• What did you learn?
  I learned a lot about the health code behind the scene and the system is currently been operated across the country. The topic related to the pandemic seemed to me to be an at-the-moment thing but throughout the research, I have learned the infrastructures that have been implemented to cope with are bringing permanent effects. I have also come to more understanding of the Chinese changing political environment.
• What feedback did you receive? Any reflections on critique itself?
  I received a lot of feedback on how the project might bring change to its audiences. Getting the feedback questions are very helpful for me to re-assuring my goals for creating it. Marina asked me during the critique “Now they have known the information, what they can do” this actually pushes me into thinking about how the interactivity could be played out after I send out the messages. Monika has also suggested that I should include part of my experience that led me into doing this project in the first place in my artist statement and I do agree by doing so to have a realistic solid foundation for the statement itself.
• What might you do differently in terms of process or content?
  In terms of the process, because the topic itself is changing very actively on daily bases, so I would have given more attention to the news section just to understand where the overwhelming concerns are for the nation and its citizens.
• What was inspiring? What parts?
  Reviewing and constantly revising the project form was inspiring for me. Having specific design intentions gives many potentials for how the forms could be and how the interaction could happen. Having these intentions in mind keeps pushing me to revise and rethink other possibilities.
• Revisit the assignment prompts: how did your project relate to the original prompts, in terms of critical lens, audience, tone, etc…
  My critical lens was learning health code system is an implementation that was built under both the pandemic and political campaign, the right of acknowledging the mechanism that has been running behind the scene and also ethics responding to this technological arrangement.
  The audience for the experience was pedestrians who by chance encountered me wearing the shirt (mainly Chinese citizens because I live in Shanghai, but also people who can read English to avoid sensitive language) .
  The tone for the experience is supposed to be revealing other than feeling under censorship, confused, or unsafe.
• How did you balance research and experimentation? Which is easier for you? How can you focus more on the areas that you shy away from?
  The research and experimentation balance came very naturally to me for this project because eventually, my goal is to deliver audiences an experience of how internet consensus looks and how taking control of the technology we use feels like. Research is more comfortable for me in this case because is a hot topic so I can easily find people’s different takes on their perspectives.
  The skills required to make the project functional are demanding so I will just spend more time figuring out, even a functional proof of concept.

What did you learn?

I learned a lot from the project. I just liked robot animation before but I didn’t know much about its development history. I saw a lot, but I didn’t have a systematic understanding of the robot design language. I used to think about why some robot’s arms were designed like this or that, but now I have a more comprehensive understanding of the historical and social reasons behind the whole design.

What feedback did you receive? Any reflections on critique itself?

I received a lot of feedback. Most of them praised me for spending a lot of energy on the final output, and the presentation effect was very good, but there was still a lack of concept expression, and the content was not very clear. I think this may always be a defect in my work, and I will continue to improve it.

What might you do differently in terms of process or content?

If you give me more time, I would like to make it into a physical interactive book. I think the physical book is better than the electronic version of experience.

What was inspiring? What parts?

I tried new software (Twrine)! I walked out of my comfort zone and began to try new things. I played a little game myself, not just painting.

Revisit the assignment prompts: how did your project relate to the original prompts, in terms of critical lens, audience, tone, etc…

My critical lens: In the evolution of robot animation design, the change of international situation, Ideological transformation and the rapid development technology have played a decisive role.

Audience: My audience can be general public or fans of robot animation. Because it is a relaxing and interesting topic for everyone.

Tone: I think my tone is easy and interesting. It’s a role-playing adventure game with a sense of substitution.

How did you balance research and experimentation? Which is easier for you? How can you focus more on the areas that you shy away from?

I spent more time on experimentation than research. Because I think the execution is more interesting and fun, I am always anxious and start to do it without understanding the concept, but I think this is actually wrong, because research is the core and soul of a project and should not be hastily perfunctory.

• What did you learn?

• What feedback did you receive? Any reflections on critique itself?

• What might you do differently in terms of process or content?

• What was inspiring? What parts?

• Revisit the assignment prompts: how did your project relate to the original prompts, in terms of critical lens, audience, tone, etc…

• How did you balance research and experimentation? Which is easier for you? How can you focus more on the areas that you shy away from?

What would you do differently in terms of process or content?

For process: I think I would have tried to manage my time better. I spent too long on research and didn’t always seek out new information and instead found a lot of confirming information. I definitely could have adjusted my research technique to get more specific information instead of just broader details.

For content: I would try to add the ability to add a personal message with the postcard to make it more like a real postcard and have a better user experience. I also would add links to resources. I think having a blog or social media style area for people to share their personal experiences with fracking would also be an effective addition. 

What did you learn?

First, I learned a lot about the technical process of fracking and how gas and oil are extracted from the Earth. It’s a very complex process that involved massive amounts of water, chemicals, and a sand/silicon mix.

Second, I learned a lot about the damages fracking causes. From groundwater contamination, to earthquakes, water scarcity, methane emissions, carbon emissions from storage and transportations, habitat loss from infrastructure for transportation, human health impacts, chemical waste disposal, to more, fracking is extremely harmful to the environment. 

Lastly, I learned about aspects that make an effective postcard. It’s not something I ever would have looked into, but it was very interesting to sift through postcards and notecards to see which ones caught my eye and which didn’t.

What feedback did you receive? Any reflections on critique itself?

As far as the critique itself, I was nervous to present my project for critique. I’m still not as confident about my artistic skills, so I was wary to share my postcards. I’m glad that I did though, since I find embracing that nervousness is the only way to build confidence for future critiques.

I received a mix of feedback. Some was positive like the overall design was nice and the postcards were effective. I also received some, I guess negative isn’t the right word, other feedback about having more of a purpose or audience behind the petition aspect. I definitely think that future iterations of the project could be more geared towards a specific state or politician to have a greater chance of creating change.

What was inspiring? What parts?

I’m not sure inspiring is the right word, but I was very proud of the postcards I designed. I was also really proud of their overall design of the site. I think it looked clean and polished and had a nice interface.

How did your project relate to the original prompts, in terms of critical lens, audience, tone?

Critical lens: I think my critical lens was pretty clear. I think fracking is dangerous and highly problematic. I think that came across in the website both in terms of the intentions and the feeling of the site.

Audience: My audience could have been narrower I think. I had intended it to be for anyone who was familiar with fracking or was concerned about the environment. Ultimately, I think that audience is too broad and is at odds with the petition aspect. Also petitions work best when they are targeted. An effective change might be to have the site as a Petition to Ban Fracking in (for example) Texas. That was it has a higher chance of success.

Tone: I think the tone was also pretty clear and effective. I was going for a mix of serious and satire. The postcard is poking fun at a very serious topic. I think the tone of the petition part definitely is more serious. 

How did you balance research and experimentation? Which is easier for you? How can you focus more on the areas that you shy away from?

I spent more time on research than experimentation. I wouldn’t say one was easier or harder than the other. They were both important, and I enjoyed different aspects of each. I wouldn’t say I shied away from either, but I spent too long researching and should have cut that off earlier to start experimenting. 

• What did you learn?

First of all, I learned more about doing research; how to organize my thought processes; how to narrow down all my ideas to a applicable project; and most of all, how to design and express my thoughts through my project. From my research, I learned more about pedagogy, AI added teaching, teacher’s influences on students, etc. And I believe that for now, human teacher is irreplaceable .

• What feedback did you receive? Any reflections on critique itself?

Some negative feedbacks I received are the message I’m sending was not too strong; the questions and the game form is not very friendly for users who are not familiar with this kind of decision make game or game theory. I admit the message was not very strong if the user is only playing the game, but I believe by providing more background information and introduction to the game, my idea would be clearer to the users.

• What might you do differently in terms of process or content?

The coding part took me a long time, which led me less time for more thorough user testing. I spent a little longer time on realizing the functions of the game. If I might do it differently, I would spent less attention on the coding part. I would start user testing with simpler prototype, print the questions on paper for example.

• What was inspiring? What parts?

The most inspiring part was when I finally narrowed down my focus to AI and teacher – student emotional connections. Since the future situations of AI has not been achieved yet, so the professor suggested that I could try to create a setting to mimic this futuristic scenario. Not everything has to be realistic, we can also present the users a situation where they could have a peek into the future world.

• Revisit the assignment prompts: how did your project relate to the original prompts, in terms of critical lens, audience, tone, etc… 

For this project, I think I followed along the original prompts. I have a critical lens which looks from the new of teachers, students, and educators. AI and other technologies have been taking over people’s jobs and affecting our lives, so how would AI affect education was my focus. The primary audience I have in mind was teachers, students and parents, but it’s not limited to them. Since education is a important part of everyone’s life, anyone could be a potential audience. The tone of my project is more sarcastic. Since AI couldn’t actually make emotional connections with people, so my attempt to use my own video for simulating AI responses is a stronger approve for this point.

• How did you balance research and experimentation? Which is easier for you? How can you focus more on the areas that you shy away from

For this project, research is a little bit hard for me, since I had a hard time narrowing down my project topic. The more research I did, the more pressure I was having, since there were too many good topics worth researching and dig into. After deciding my topic, the following research and experimentation is easier for me.