Marcin Ramocki

HISTORY READING: DIY: the militant embrace of technology by Marcin Ramocki.

http:/ramocki.net/

Polish artist,

Through his art he is trying to build metaphors via software.

His reasearch is rooted in the development of simple video,sound and animation based software.

Also a director of documentories

one of his more famous projects is:
Torcito project.

In the intro he posses to questions
The first being: Why do we feel compelled to mess with electronic devices and call it art?
And: Is what we do a continuation of modernist principals or an all together different thing and if so what kind of thing is it?

He then uses three historical readings to help us understand how our embrace of technology has come about.

Maxist model, Alienation of labour.
Jean Baudrillard, Simulacrum and simulation
Markenzie War, The Hacker Manifesto

Through these three readings he shows to us how our alienation has changed sinse the introduction of mass production


After this he the goes on to explain types of software and hardware haccking exist.

To rap it up Ramocki is trying to tell us that the thing that relates all these types of works together is that they have a militant intension and straegy in revealing the aspects of technology that we take for granted. "figure out whats inside the blackbox (and why it was made) is becoming the official duty of artistic communities"

He answers the other question with the belief that we mess with electronics because he thinks we see it as a source of meaning for our generation. It's how we connect with the surrounding reality which is mostly made up of code and technology.

We are now breaking the alienation of labour and through reverse engineering we are able to understand the technology better and understand the means of production.

Related topic: The revival of Handicraft

Social dimensions of wearable computers, Ana Viseu

This was a very straight-forward reading. it was well set out and easy to understand. The reading itself was very neutral as it gave and developed good points for and against wearable computers.

It gave us a good grounding and understanding of where the wearable computer has developed from and where it could be going to in the future.

Its interesting to see how wearable computers are now becoming part of the body, an extention you mite say as where in the past they were more an add on.

The social implications where also very interesting in the way that i had never concidered. To think that our own wearable computer could be used to monitor and spy on you is not very appealing to say the least.

Cold war Hot house. Intro

This was a very interesting reading. Despite the fact that we only red the introduction i found that it did a very good job of conveying alot of information in a short period of time.

I was suprised to learn how much of an effect the cold war between Russia and the US had influenced the coarse of design in the period.

The thing that i found most interesting i think is that fact that Russia and America fort over whos citizens had the better life style and that the strength of the nation was based on the Technology in the kitchen rather then the size of their bombs.

The reading also illistrtated how nervous the public were. this can be illistrated in some of the designs to come out of this era. In the way that the were almosted designed with nomadic intensions, people could up and move at the drop of a hat.

The Car and House also became safe havens basiclly miniture bomb shelters to protects its owners should the worst come to worse.

The extravigant objects where created to lull people into a false sense of security. to occupie them to save them thinking about the dangers Knocking at the door.

I then came to the conclusion that we even today we use objects to distract us from the truth. We don't think about the wars going on in other parts of the world or the millions starving in Africa instead we think about which Ipod we want to get next.

Post modernism lecture.

This was after the Modernist movement and if gave rise to such thinmgs as pop culture, People breaking the mold, Art for the Masses.

Objects were made to appeal to the masses.

During this time there was the Hippy and Feminist movements

Everything followed suit. Hair styles, clothes, Lituature, Philosyify, MTV, Ice creme and even underwear.

Wars During this time: Korean war, Veitnam, Cold war

The Aluminium industry exploded

In a general sence as apposed to Modernism where design satisfied needs. In Post modernism it switched back and Design satisfied wants.

Modernism lecture.

Basically what i drew from this lecturn is that modernism came about because of the times.
The time being that of the great depression. Money was short so people did not have money to throw away on extravigant things and so the designs change to fit this new life style.

Designs became refined, Stripped back to the bare minimum. Basic forms anf simple geometric structures became popular the structure of the form became exposed.

Also it was at this time the Bauhaus was started and this in turn added in the development of what we now refer to as industrial design.