Prototyping a Box for DHSI 2015
This week, the challenge is to prototype a box that’s meaningful as both a metaphor and a material object. As you proceed with your prototype, here are some questions to consider:
- What is the box doing conceptually?
- What is the box doing practically?
- What does the box contain or hide? Under what assumptions?
- Does the box require power? If so, then what’s the source?
- Does the box process data? If so, then what’s the source? And how is it expressed?
- Of what materials is the box made? What do these materials connote?
- How is the box assembled? How transparent is the assembly?
- What are the surface qualities of the box? Why are they meaningful?
- How do you imagine audiences interacting with the box?
- Where does the box come from? What’s the source?
- Where does the box go? What is its shelf life?
- If you gave your box a personality, what’s the best adjective to describe it?
Balsamo’s Ten Lessons
As we prototype, we might find Anne Balsamo’s ten lessons about technoculture innovation informative (from Designing Culture, pages 8-25):
- Innovations are historically constituted.
- Innovations are not objects.
- Innovation is an articulatory and performative process.
- Innovation manifests the dual logic of technological reproduction (replication and novelty).
- Designing is an important process of cultural reproduction.
- Designing is as much about social negotiation as it is about creativity.
- Designing is a process where the matter of the world becomes meaningful.
- Technological innovation is inherently multidisciplinary.
- Technological innovation offers the possibility of doing things differently.
- Failure is productive.