Des 22: World Building

Trace: • archive

P1: Archival World

Pioneers 10 and 11, which preceded Voyager, both carried small metal plaques identifying their time and place of origin for the benefit of any other spacefarers that might find them in the distant future. With this example before them, NASA placed a more ambitious message aboard Voyager 1 and 2, a kind of time capsule, intended to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials. The Voyager message is carried by a phonograph record, a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth.

Voyager: The Golden Record, NASA

Carl Sagan, astrophysicist and media figure, oversaw the committee at NASA that created The Golden Record. The Golden Record was meant to be a time capsule for all humanity, communicating the story of Earth and its inhabitants to extraterrestrial life forms, who might find it when launched into space. Launched into orbit via the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecrafts in 1977, each sound and image on the record was meticulously chosen to best represent humankind – with special care taken to the records notation to explain its function without a need for written language. Like the authors of the Golden Record, in this project you encapsulate a piece of our present reality, collecting an archive of materials to reinterpret via their presentation and arrangement.

Describing a world doesn’t mean you need to go into the realm of science fiction or fantasy. In fact, most science fiction and fantasy derive much from their basis in the “real” world – referencing and reinterpreting historical events, engaging mythical archetypes, and building on accepted theories, to create their universes. In this project you will take the first step in world building, and collect an archive of existing images/sounds/videos/objects to work with.

Drop City: A Total Living Environment

It's up to you what you research – examples may include: military insignias, gender-representation in media, typefaces made by minority designers, and so on. However, your archive should be fueled by a personal interest and desire for reimagination. This means you can collect items that envision the reality you’re hoping for – if you’d like to consider a more eco-sustainable future, what are examples of all the alternative fuels we may use? Perhaps you go as far as looking at the minerals and locations where resources are mined? Or, you could collect items from our present that you’d want to critique. If you’re dissatisfied with a lack of workers rights, what are some ways these abuses are apparent? For instance in time cards, uniforms, etc.

1882-1982-2019, by Chris Lee

What are the existing symbols, signs, graphics, writings, sounds, that could shape the world you would like to see? Like a conspiracy theorist you will seek out, and in some cases create/manipulate/or doctor, evidence of your hypothesis.

After collecting your archive you will communicate your argument through its presentation. For instance, if you collected publications about open source technology, you may upload them to the web for free download. Or, if you’re interested in the involvement of the military in the history of computing, you might make an illustrated timeline showing how military spending impacted computer development.

Conflicted Phonemes, by Lawrence Abu Hamdan

In summary:

  • Construct an archive of existing signs and symbols that point to an alternative reading of their accepted definition.
    • Example: A collection of the sounds needed to teach a computer to synthesize human speech in all languages
  • Present the archive to us in a navigable and interesting way
    • Examples: A website where these sounds can be played, reassembling them in random orders
Step 1

Golden Record Exercise – 2 weeks
As a warm up to the project we’ll create our own Golden Records for Compact Disc. The goal of this exercise is to consider how we choose what to archive, and locate our interests around World Building.

Due: Sept 20

Step 2

Subject Matter – 1 week
Choose your subject matter – create a 5 minute presentation describing the topic you’d like to explore through archiving/world-building. Your presentation should contain images related the subject matter, and provide context for the viewer to understand where your interest stems from.

Begin amassing your archive – try to find/generate at least 25 images for your collection

Due: Sept 27

Step 3

Archive Collection - 2 weeks
Collect your archive – gather items that will act as the material for your project. These can be physical, digital, or in-between(?), but should contain a minimum of:

  1. 30 images
  2. 5 videos
  3. 3 sounds
  4. 2 artifacts

Bring them to class in a way we can view them as a class (if they’re objects, bring in the objects if you can. If they’re digital images, have them viewable on your computer, etc.). In this stage don’t over-index on an imagined outcome, instead research the topic via design tactics.

Due: Oct 11

Step 4

Archive Presentation - 1 weeks
Organize your archive – consider the contents of your archive, and sort them into a format that gives us new insights into your collection. This collection can take any shape you choose, but some to consider may be a timeline, interactive website, deck of cards, poster, etc.

Make your archive accessible to the class for review.

Due: Oct 18

Reading
References
projects/archive.txt · Last modified: 2023/10/03 04:27 by 147.47.244.156