Do you own a bookshelf?

At first, we quickly updated Björn on our recent topics and what we discussed with Joëlle. He then described what we will be discussing in the next few sessions, and what his main input will be about. Today's session is called Positioning I. We picked up a discussion we had a few weeks back. What bothers us? How do we represent a topic or a movement?

Doris proposed one of the things that bother her, or more precisely, her parents. They live in the countryside and own a few lands for agricultural reasons. But apparently many Tourists that visit the surrounding areas have the option to rent scooters, to ride down the hill. According to Doris, many of these tourists seem to find pleasure in riding down a field and do not seem to care about farmers at all. For obvious reasons, that bothers her and her family. But what's more interesting in my eyes is that Doris thinks the main reason for their ignorance is due to the fact, that these people don't have a connection anymore, to agriculture and the origin of the food we buy in stores. To some extent, I agree with her. I guess there are many people that do not worthy our spoiled lives anymore and just take everything for granted.

The Entire History Of You

Black Mirror is a TV show from Charlie Brooker. On most descriptions of the show, it is labeled as a series which displays the dark side of Technology, which seems like a fair argumentation. Charlie Brooker definitely seems to find pleasure in handling this topic. We talked about the main facts of the show and quickly came to the conclusion that the show is mainly about the dehumanization by technology.

The third episode of season one shows a scenario where most people own an implant which is placed behind their ear that visually and audibly records every second of their life. Using a tiny device, they can access these memories on their contact lenses or stream them on a television. But what is the issue with this Technology? Would we want such a device?

In our class, nobody was a real fan of this feature. We wondered what the advantages of such a device would be and agreed that in the show it is only used for personal gain. Tobias then compared storing memories to owning a bookshelf, and the dilemma of having to get rid of books against our will, due to lack of space. He then posed Björn the question do you own a bookshelf? Since most people admire having some sort of encyclopedia, nobody likes to throw away books. Not even Björn.

References:

• Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects (Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag, 2001), excerpt.
• John Thackara, In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006), excerpt.
• The Entire History of You, Black Mirror, Season 1, Episode 3, directed by Brian Welsh, 2011.