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One of the inspirations which led me to this inquiry is a blog entry entitled “Graphic Design vs. Illustration,” by Adrian Shaughnessy on designobserver.com.(1) The entry talks about the qualities of differences between illustrators and graphic designers. Reading the attached comments is as rewarding as reading the original post. The points of view, emotions, and shifting voices are significant to a media designer. While reading through the whole conversation, I started to map selected abstract elements. The resulting static led me to consider the timing of this design-as-research behavior. Can this mapping occur in real time?
In one of the social utilities in Second Life, the Sociable Media Group at the MIT Media Lab built an agree/disagree zone for avatars, who expressed opinions by their positions(Drew 65-68). Such voting activity may not be new, but in a virtual space, we are able to see this summarized information on current activities. So real-time mapping of conversations is possible, but can it happen locally and be relevant to a community formed in a physical space? What will the platform, media, and dynamics look like?
Several design questions gradually appeared in my studies. What if a designer can create a platform gathering local dialogues, instead of approaching online users via a tool like blog? How can it be different from blogs, message boards, conferences, meetings, or lectures? What problems does the designer face when there is no agency, gatekeeper, or client in the process? What can all of us learn from this social exchange? Exploring these questions, defining bounding areas, are the first steps. What are the boundaries?
In “The Dialectical Bus Tour, Los Angeles”, conducted by Peter Lunenfeld and Norman M. Klein in Fall 2006 for the Media Design Program, the city’s layered cultural and geographical spaces were revealed as though flickering scenarios in a cinema that we have been part of while knowing nothing about the ending. After the tour, participants were divided into teams and launched installation-based exhibitions for discussing reflections on the tour. Our presentation focused on describing L.A. as a vast habitat for cultural vultures around the world.
These vultures seem to live in an intersection between insider and outsider, past and future. For instance, in the tour, Klein discussed the earlier relationship between Little Tokyo and Chinese immigrants, which reminded me of the history of Chinese cultural regions from Chinatown to Monterey Park to nowadays Diamond Bar in L.A. County. I reflected on how these areas were formed by the evolution of Asian economies since the 80s, the political and commercial boundaries of the Vietnamese, Japanese and Korean communities, and the overall land development of L.A. County.