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September 2022

Systems Thinking and Gardens

  • Which system (type of stakeholder) that Easterbrook identified did you find your own understanding of GMOs most aligned with? Why? What are some of the stakes of these stakeholders?

 
I embarrassingly have to admit that my understanding of GMO’s is limited at best, as it’s not something I’ve spent much time thinking about. If I were to choose though, I would find myself in a mix of systems 2, 7, and 8. I certainly have concerns about engineering more food, largely centering on what the effects will be on the environment, and how healthy these foods will be for humans/animals. Will the costs to the environment be significant? Will the benefits for humans be significant? Will benefits outweigh costs? I am skeptical. I also acknowledge that I don’t know much about this issue, and that I don’t feel great about passing judgement on this issue. This feeling pushes me towards the second system, hoping more than believing that someone more educated on this than myself is overseeing such projects. This is probably a naive thought.

  • Using your own topic for research, can you Identify 3 stakeholders (groups or phenomenon) with different perspectives, and then describe the system (the stakes) from which they are operating? For instance, if the subject is “Safari Parks”, 3 stakeholders could be (1) Animal Rights activists, (2) the region’s Board of Tourism, and (3) the local land itself. The first operates in a system of ethics around the treatment of animals; the second in a networked system of economic benefits for the community (hotels, food, and attractions), and the third, in an ecosystem that the safari park may put at risk, by introducing pollutants from animal waste and fertilizer, and ecological competitors such as escaped non-indigenous plant products used in the landscaping of the Safari Park.

 
There are lots of different kinds of gardens, each with vastly different stakeholders. There are public gardens in parks, suburban home gardens, rural food/kitchen gardens, private gardens, and more. For this question, I will write about suburban home gardens.
Three stakeholders could include
– Homeowners
– Environmentalists
– Lawn care companies
Homeowners operate in a system in which investing in the garden improves the quality of their home and environment either financially, emotionally, or in comparison to their neighbors. Some homeowners with gardens maintain them out of love for gardening, others do it out of obligation or a need to keep up appearances in front of their neighbors, and some (probably far fewer) do it to supplement their food supply. These homeowners end up investing considerable time, money, and other resources into garden maintenance. The reward they get from it varies — some spend lots of time in the garden, some see the value of their homes/neighborhoods increase because of the gardens, etc.
– Environmentalists operate in a system in which gardens are a significant use of resources (like water) for relatively little payoff. Because most gardens are full of ornamental non-plants, they can frequently disrupt the ecosystem. Combined with the amount of water it takes to maintain a garden and the frequent use of fertilizers, some environmentalists would propose different kinds of gardens than those which are frequently seen: rock gardens, native plants gardens, etc.
– Lawn care companies operate in a system of seeing gardening as an economic opportunity. Because gardens are popular and require a lot of work and we live in a capitalist society, there are many people who can’t or won’t take care of their own gardens. Therefore companies are happy to step in and provide the labor required.

Interview Questions About Cosmetics and Skin

Q1：What is the application of skin model in cosmetic efficacy evaluation? What are the pros and cons of current skin mods? What are your expectations and suggestions for its future development?

 

Q2：What do you think of the future development trend of such functional cosmetics such as moisturizing cosmetics, whitening cosmetics, anti-aging skin care products, etc.?

 

Q3： What do you think is the biggest connection between cosmetics and the field of dermatology?

 

Q4： Do you think the development of cosmetics in recent years has given impetus to the field of dermatology?

Topic 1 development: Kinship | Grafting

Kinship

1. Anthropological: Study Socialization of human 

Affinity / Consanguinity ; Family / marriage; Fictive kinship

Entity (border definition): cultural / Ontological origin / historical / social connections and shared characteristics (same-sex parenting / religious / godparents )

Biology: Coefficient relationship/consanguinity or genealogy.
“consanguinity basis for kinship ties is not universal across cultures， it may be a culturally specific symbol of kinship only in particular cultures”

2. Kinship across species/ Primates
domestication & loving kinship with other species
anthropocentric, anthropomorphic perspective of kinships

Human exceptionalism: “What we see in other species, then, becomes a reflection not of their own ways of being in the world per se, but rather a claim to human exceptionalism.” (Riggs, Damien W., and Elizabeth Peel. Critical Kinship Studies: An Introduction to the Field, 2016. )

3. Post-humanist kinship VS western human kinship

Grafting (Science and technology)

Definition by Wikipedia, “graft” or “grafting” may refer to definitions within different contexts. The word may refer to 1. a form of political corruption 2. clinical term of a surgical procedure 3. A process to improve decision trees commonly used in computer science 4. A horticultural technique, etc.

My research is mainly oriented toward its definition’s horticultural and botanical side.

Board aspect: Grafting (inosculation) is the joining of plant tissues

– Tissues of plants are joined so as to continue their growth together.

Natural & Artificial 

  • natural grafting: roots/branches of the same species will sometimes naturally graft
    Advantageous: fire resistance / regeneration / protect from wind damages
    Problems: plant parasitism/transmission of pathogens
  • artificial grafting
    Advantageous: disease-resistant / domesticate plants
    commonly used in asexual propagation of commercially grown plants

Graft chimera
“Such a plant can produce flowers and foliage of both plants as well as shoots intermediate between the two.” ( +Laburnocytisus ‘Adamii’)
– Grafting can potentially make a new species, a form of natural genetic engineering.

domestication of plants
To achieve desired quality (long-live, harvest, etc )

(Some of the examples that I found from Wikipedia)
“By 500 BCE grafting was well established and practiced in the region as the Mishna describes grafting as a commonplace technique used to grow grapevines.[24]” – Fertile Crescent history

“Evidence for grafting in China is found in Jia Sixie’s 6th century CE agricultural treatise Qimin Yaoshu ” – China 2000 BC

“influx of foreign ornamentals to decorate these gardens, grafting was used much during this period.” – Arabic regions

“French Wine Pandemic”, a grafting history of American and French grapevine

progress

Going into branches of these two keywords, I found the concept of “domestication” appears in both and may further lead the research.
– “Domestication of animals” and building kinship with other species
– “Domestication of plants” to achieve better qualities for human usage

 

 

 

 

 

class1：Space and yoga

When I first saw my title “space”, I thought of broad space, such as blue sky, white clouds, sea and universe. Then I went to Wikipedia.” Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction.[1] In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless four-dimensional continuum known as spacetime.” Wikipedia systematically popularizes the concept of space mainly from the physical level. Of course, it also mentions the concept of space in psychology. I think that space can be divided into two types: external, physical space and internal, psychological space. The next topic I want to discuss in detail is yoga, which is a kind of movement combining external and internal space.

connection

At first, I was very confused about the relationship between yoga and space. Later, I went to make an in-depth investigation and found that modern yoga actually originated from a religion with a history of more than 5000 years. The overall philosophy of yoga is about connecting the mind, body, and spirit, creating a space within the body by stretching and lengthening body parts

practice

I have followed the tutorial on YouTube for several sections, and I really have a very obvious feeling. I feel my muscles expand. In the process of exercise, I breathe in and out rhythmically, then empty my brain and close my eyes to feel that the whole world is open, but the space I am in has not changed.

Follow up

The feeling that Yoga brings to me is very unique, which is difficult to express in words. I was wondering whether it could be presented visually, or even in some interactive form.

I have drawn a demo.

Topic 1 Development: Borders | Canals

Definition of a Canal:

A canal is a human-made waterway that allows boats and ships to pass from one body of water to another. Canals are also used to transport water for irrigation and other human uses. While the advent of more efficient forms of transportation has reduced the need for canals, they still play a vital role as conduits for transportation and fostering global commerce.  – NOAA

What characteristics make a Canal a Canal?:

One of the first notable points I found from my initial research was the distinction between Canals and Channels. The biggest point is man-made (Canals) vs. natural(Channels).

This led me to research the use of Canals. As a man-made entity, there is a use or a need that these waterways are built to fulfill.

According to further research Wikipedia lists, that “Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flow under atmospheric pressure, and can be thought of as artificial rivers.”

The main uses of a canal are drainage for safety, landscape protection, and transportation of people and goods. How do these topics connect to Borders?

Borders & Connectors:

Photo from my trip in 2017

Reading more on the topic, I was reminded of my trip to Colorado and stopping at the Continental Divide on my drive between Denver and Aspen. The Continental Divide runs from the Bering Strait down the Americas to the Strait of Magellan in southern Chile. This Divide separates the watersheds that drain into the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Oceans, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea.

This creates boundaries in multiple countries and territories, including National Parks like Glacier National Park and, most notably, the Panama Canal.

 

 

 

The Panama Canal – Trade: 

Map/Drawing from Britanica

Finished in 1914, the most notable canal in the Americas is the Panama Canal. It connects North and South America, the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and is the lowest point of the Continental Divide.

Most notably used for international trade, cargo ships can pass in either direction, with the most Trade between the east coast of the United States and East Asia dominating international canal traffic. (Britanica)

 

 

 

 

 

Amsterdam Canals – Defense & Protection:

The other area of research surrounds the idea of protection and safety.

The city was founded around 1250 with the building of the Dam that gave it its name. ‘Aeme Stelle Redamme’ is Medieval Dutch for: ‘Dam in a Watery Area.’ The first canals were dug for water management and defense. As the city expanded in the Middle Ages, successive defense moats ended up inside the walls and lost their function. But they acquired an important new one: local transport of merchandise. (https://www.amsterdam.info/canals/)

 

 

Further Exploration of Canals, Usage, Relation to Borders:

  • Transportation – People & Commerce
  • Protection – Defense & Climate
  • Fishing/Food Sources

 

 

Emergent Strategy

Q: In your view, what is a function of humans in the universe?
A: In my opinion, one unique thing about human is that human can discover different functions or values of all the things in the world. Before human, stones were just stones, fire was a natural disaster, minerals and fossil fuels buried under the ground. But human could make use of them, giving them values and different functions, in other words, making new connections. The neurons in our brain make connections, the more connections between neurons, the more powerful and complex our brain would be. I think the presence of human creates more connections in our world, activating more potentials.

Q: Do artists, designers, and technology have that same or similar responsibility? What are the nuances between those roles?
A: I think artists have that similar responsibility. Similar with authors, other than physical tools and materials, there is nothing that limits an artist from creating. You don’t need to obey the laws of physics, you can create any thing you imagine, that’s the privilege of an artist. So it is their responsibility to utilizing that privilege to spark the imagination of their audiences. Designers are a little different. They don’t have the total freedom of creating anything in their imagination. I think their responsibility is to connect the imaginary world with the real world. And technology is both the means and ends to that connection.

Q: Do you find any of these principles more difficult to achieve than others in your own creative practice? How?
A: There are several principles that I find a little more difficult to achieve. For the principle “trust the people”, we were often taught to be skeptical, to have our own thoughts, to think critically. So when coming across new ideas from others, it’s natural for me to doubt it in the first place. Is the information source reliable? Is this person qualified to make this statement? Are we communicating within the same context? Am I interpreting this idea correctly? So when talking about trust, it takes effort for me to achieve it, not only for trusting others, but also trusting my own judgment.
The principle “less prep, more presence” is also a bit counter-intuitive. When doing research or other projects, I often found myself doing a ton of preparation before actual getting my hands on. I tried to cover all the aspects I could think of, being afraid of missing anything important. So I guess this principle might be a good advice for me for my later works.

Initial Research & Experimental Making: Skin / Puppets

Skin / Puppets

 

To Begin:

My first thought and question when I see the assigned word “Puppets,” is whether I should go the literal route to learn about 1.) the actual puppets or 2.) the famous idiom puppet is used cross-culturally;  the installed political leaders or government with no legitimacy in itself. I thought I would give it a shot to understand the basics and origin of the art of puppetry first.

 

Basic Research:

When I first started my research in English, I was learning about how the origin of puppets goes as far as the 5th century BC in Ancient Greece. In fact, the famous philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) discusses puppets in his work On the Motion of Animals in detail.

However, almost every ancient civilisation have their own version of puppetry. Aside from the two simple ones: finger puppets and hand puppets, are still very popular in contemporary societies. Here’s a list of different famous puppetries from different regions:

 

Marionette (string puppet) – suspended and controlled by a number of strings
Rod Puppet (Marotte) – central rod secured to the head
Shadow puppet (Motekar) – cut-out figure held between a source of light and a translucent screen
Bunraku puppets – Japanese wood-carved puppet
ventriloquist’s dummy – a stagecraft that creates an illusion that the puppet is alive
carnival/body puppets – large puppets used in spectacle or parade
black light puppet – stage puppet using only ultraviolet lighting, influenced by Bunraku puppetry
Cantastoria – a whole stage production of storytelling using puppets, illustration, and other visuals
Human-arm puppet – similar to a hand puppet but larger
Light curtain puppet – use light to highlight a small portion so manipulators remain invisible
Tabletop puppet – operated by rod, influenced by Bunraku
Ticklebug – hand puppet with four legs, features are drawn on the actual hand
Object puppet – made using found items
Supermarionation – invented by Gerry Anderson for tv shows, marionettes with electronically moving mouths
Water puppet – Vietnamese puppet form from the 10th century. Built out of wood and performed in a pool
Rajasthani Puppet – Pained wooden puppet with huge expressive eyes in Indian culture

 

Out of all the different puppets, Shadow Puppet speaks to me the most, as it was what I grew up culturally familiar with as a Taiwanese. In fact, in Mandarin, it’s called “皮影戲”, which is directly translated into English as “Skin, Shadow, Theater.” While it varies by region, many shadow puppets are traditionally made with animal skin.

After reading about the art of puppetry, I decided to take a look at the word puppet as idioms and cultural expression. Unsurprisingly, there are a lot of interesting topics that I can dive into, such as famous puppet states, and regimes throughout history (e.g. Vidkun Quisling, Zhou Yi, the Khedivate of Egypt), and the term “sock puppet” to describe fake accounts online used to spread political disinformation.

 

After the initial research, I think I don’t have to choose to go either way but include both. My topic will cover both the artistry of puppetry as well as the cultural meaning of the term in today’s society. My topic statement will likely be something like, how Puppetery went from tool humans use to tell stories of our society to an idiom that people use in life when they see a real-life representation of a puppet-like situation.

 


Digital Painting is done by DALL.E 2 AI using the prompt “Puppets became the puppeteers and taking over the stage.”

Emergent Strategy Response

Principles

Q: Do you find any of these principles more difficult to achieve than others in your own creative practice? How?

I find many of the principles difficult to achieve or maintain. For example, I don’t do very well with change, even though I agree, that change is constant, and to the extreme, Change IS god. I am not very good at adapting to a new environment, and often time, before I noticed, everyone around me had already become friends but me. Thus, when I am finally used to something, it hurts a lot to lose it. I think I’ve accepted Change is constant, but it is still difficult.

However, in terms of my own creative practice, I find “There is always enough time for the right work” to be the most challenging principle out of all. I spent the last 3 years in an MFA painting program, where you meet with two advisors bi-weekly to talk about your works. Where curators and gallerists come into studios to judge and find something that they can make use of. I always felt behind, as I was a slow painter. I learned to adapt to the speed, and told myself MFA was all for exploration, I can take as much time as I want when I’m out of the program. I graduated from the program more than a year ago now, and I’ve stopped painting completely, as I don’t remember how to get back my patience, the natural way that I used to paint. When I paint now, I always lost patience within a week, and so my work became gimmicky and fast. I feel conflicted, as they are now more contemporary, but is this really who I am, or had I become a product of an MFA factory?

 

Elements

Q: Without overthinking it: which of these elements brown describes most immediately feels evident as part of your creative work, and how? 

I found “fractal” and “interdependence and decentralization” the two elements that feel more like part of my existing creative work. In my own practice, I focus on my response to little things that happened around me. Trivial things that happen in corners of our society that I believe are foreshadowing the future of our society as a whole. As a first-generation Asian immigrant in this country, I also find the idea of “who we are and how we share” a constant question I try to answer in my own creative work. I’m well aware of my difference from the existing Asian-American community in the country, but also aware of others’ profiling and expectations of me for being an obvious female Asian. I don’t want to overwhelm people or annoy people with my work, but at the same time I want my work to influence the people who see it, so I’m constantly looking for angles in presenting things.

Emergent Strategy Response

Principles

Do you find any of these principles more difficult to achieve than others in your own creative practice? How?

Out of all the principles that Brown uses in her study of emergent strategy, the principle that I personally think is most difficult to achieve is “Less prep, more presence.” I think that this phrase is a reminder that sharing our work is equal, if not more, important than doing the work itself. Without sharing our work, we do not receive the feedback we need change and grow. Oftentimes, I feel that I spend too much time preparing a creative project, rather than showing it to my peers and to the world. I think that it is caused by fear of judgement. Overcoming that fear is the stepping stone to producing work that is personal and meaningful.

General

How would you define emergence? What is its opposite?

According to the Oxford Language, the word “emergence” is defined as the process of coming into view or becoming exposed after being concealed. In the context of the reading, “emergence” is the phenomenon where behaviors are formed when parts of a system interact—behaviors that they would not otherwise do alone. For example, at a biological level, water is formed when oxygen and hydrogen atoms interact. Then puddles, pools, rivers, and oceans can be formed when water molecules interact. This thinking could also be applied at a social level also, where humans can come together and find a common purpose to create a community and accomplish things they could not do alone. I think the opposite of “emergence” would be

Skin: Bark

When I first think of the word “skin”, I think of human skin, and how vital skin is to our survival. According to the Stanford Children’s Health website, skin serves as a protective shield against heat, light, injury, and infection for the human body. It regulates body temperature, stores fat and water, prevents water loss, and acts as barrier between us and the environment. When I think of the word “bark”, and how it relates to “skin”, I think how bark is the skin of trees, and how it is as equally vital to their survival. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s website, the tree’s outer bark is its protection from the outside world. Similar to how human skin heals and regenerates, bark continually renewed from within and prevents moisture from escaping in dry air.

Comparing human skin and tree bark makes one reflect on how humans and tree are both organisms on this earth how nature has evolved us to use similar methods for survival. Both of our species has a place on this planet, so it is important for us to recognize the importance of deforestation and how it effects our ecosystem.

Layers of human skin

The epidermis is the thin outer layer of the skin. It consists of 3 types of cells:

  • Squamous cells. The outermost layer is continuously shed is called the stratum corneum.
  • Basal cells. Basal cells are found just under the squamous cells, at the base of the epidermis.
  • Melanocytes. Melanocytes are also found at the base of the epidermis and make melanin. This gives the skin its color.

The dermis is the middle layer of the skin. The dermis contains the following:

  • Blood vessels
  • Lymph vessels
  • Hair follicles
  • Sweat glands
  • Collagen bundles
  • Fibroblasts
  • Nerves
  • Sebaceous glands

The dermis is held together by a protein called collagen. This layergives skin flexibility and strength. The dermis also contains pain and touch receptors.

The subcutaneous fat layer is the deepest layer of skin. It consists of a network of collagen and fat cells. It helps conserve the body’s heat and protects the body from injury by acting as a shock absorber.

Layers of tree bark

The outer bark is the tree’s protection from the outside world. Continually renewed from within, it helps keep out moisture in the rain, and prevents the tree from losing moisture when the air is dry. It insulates against cold and heat and wards off insect enemies.

The inner bark, or “phloem”, is pipeline through which food is passed to the rest of the tree. It lives for only a short time, then dies and turns to cork to become part of the protective outer bark.

The cambium cell layer is the growing part of the trunk. It annually produces new bark and new wood in response to hormones that pass down through the phloem with food from the leaves. These hormones, called “auxins”, stimulate growth in cells. Auxins are produced by leaf buds at the ends of branches as soon as they start growing in spring.

Sapwood is the tree’s pipeline for water moving up to the leaves. Sapwood is new wood. As newer rings of sapwood are laid down, inner cells lose their vitality and turn to heartwood.

Heartwood is the central, supporting pillar of the tree. Although dead, it will not decay or lose strength while the outer layers are intact. A composite of hollow, needlelike cellulose fibers bound together by a chemical glue called lignin, it is in many ways as strong as steel. A piece 12” long and 1” by 2” in cross section set vertically can support a weight of twenty tons!

Experimental making

I juxtaposed two close-up images of a tree and human to show the similarities of the patterns are created on both tree and human skin.