Project 2 :
Lost and Found
Collaborative Experience Reflector
Description
Lost and Found (L&F) was an open survey located in a hallway in the target community, Art Center College of Design (ACCD). It gathered personal comments in the format of a writing board. The topic of the survey was based on the metaphor of being lost and found in order to investigate two sets of questions: “Lost” — What are you missing here? Why? And “Found” — What are you learning here? How? The conversation generated on the board changed the flow of its surroundings.
The outcome reflected the invaluable potential of a Shuffle Space project. One result was the variety of topics and voices generated by the users without long instruction. Students wrote about frustrations such as a lack of mentorship in school, or struggles between realities and dreams, expressing a range of personal opinions.
They also commented on others’ comments, as well as communicated the change they wanted and needed. Students and other members of the community stopped, read, smiled, or got mad. This often-ignored corner on campus became a social spot again, and it carried a similar function to a public forum or personal-open letter, but the hand-written words not only shortened the distance between monitor and keyboard, but connected individuals and the rest of the community. As design research, it provided rich resources that open up questions, answers, and processes to its participants. At same time, the setup provided a continuous conversation between the designer and the users rather than the typical situation where the designer walks away to look for the next design.
A collection of 3-day on-board activities
Analysis
An argument made by Roland Barthes in his 1968 essay, “The Death of The Author,” that the actual role of author is as the reader of the story, describes the one of characteristics in L&F.(2) What distinguishes L&F is the complex reading of the community produced through the shifting flow. It shuffled the role of gatekeeper to contributor and of author to reader. The job of the designer was to define the topics, establish the platform, and be a reader who follows the conversations.
