studio 2 – BRIDGE 5: FINAL PROJECT OUTCOMES

Do these two extreme images of self-driving cars evoke questions about the future?

These two drawings are representations of each end of the spectrum, of a possible and extreme future of self-driving cars. One is a dystopia of all negatives outcomes, possibilities and fears of a life filled with SDC. And another is a utopia of all the benefits SDC could have to offer for our world and people. My goal, by creating such extremes, was to get the audience to ponder about what they imagine the future to look like, and to spark curiosity about the future of AI.

Each scenario was compiled from the research I did by asking humans of New York about what their thoughts, benefits and fears were about self-driving cars.

Technology is exponentially growing and the concept of Artificial Intelligence is already being incorporated in many products today. Self-driving cars is evidence of companies trying to invent the new breakthrough in technology, and when successfully create, self-driving cars will change the world drastically. It’s easy to automatically think positively or negatively about SDC, so these two comparisons can show both perspectives and evoke new thoughts.

I want to include in this post each scenario in each drawing just in case not everything was caught. Dystopia: 1) Furthest car in the distance the passenger is complaining about the loss of freedom to choose the speed of the car. It was from answers I got from loss of freedom about speed and the choice of where you can go. 2) Taxi car on the left has two people scared to go inside because they are not sure if it will be safe. Adapted from interview feedback about reliability of self driving cars, and if the car will get hacked. 3) Car in the middle of the intersection is from answers about what if the self driving cars glitch in dangerous situations. 4) The man sitting on the grass, is the possibility of all car related jobs going out of business leaving millions of people unemployed. Taxi car on the left, taxi driver now out of business = man on the grass. 5) Angry man in the middle of the image, in the car, is the situation when the car does not exactly get your voice recognition or finger touch.

Utopia: 1) Furthest car in the distance is the possibility that people can then play games with their sibling, friends etc. so I chose the card game UNO, and having a person yelling UNO! 2) Car in the middle of the street with Z’s is from feedback that people would want to sleep more in their commute to work/school etc. 3) Car on the left is of a woman drinking so their would be no casualties of drinking and driving as well as people who want to drink but still go places. 4) the free man on the grass was from results of people saying SDC would open up more free time for them. 5) The kids in the car in the front of the drawing, was from answers from interviews about multitasking and needing more time to do work, or need time to call relatives, or need time to unplug in between school and work. So I adapted those answers to a girl on her phone texting her friends away/face timing, and a boy doing work/playing games.

Dystopia has dull colors(and red = danger) and a gloomy day = represents a bad future. Utopia has flowers blossoming, sunshine, bright colors, birds and the color green for successful.

These are my first sketches of when my idea took on from 1 final image to two images. I was not sure at the beginning if I wanted the utopia and dystopia to be from the same angle on the streets, so the second half of the paper is the possible utopia future from birds eye view, where the top half was the dystopia view from the inside of a car.

This was when I developed my ideas on perspective and view point of the two images to be from the same angle. Dystopia upper sketch, and utopia lower sketch. Both have notes showing my thinking process of where I wanted which situation (that I conducted through my interviews and research) in the streets.

This was my one dystopia image I brought into class for feedback. I did not have my colors in yet which was a comment I got that said it would definitely help show the contrast between utopia and dystopia better, which I agreed with. Also my peer’s comment was that the text was too small, so I was sure to make it readable in the final outcome. Another note was that the character that looked too much like cartoon Phinneas would distract from the actual concept/moral of the image so I was sure to make all characters not associated with tv shows so the focus was mainly on the point behind the scenes. Also, it wasn’t clear to everyone that the ‘Phinneas’ was sitting and that his board was in fact a cardboard sign, so I made it more visible in the final. Lastly, another change I made was that the inside of the car needed more elements of a car, so I changed it to have glove compartments and changed buttons to a touch screen to give more of a ‘futuristic’ feel.

 

Throughout the entire process of my final project I changed and adapted a lot of my ideas. The main change that I noticed was how the final image/s turned out. From the beginning I imagined my final to be one drawing done on photoshop of a future of self driving cars (SDC), and my point and RQ was to give the answer of what it could be like. I imagined before interviewing people of New York about the topic, they would generally think SDC would be positive, but throughout my interviews with people and investigation, I realized a lot of people had such different takes and a lot of negative outlooks on the possibility. This changed my perspective on what my final should look like. Since I got a lot of feedback, I wanted to categorize it into two drawings of all positive ideas of SDC and negative scenarios of SDC. Then I thought about the scene which all these scenarios take place, and that is when I decided if I were to make a ‘all good’ outcome and ‘all bad outcome’ why not make them extreme futures? So that is how I incorporated the utopia and dystopia ideas. With this idea of creating two versions of extremes, I instead of giving the answer, I wanted the audience to question the piece. Or more like allow the paintings to evoke questions within themselves about what they imagine the future to be like. This was where I decided I wanted my final to be intellectually interactive, and needed time to think and analyze the piece, rather than bluntly giving away the answer.

Throughout this process, I was also experimenting with drawing on photoshop, but soon realized I liked the freehand drawing/style I did with a pen and paper. So I decided I would do the whole thing on paper. After I finished the black and white version, I realized it will be more effective and powerful to scan it, and photoshop the colors in and get a vibrant, powerful and variety of colors. So in the end I used both, instead of just one material. And as I mentioned earlier, with my sketches, is how I took in and developed my piece after the helpful critique I got from my peers.

Studio 2 bridge 5 final reflection

based on your current experience and ideas how might you answer the question what is research?

Research is the complete process of starting with an idea/ideas, until the completion of your project. After my experiences in many projects over the course, I have come to realize that research is not simply getting facts form the internet or interviews, but it continues when you try something and it does not work so you have to find out new ways. Research involves change and adaptation, the project can change dramatically by the end and the user needs to be open to adapting to change. New materials can found or new information could change the idea. Research can be the information from books or online sources, but it can also be the research you do find yourself through crafting a project through your eyes.

over the course of the semester what did you find or develop in your own practice as a maker/thinker?

Over the integration course of both seminar and studio I found that, in particular to this semester, I have a good sense of conceptual thinking. In my seminar research paper most of the problems the teacher was seeing in the class’s work was that they had facts and sources but not a big idea – the conceptual idea. To me specifically she told me that was not the case, I had the idea just need to cite it more (I had my sources I just needed to quote them more). It was interesting to realize I think in terms of the idea first and not the facts, maybe it was particular to that essay, but now I will notice it more often in my future papers, which side I start from.

how did your concept of both research and your own practice change or developed over the course of the semester?

in studio it went from one image and gave an answer – to two images that create questions

My research topic idea in seminar changes dramatically, it started off as an idea about how self driving cars will affect us and the artificial intelligence link to self driving cars are, to choice anxiety. Over the weeks brainstorming the first topic and trying to poke the idea in every angle, it wasn’t until Brie looked at my paper and from an outsiders perspective highlights what was most interesting and what could actually be more interesting than the common topic of SDC fears and worries. AI is a tool used in many products that help make our lives easier, by creating more time. In the added abundance of time we get an overwhelming amount of choice of what we can do in that time. That is where I talk about the hidden side affect from AI products, the situation you get yourself into when you have so much to choose from, you end up not being satisfied with anything you choose because its easy to think that another choice could have been perfect. Even if the result was great, it dampers the decision making process.

In studio my concept of the final project changed dramatically as well. My whole perspective changed from wanting to present one image of the future of self driving cars, and providing an answer to how it could be. To ending up with two images that instead evoke questions in the audience’s heads. After editing my initial idea, I realized I didn’t want to tell people what to think or that there is a definite answer. I wanted the audience to have to look at my piece and create their own scenarios from the two extreme futures of a dystopia and a utopia world of a life with self driving cars.

how do you see this in your work overall this semester, and where do you imagine it might go next?

Artificial Intelligence ties with a lot of my projects over my first year at parsons, and everything to do with design and technology being immersed together. I definitely want to continue pursuing these ideas, which I plan on doing in my major: design and technology. Next year my courses will be more major focused, and my field is about combining those fields, so I plan on diving into it next year. Since I am so passionate about this, I think I only scratched the surface of what I can possibly do with this field.

Seminar 2 – systems and strategies: 2 year reflection

I’m Ellie, a Czech girl who moved to New York to start her next big adventure. I’ve never moved and come from a small city filled with the outdoors and nature, so the move to New York City was a big change. I am interested in combining the design artsy side with the computer science/technological side by studying design and technology at Parsons. Parsons is one of the only school that allowed me to combine these two topics because in Europe they want you to either, become an artist or a computer scientist.

By looking over all the work I have accomplished in my first year at Parsons I have noticed many differences and similarities in my pieces. A common theme I have included in my work is nature and AI technology. From my project in studio 1 making alien creatures that were based on the outdoors to choosing my space and materiality house project being in the middle of a forest in northern Norway. I used the topic AI in several projects, in semester 1 I used it in both studio and seminar projects, either literally or the concept taking on public surveillance systems etc., in my drawing and imaging class for an eerie poster, and in my Time class in a video about AI among us. And in seminar 2 I’ve used it in my research paper about how AI turns into choice anxiety. Including the seminar and studio courses over the entire year within topic, it really helped deepen my research and understanding in the topics I was creating projects for. It deepened my knowledge for the topic because it would not be just one type of research, either online or sketching, it was both. It was the process of investigating each individual aspect like facts as well as creating it into a visual, allowing you as the maker to really get a grasp of what the big picture is.

One of my main highlights of my first year at parsons was creating a 3D model of my invented house, in my space and materiality class. This project started out as an idea, that then turned into intense technical drawings of the floor plans and elevation views, that then turned into making a a smaller version model of the imaged house. The only criteria were to create a communal area, thats sustainable, where you go to unplug. My idea was to create a observatory cabin in the forest in northern Norway on a Lake, over looking the northern lights and stars in the night. The sustainable aspects were drains for water collection and storage, dry toilet, and solar panels so that the cabin could be completely self sustainable. This was an important project for me because it was a rigorous, time consuming, lots of adapting process that allowed me to learn a lot about my abilities and about my self and how I think. It pushed me to achieve greater than I believe I could which is what I hope to do in every class because that is the ultimate lesson. The final outcome turned out really well, and I am proud of my achievement and dedication to the project. I have never worked with many of the materials that went into this project so it was a lot of figuring out and self learning. It was an area of work I have never explored so it was as successful as it was interesting to me.

 

My second highlight would be my teacher John Jerard for my space and materiality class. His class in general over the course of the second semester was truly educational, inspiring and motivational. John is a very exceptional teacher that brings in insightful knowledge from the outside real world through his many years of experiencing it, and his the other schools he teaches as well as the hospitals he comes to to help out making art. He makes use of the class time most effectively and everyday (i had the class twice a week) would push me to do better, to do greater. He supported me while at the same time told me the harsh truth about what needs to be done, or what is needed from me in my presentation boards, photography, presentation, and dedication. Teachers area very important to my learning, and I am very thankful he was one of those teachers that truly made an impact on me.

 

  

The skill of being able to create and understand technical drawings as well as knowing my capabilities of creating objects from my hands will definitely impact my future projects in the next years at parsons and life. It allows me to have a better understanding and thinking of how I can take on my next assignments in ways I never thought I can display them. John class also really pushed me to use all the great resources the school has to offer, which a lot of classes never talk about or encourage. Like the professional photography room on floor 10 (photos above taken there). These elements do generate better quality and presentation for the future. I have dabbed a bit in the wood working shop and the laser cutting area this semester but I would like to expand my skills in those areas to get more familiar and comfortable to generate wicked projects in the future. I also want to get a deeper skill in coding which I hope to learn in my coding class in the fall. From my drawing and imaging class from my first semester, we had a woman come and present to us her work and told us about how important the presentation is for the visual of your object in the real world. That is when I learned the first steps in incorporating my projects to blend in the real world to give the audience a glimpse of my thought of how the product will be used. I would like to improve my photoshop skills so that the presentation editing looks flawless.

hide-and-seek_draw-image

 

Studio final project update

Where are you in your overall research plan / process?

I am in a good place, I have conducted all my research and started sketching my two ideas for the two drawings.

Are there changes you’ve made to that plan along the way? What are they?
I left the final image to be set to what the people in my interviews say so my vision of the final drawings have changed throughout each conversation. Also my question I asked changed because it seemed like a conversation was more information-rich than blunt questions.

How are you documenting your process (notes, photos, reflection in a sketchbook, your LP, or other spot)?

Notes and sketches in my sketchbook.

What three things (or more) do you need to be able to get done / continue between now and next week to present a near-final version of your work?

  1. finalize my data for my extreme positive future of self driving cars (SDC) 2) finalize my data for my extreme positive future of SDC and 3) figure out the color scheme I will use for the photoshop version of these drawings and 4) start a basic outline of my drawings on photoshop

How will you get those things done / continue them?

Keep sketching, analyzing, brainstorming and expanding. Then transfer it to my computer.

What is your goal for what you want to show next week? (What will you make? What will you bring in? How will you present it?)

I will present my online drawings printed out, hard copy of one or both. My goal is to have drawings that really speak for themselves, that show the utopia and dystopia futures of SDC. I want to create a fun and playful image symbolizing the extreme outcomes of a life with SDC based on people or New York’s knowledge of them and ideas.

What do you think might be a question or questions you’ll be wanting to discuss about your work / project?

It the image portraying my message? Is is self explanatory? What could I change or add to communicate the piece better with the audience? Does is raise good questions when looked upon? Does it intrigue the audience? Did the audience learn something?

What help might you need, from peers, from me, from others?

How can I incorporate the questions asked in the previous question in my two drawings?

If you had to describe the relationship of “research” as a process of investigation, asking questions, finding information, and / or building arguments to your studio project now, how would you do so? Where do you see the research in your studio work?

My research was mainly done by interviews people of New York of all ages, to get a detailed image of the unique perspectives and answers received from the interviews. I did some research online to get perspectives done buy the big companies of why they would want to work on SDC. How it’s portrayed in my final piece would be all the characteristics included in the image. Each detail in the pictures would’ve been based on someone’s comment or vision of these two worlds.

Space and materiality – Hand project

 

This is a project that required us to make a 3D model that did an action a hand does. I chose a hand that mimics the motion of a high five. Made out of wood and felt, to soften high five. A reel is used to bring the hand back and the springs in the front create the energy to spring it back up. The reel also is used as a drag to soften the motion of the spring back.

Presentation Board:

Detail shots of the hand model:

 

Inspiration/trademark personalization

Videos of the high five motion:

 

 

Studio: Research Plans

Plan #1:

Should self-driving cars be sold on the market (if successfully created)?

For this plan my end goal would be to create a venn diagram of the companies working on self-driving cars and the pros, cons and goals they each have and/or share. My steps toward making this chart accurate and detailed enough would be to do a lot of online research, and many sketches of how large, small, integrated and intertwined the diagrams will be. The online research will include background research and project outcomes for the following companies: Google, MIT, Uber, and Tesla (and maybe more once I get further into my research). To accurately note down and keep track of all my data I will list the benefits, dangers, arguments, developments, plans, money, goals and growth of the projects in each category (categories being the companies). Once I have my list for each category I will cut up and re assemble the items into groups of common interest among the companies or specific categories. Then I will sketch up ideas of how I would like the end result to look like, color use etc. and what materials I would use, maybe bristol board paper. For the research to be thorough I want to give myself enough time, but not rush on the presentation, I want the research (lists) done by 27th of April, have a final sketch of my final project look by May 4th, and fully completed by May 11th.

Plan #2 – Chosen Idea:

Should self-driving cars be sold on the market (if successfully created)?

For my second plan my end result would be a visual drawing of a utopia and a dystopia of the possibility of self-driving cars being accessible to humans, based on online research and human interviews of the pros, cons and thoughts on the subject. To get all my information, I will conduct a thorough investigation on online websites about the various perspectives on the matter, including companies working on SDC models. I will also interview humans of New York by asking them various questions like: would you want a self-driving car? If yes, why so? If not why so? Would it give you more time to do your own things or limit your freedom? I am surrounded by many humans everyday, to get my interviews I will ask variety of people I walk pass: students, teachers, employees etc. to get a variety of answers. Once I will get all my information and different view points, I will separate the comments into common groups (for it or against it) and from there I will sketch out the emotions, reasoning behind the emotions, attributes to a life with SDC etc. on paper. Once I finalize on two (a utopia and a dystopia) sketches for my final, I will re-create that sketch in photoshop and create a high resolution drawing of all the research to capture the feelings people have about this possible future product. For this plan I think drawing would take a bit longer than the research, as I can ask many people in a few days (easily accessible to all range of people), the research would be completed by 20th or 23rd of April, sketch of final to be done by 27th or 30th of May, and the final to be completed by the 11th of May.

Questions for Shana:

Will this fill the criteria for different sources for research?

Do I need to find a librarian? (I am not too clear about this area)

Does the thesis question fit with the project I will create? And/or is it a sufficient idea/correct question?

Or should my question be more specific like: what would the two extreme futures look like for slef driving cars?

 

Studio: 5 research topic precedents

Google: https://waymo.com/

MIT: http://moralmachine.mit.edu/

Uber: http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/04/03/522099560/pittsburgh-offers-driving-lessons-for-ubers-autonomous-cars

Steve jobs – history of his work important –apple – ideation

Alexa – mini limited AI machine

Elon Musk – work, perspective – tesla

Space and Materiality: Scared Space

A sacred space set in Northern Norway on a lake to watch the northern lights. Self-sustainable with water collection, energy and toilet waste. A getaway to unplug in the middle of the forest.

Technical Drawings showing the exterior front, back and side, and interior plans from front, back and side perspective:

Process:

First idea-to-paper sketch of my sacred space house

Primary steps was to get all the shapes cut out from regular white foam board

This is the 3 step process of the “stone look” on the walls of my house, 1) make glue globs for texture 2) brush and paint splatter three different shades of grey/black/white to create pattern 3) paint in between the bumps a light grey for depth.

Images of the Final Model:

Detail shot of the algae and water

Detail shot of the fireplace inside

Roof: shot of the solar panels that provide the energy + rain gutters that collect and store water

Model Presentation Board:

Bridge #3 studio proposals

Image of my thinking process for project idea:

In seminar we were to vomit out ideas that came to mind for three minutes about possible topic ideas for our projects. The one’s I highlighted are the three that I chose for this project. This was a clever and very helpful method, that shows you how I got to that topic, and how my mind works out on paper. As I re-read the paper I see I come back to some ideas and how I started to think more deeper within the topic. It is hard to keep track of all the good ideas you have or how you branched off of one idea to another, this method definitely solidifies your thought process and allows you to go back to square 1 or 7.

Three project proposals from seminar:

System/Project Name:

Artificial Intelligence movement, self-driving cars the first step to job takeover

Summary:

The question for the next century is how far will we come to successfully creating an Artificial Intelligence system? There are elements of self-working machines like cars that are already undergo to being released. Google has self-driving cars that work but are not released for the market and are still being tested. The question is, if self-driving cars will one day be open to the public, will this be the start of technology’s massive takeover on people’s jobs? Basically self-driving cars instantly would improve truck delivery due to no human necessities like sleep, food and errors. By eliminating all truck drivers and taxi drivers, that is millions of people left unemployed. If an artificial intelligence system were to be successfully created, all jobs are at risk. Is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? Why pursue it? How can we not try?

Argument:

Artificial Intelligence is a unique but relevant topic to start researching because technology is exponentially advancing and this impacts everyone, even the highly praised jobs like lawyers and doctors.

If I were to investigate this topic, I would research by trying to find the most recent growth and the stage we are at in AI, what companies are trying to produce self-driving cars, and how they do it. The big question is, who will be or will there be someone to say to what limit we will use the AI if we successfully create it?

 

System/Project Name:

Public Surveillance System

Summary:

In New York City there is a small public surveillance system on the streets but there are people who want to renovate, expand and enlarge the system throughout the whole city and other states. A public surveillance system is cameras set up on the streets, monitoring people’s actions. A public surveillance system does not have any evidence that it lowers crimes, instead it increases amount of possible danger like footage selling, stalking and organized crimes. If everything was being watched every day, it would create an eerie feeling for the people. Who would be in charge of watching this personal footage? A policeman? A government official? Are any of them trustworthy? Wouldn’t cameras everywhere recording everything you do go against one’s freedom?

Argument:

From telling my peers if they knew about what all the cons to a public surveillance system are, I was shocked to realize that lots of people are first think it’s a good idea. I would like to investigate this idea further to see how big of a possibility it is that it will be implemented or not. I would start by seeing where and how big the PSS are in the city, who controls them, and conduct research on how many people know about this matter.

 

System/Project Name: Education System

Summary:

How often do the Universities improve and renew they education system? I decided to attend Parsons School of Design because it was one of the only colleges that seem to keep changing its views and curriculum, that fits the teaching ways and topic priorities that are relevant today. Many universities still have the core majors like medicine, law and psychology, but now a day it isn’t enough to do one, why not combine some topics? Why do students graduate core classes in high school to attend university for more core classes for 3 more years? University should allow the students to fully take advantage of the education if they want to, why pay so much money to attend a school if all the classes they are interested in are only for “seniors”. What if the freshman has more knowledge and drive than that senior?

Argument:

The education system should be changed frequently because systems, people, the world changes, how can we have the same topics/ majors and systems that applied 40 years ago? I would start by researching how universities implement change, how often they do it, and the concept of core classes in college if a student already know what they want to study.

 

Step four:

After the exercise in class, on the 16th, and after a discussion with Shana about my proposals, I realized which topic I am most interested in. As we had to create sketches upon our 3 proposals we thought of in seminar class, and I realized very early on which topic I was able to support with the most creations. My first project proposal about Artificial Intelligence is an area of interest that I would like to focus on and maybe just hone on the self-driving cars concept.

The reason why I would focus on self-driving cars is because it is the first and most advanced area in the A.I. world, and other sectors are very hypothetical and theoretical at this point (too early to know enough). Self-driving cars raise a lot of questions and debate already: will it be safer? will it eliminate all car jobs industries? will it be cheaper? will it take away human freedom? How I got here was through several process between seminar and studio.

The brainstorming in seminar definitely helped because it got me to the more concrete idea of self-driving cars, and now in studio I am thinking which area in the self-driving cars I would like to create a project on. The image below shows the two topics I started sketching on, A.I. and Public Surveillance System. This brief investigation revealed my interest as well as how my brain was able to expand to so many topics. I started from the middle, A.I. in general, and linked it to the few jobs or components it could takeover, and from there I realized that the car industry and A.I. has even more sub-topics because it is the furtherest path to success. Which is how I chose self-driving cars.

The image is separated into two, the first half is A.I. and how I branched it out to all the jobs (i could think of at the moment) it could take over, like a mind map with categories and sub categories. The second half is Public Surveillance System and how one person watches each angle of you where every you go, creating an eerie feeling if the system were to be implemented. After sketching just these two, I realized that I only had one image to draw for PSS and for the A.I. I kept going back and adding more and branching off to more questions and jobs. Clearly signifying me that I am more passionate about A.I. to chose as a long term project.