  Once I got the shapes out of the way, the structure prevailed and I started analyzing the technologies that created written language. If we were to create a written language today from zero how would it look or feel like? Which tools or modes of perception do we have now that did not exist before?  I realize that the spatial and non-linear language sometimes used in media installations was somehow a shared common ground among people. At the same time I researched the lack of the written component in Sign Language and the efforts to develop one, to see if I could detect a real clue of the development of a written language that uses no letters.

I realized early that I was running the risk of ending with an abstract system that would have no common grounds amongst people.  But I also realize that abstract systems share some kind of instinct.

With this project I also detected an interest in the universality of spatial perception. What dictates the difference in spatial perception from one person to another or from one culture to another?

This project is a system for learning about food, and to inspire people to buy, eat and share food locally.  We are not interested in persuading or convincing people of the importance of real food. We wanted to create a collaborative recommendation system that is context based (NOT location based) and that would introduce the learning tasks as subtle interventions. This project was made in collaboration with Alex Braidwood

If we could track the origin and availability of foods we could create a map of seasons:

The protoypes for the cellphones were built using qrcodes and html. You can access the interface prototypes if you point your mobile browser here: http://www.daniellara.com/food/
http://www.daniellara.com/food2.

This is a physical prototype of how the panels would work:

And here is a site we opened to collect part of our research.

There is  some kind of soul in our bodies but it is very difficult to measure.  What we can measure is the chemistry of our own tissues. What if our gadgets were tied to our own chemistry?  What if somebody is hypercative and full of energy, or someone more laid-back?  Which kind of energy do we demand/want?

There is probably more than just the “volume” of energy; It depends how focused or in tune it is with the activities we do.  Should we think of our domestic devices like that? What can I do as a designer to bring this relationship of owner-object to the front in a time where there is no awareness of this kind?

There is a catalog that accompanies this project.

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REFLECTION:

The process that started with the collages went through a stage of synthesis. I wanted to make a manual of electricity for the smart home, because I had identified a common element among some of my previous collages. But I realized that the tangible part of electricity that powers our gadgets was more intriguing. I became interested in the “tone” of our own chemistry that hits against the generic electricity grid.

This paper will bring to the front some of the negative aspects of the way Gen Z engages with technology, as a way to bring awareness to the design field.  It is true that technology has enabled practical and meaningful ways of communication, but there are also side effects. If designers want to enhance or develop new models of communication,  they need to be aware of the pitfalls of the current systems.

The ForceBot is the result of a collaboration with Scott Liao and Alex Braidwood. A thread emerged very organically between Scott’s multiples, Alex’s Materiality of Force and my collage about control.

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REFLECTION:

It seems to me that the need to have control over our gadgets is just a cover to compensate for the lack of control we have over life. How do I confirm this? Is it true?

For this project I chose the whole text in Jorge Luis Borges “Labyrinths” and I was curious to find out which words were the most frequent and from those which ones where meaningful to me. After running the text through HyperPo I distilled the following list which I consider to be words that have a special meaning for Borges (The numbers are the number of frequencies.):

i     677
man     120
time     99
men     67
world     63
secret     62
now     61
book     55
day     50
years     49
night     48
books     47
thought     45
possibility    11
space    10
mother    10
woman    6
women    2

I then marked with XML the minimum amount of text that could be a phrase around each word. I wanted to be able to “see” all the contexts of each word as a whole.  For example, if every time Borges mentioned the word UNIVERSE and I put them together, I would be able to get an idea of the Borges’ universe.

I also wanted to recreate the idea of “forking paths”.  For this I used a chess board as a land of possibilities.  Every time you would move a piece, you would have possibilities.

I was not able to technically accomplish this and I resorted to having two lists: One with all the phrases where “space” or “time” are mentioned, and another one with all the phrases where “universe” or “world” are mentioned. Every time you would land on a square you would have a phrase displayed.

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REFLECTION:

These collages have confirmed the importance of “thinking through making” in design for me.  Even though it has always worked for me to make things  (especially in art), I had a big misconception that I had to know conceptually where I was going at the beginning of a design project.

In the Future, UbiComp has triumphed and we are catered to everything we need and wish for. As a consequence, our sophisticated body sensors have become numb and we need sensors to move around and discern reality!

This project allowed me to identify the contrast between faster computers being built and the inevitable slow down of our neurons.  There must be a point in time for everybody where those two forces pull apart.