Week16: On Post-Humanist Design
2020-2-14/ Sunny
Partner: Winnie & Chengguang & Lili
In this new week, professor Tyler Fox takes us through a week of study. He is a lecturer in human-centered design and engineering at the University of Washington. And he is interested in theories of posthumanism, relational ontology, process philosophy, assemblage, nonhumans, emergence, technology…and more. On Monday professor explained to us the meaning of post-humanism and showed us a lot of design work. So what we're going to do this week is related to post-humanism.
Process
Then the professor randomly assigned different things to different groups, and what we got was a natural sponge. Then we need to prototype a sponge in two hours. This prototype can be about the characteristics of the sponge, the origin of the sponge, etc.
Through research, we learned about the characteristics of natural sponge.
The sponge divers hand cut each sponge to ensure that keep the base remains intact. the sponge then re-grows back to its original form 3 or 5 years. picking by hand is also good for sea ecology, not making too many sponges grow in one place and affect other sea creatures.
Because the role of natural sponges in the ocean is clean. But when it is picked by hand, it appears in the human market and becomes a tool, such as washing dishes or bathing. So we wanted to make a model to show how the sponge went from being a Marine creature to being a tool for the human market. We cut the sponge in half, half the area of the sponge is the blue water representing the water, the surface it's in the sea, half the sponge represents the soapy water that's used for cleaning and then we put some lines through it, and the lines represent some elements like bacteria. The model is intended to show how sponges function in different environments.
Making Prototype
Next, we will have a week to make a prototype to explain the origin of sponge and some knowledge of sponge, as well as the post-humanist design concept. We found the two characteristics of sponge regeneration and cleaning very interesting, so we wanted to design something from them. We first use the sponge as our user to analyze. The sponge is a renewable creature, but it can't passively spread like dandelion, to different corners of the world to have a look. If we can help it spread in the ocean, like to travel in the ocean, a new area when it reaches the sea, began to grow, making “new friends” - near different sea creatures, and can purify the area of the Marine environment. This is a fun thing.
We first drew the storyboard, and we thought about how we could help the sponge move. We wanted to design a snack, a snack that has two layers, an outer layer that feeds the sponge and is absorbed by it, and a second layer that has an aircraft in it. Once the outer material is absorbed, the inner craft is triggered, cutting off a small half of the sponge and taking it to different parts of the ocean. To help those parts take root and grow in other parts of the ocean.
In order to test out our idea, we have been trying and creating prototypes. Our initial idea was to simulate the classroom as a large Marine environment and then move the sponge through the fishing line. But when we told Tyler the idea, he thought we could think about the way the movement was, how to be more intuitive and clever. So we decided to create the Marine environment in a cardboard box, where everything from food to sponge movement would be displayed. However, how to show that the food is absorbed by the sponge and the sponge reaches a new position, how to grow, this problem has troubled us again. I suggested that these two states could be expressed by small light bulbs, so we went to CTL to ask the tutors for help. And we ended up with our prototype here.
Presentation
The whole process of the model is as follows: first, the food we designed is dropped into the sponge from the transparent tube. The food will trigger the sensor in the sponge, and a small yellow light will light up, indicating that the food has been absorbed by the sponge, and then move the sponge that has been cut in half by us through the fishing line. When the sponge reaches the right side of the box, the white light bar will be triggered, indicating that the area has been purified and the sponge is growing there.
Saudi Arabia granted a humanoid robot called Sophia citizenship in 2017.
But actually, Sophia is not a "breakthrough" for AI. She's just an elaborate puppet that answers simple questions. But Sophia's debate about the rights of future robots is the subject of an emerging philosophical movement called post-humanitarianism.
Post-humanitarianism is a moral stance that extends moral concern to things that are different from us, especially to other species and objects in the world we share.
The philosopher Donna Haraway argued that the post-human future would be an era of "species encounters," in which humans would eventually make room for non-human things within our moral compass. Thus, post-human ethics encourages us to think beyond the interests of our own species, to reduce narcissism in our view of the world, and to take seriously the interests and rights of things different from ours.
are half plant and half animal.
can be used for cleaning
is a renewable natural resource
eat
Feedback And Reflection
According to feedback from the professor and classmates, I summarized the following points:
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Aesthetically, the overall style of the prototype is too naive.
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You can add some more places for interaction with this prototype.
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Use different techniques to design the food for the sponge.
It was a very pleasant group work for me. Because everyone can reach a consensus quickly, and everyone is good at different parts, it can be very efficient division of labor to complete the project. This is the first time for me to encounter the concept of post-humanism, and I think I am very interested in this theory, because it provides me with a completely different perspective on the current technological development and different creatures. This is also a new starting point for my next design, which may inspire me with more ideas and inspirations.