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Elizabeth Engelman

Daily Practice – Day 5 (2022-10-23)

As I finished reading Sunscreens and Photoaging: A Review of Current Literature, I was struct by how much jargon there is in not only this article, but also a lot of articles discussing skincare in general. It makes the decisions we make about what sunscreen is best for us, and the environment extremely difficult. This word cloud is representative of an idea to display all of the jargon, scientific and chemical words that a consumer has to wade through while making this choice. For this representation, I parsed the words from Sunscreens and Photoaging and spent a bit of time deciding a set of words to not include in the image – mostly removing common words that were not specific to sunscreen research. This process itself was pretty interesting. From the perspective of data integrity, this feels like cheating – I was manipulating the data which changed the outcome of the representation which leads into some questions I had with project 1 regarding scientific accuracy within art projects. Maybe this is okay, if the intention and process is clear to the audience?

I created a small ruby script to manipulate the data, that I’ll also include here:

Daily Practice – Day 4 (2022-10-22)

For today’s daily practice, I wanted to push myself to do something less digital. Something that has always perplexed and frustrated me about sunscreen is how imperfect it is. I have a family history of skin cancer, and have struggled with skin damage myself. It’s discouraging to drench myself in sunscreen and still get burned, so I was playing with that idea. In the last painting, I’m poking fun at that a bit by envisioning that the whole world of the character is covered in sunscreen, and they still get burned. How do we enjoy the outdoors without risking our health?

I’m also including a photo of myself at the beach this past summer because I find it amusing, and it was partially my inspiration for today’s practice. Completely covered by several layers of sunscreen, a long sleeve shirt, a hat, a towel, just to enjoy being outside.

Daily Practice – Day 2 (2022-10-20)

Today I began reading a journal article, Sunscreens and Photoaging: A Review of Current Literature, which touched a bit on the different wave lengths of light on the Electromagnetic Spectrum. I realized a few connections that this topic has to previous interested of mine in the past, which is kind of cool – it’s seem there is an underlying theme that I hadn’t realized.

  • Over the summer, I had a general idea of focusing some of my work on invisible forces, or things that effect our lives but can’t necessarily be seen or experienced in a tangible way. By focusing my research on sunscreen, I unintentionally am choosing to focus on screening another invisible force!
  • At my first job as a software engineer, the company’s name referenced infrared light, and the intention was to emulate a force that is strong but can’t necessarily be seen or felt. I loved this association, and here am I looking at light rays again!

From that article, I was really interested in getting to compare the wavelengths of rays that are visible vs ones that are not. And seeing which wavelengths are harmful vs ones that are helpful. It’s such a small difference in the length of a light ray that can change it into something really dangerous.

Updating to add some notes I took while reading the article and to provide some further explanation of the image above. The color spectrum + the gray on either sides is illustration the different wave types, in order of their wavelengths, from smallest to largest. The blue is sunscreen – I’ve been playing around with the idea of what it would be like if in the future, fashion evolved to valued brightly pigmented face makeup with sunscreen properties. I don’t think that this future is that far off, and am interested to dig more into that line of thought. And the pink circles are the skin, with different rays effecting different parts of the skin layers.

Daily Practice – Day 1 (2022-10-19)

I’ve recently decided to re-dedicate myself to a skincare routine, and as part of that research I found myself in a rabbit hole learning about sunscreen. As an avid sunscreen user, I was surprised to realize how little I know about how sunscreen. For this project, I’m planning to focus on sunscreen in general, and am aiming to find a critical view point as I continue my research. One thought to focus on is to investigate the different rating systems that are used to measure the ability of the sunscreen to block UVA rays. In the US, we generally just see SPF ratings on our sunscreen, which I believe is only measuring how effective the sunscreen is at blocking UVB rays, without any mention of UVA rays explicitly.

For my first day of making I drew some diagrams while I read an article about how sunscreen actually works. I’m planning to continue this sort of process this week of drawing diagrams or system diagrams based on research resources that I’m reading.

Source: https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-does-sunscreen-work-what-is-spf-and-can-i-still-tan-with-it-on-88869

Post-mortem Reflection

What did you learn? What was inspiring?

I haven’t studied biology in a long time, and I think I had forgotten how broad and complex a topic it is. One biological subtopic that I am now realizing I spent a lot of time thinking about during this project, without realizing I was doing it, was Taxonomy. My understanding of taxonomy is the idea of categorizing livings into species, genes, family, etc. And Wikipedia defines Taxonomy as “the scientific study of naming, defining (circumscribing) and classifying groups of biological organisms based on shared characteristics.”

With colonial organisms, for me this meant trying to determine what is a colonial organism and what is not a colonial organism. I found it quite difficult to answer this question definitively, which was frustrating and really confusing. I’m realizing now that I think I was taking taxonomy for granted, and just accepting it as an inherit truth. This is just how things are – animals are either colonial organisms or not. But through this research, and specifically in talking to Margaret Smith, I’m understanding a bit more deeply that biology, including taxonomy is a human construct. It is an area of study, and a framework that humans have put on natural phenomenon in order to understand it better. And as such, there’s a lot we don’t know and what we do know is changing either because we’re learning more, or because things are actually change through processes like evolution!

I feel like there is a very deep, existential idea in all of this that would be interesting to investigate further, but am struggling to put into words what it is. 

What feedback did you receive? Any reflections on critique itself? What might you do differently in terms of process or content?

A lot of the feedback that I received was focused on the user experience, and the ability for my audience to clearly understand the ideas I was trying to present. Once I had a general idea of what I wanted the visuals to look like, I ended up becoming absorbed in making it look how I wanted, and lost sight of foregrounding my message to some extent.

I think part of my getting so absorbed in the aesthetics stems from my own insecurities in my drawing abilities, in addition to originally choosing a form that was brand new (a popup book). I ran into a tension where I had an image in a my head that I wanted to create, and iterate on, but didn’t feel like I had the skills to implement that image. And so once I found a way to implement something that was close to what was in my head, it was exciting, and a bit difficult to pull myself away from. I wonder if the project would have been stronger overall, if I had spent less time on the visuals, and more time telling the story. One specific piece of feedback I got was to add some simple narration or text to the images to help explain what is going on. This is really helpful to reflect on, and to realize that though the visual representation is pretty close to what I was envisioning, this may not be how others interpret the work. Perhaps having a rough sketch with some well thought out text would have been a better representation of the ideas.

Another piece of feedback I received was to include a call to action. From a high level, if I’m saying that the diversity in individal functions in a colonial organism is good, what is the audience supposed to gain from this? From a process perspective, I wonder if it would have been helpful for me to have answered this question before I even started creating the visual images. As I went through the process, I am wondering if I was focused on what I was able to accomplish visually, and tailoring my message to something feasible. It would be interesting to instead try to focus on the message, audience, critical lens a bit more, even if the end result is visually not as polished.

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?

Since the topic was pretty unknown to me at first, I think that I spent a lot of my research time trying to understand what it was. I think I felt pressure to portray something with scientific accuracy, and felt overwhelmed about not being able to know everything about it. I think this is why I originally focused so much on trying to put “colonial organisms” in a box, and did find myself in a rabbit hole of taxonomy. At some point, I think I made the decision to focus on polymorphism because it felt understandable and I could kind of envision a way to explain that idea in metaphor. However, by making that decision I think I almost stopped exploring new things because I already decided that polymorphism was going to be the main focus. One one hand, with the time restrictions, that seems to make sense. But on the other hand, I feel like I may have almost skewed my research habits in order to find more evidence for my initial point of view. It would be cool with my next topic to allow for a bit more mental freedom in the beginning, and not form an opinion or focus quite so quickly. Maybe something more fleshed out and interesting could come from that approach.

I would also have loved to do some more exploration with physically making and my form. Like I mentioned above, I think that I was worried about my ability to create a popup book like I had envisioned. I again think that I experienced a bit of overwhelm about taking on another new, and complex thing, and didn’t spend as much time exploring and playing with the form, or the narrative style as I would have liked. I like how my project turned out, and I think that working in Figma was a great was to get my ideas out into the world, but, I wonder if in the future it would be helpful create a prototype in Figma, or on paper, earlier in the process.

I also realized later in the process that using a Figjam to gather ideas, research, resources, etc was a really good tool for brainstorming for me. I enjoyed being able to use a flexible, non-linear way to document my findings in a document where I could also create a diagram, or put a random picture or sticky note was really helpful. It feels like a way to capture organized chaos, which I very much identify with and am eager to try to use this technique for the next project.

Exploring the benefits of heterogeneous colonial organisms by looking at how they may handle a Zombie Apocalypse

The Research

When I first began to dig into the concept of colonial organisms, I was struck by the idea that an organism can either be made up of individuals that are genetic clones or each other, or  heterogenous individuals. In the heterogenous animals, I found that they could also be polymorphic, in that each individual would have a function or a job that the evolved to perform for the greater good of the colony. Some of the individuals would have evolved to find food, others would have evolved to protect the colony. I also came across an idea of Chimera Colonies, where colonies that may not be genetically identical conjoin to former a larger colony. There is some research that suggests that perhaps chimera colonies can grow larger, and live longer because of their diversity.

My aim is to create a guide that helps my audience understand a general concept that diversity in our environment is a good thing. In the specific case of colonial organisms, diversity leads to a longer lifespan. With Halloween coming up, and spooky things in mind, I inevitably made the connection between a heterogeneous colonial organism, and a humans living in a colony, trying to survive the Zombie Apocalypse. In my guide, the first scenario shows a human colony where all of the individuals are farmers, and do not end up not surviving a zombie attack. In the second scenario, this colony has individuals who are farmers, but also has protectors, builders, doctors, etc. This colony is able to survive long when the zombies attack.

The Form

A lot of the information I found about colony organisms was about aquatic organisms specifically, and for me, this conjures up images of moving particles deep in the ocean, crashing waves, motion. I wanted to bring some sort of motion into my guide. I also had hopes of creating an analog experience for my audience. Partially this was motivated by selfish reasons, because I spend so much time at a computer, and wanted to create something with my hands. But also, the ideas of jobs, occupations, survival feel like very tactile concepts, and it would be great to guide the audience to those ideas by allowing them to physically move something with their hands. This lead me to the idea of creating a pop-up book. Specifically I was interested in creating a book with sliding elements, to recreate the movements of organisms in water, or people running from zombies.

The creation of pop-up elements was a bit more technical than I realized from the start. I also realized that in order to pull off the atmospheric effect of a Zombie Apocalypse, the book would need a specific aesthetic. I decided to start this process by creating some designs in Figma, and realized that a clickable prototype may be a great way to explore my ideas quickly, and allow for faster iteration. This clickable prototype is where I ended up, and and feel like it can now be used as a framework for either a web site, or a pop-up book.

The Guide

Since the guide is currently a clickable prototype in Figma, you will need visit the Figma to explore more. However here are two screenshots of the two colonies that are represented in the prototype.

The References and Brainstorming Documents

Form Analysis/Brainstorming

My first thought was to tell a story focused on polymorphic colonial organisms, which are organisms that are made up of individuals units, or zooids that have different specialities. For example, zooids may be responsible for feeding, defense, navigation or reproduction. In order for the larger organism to survive, the individuals need to all exists, and work together. Another classification of colonial organisms are chimera colonies, which are many sub-colonies of closely-related, but not genetically identical. There are theories that the diversity in the chimera colonies has advantages in being more resilient to environmental threats.

I haven’t been sure about what metaphor to use, because a lot of my ideas have been pretty literal. I was thinking of presenting an organism with different jobs. And in this way, I was hoping that the form I chose to have some movement. My first thought was to create a guide that takes inspiration from Parable of the Polygons by Vi Hart and Nicky Case, and to create a website that allows the user to move components around the screen. But then I realized that I spent so much time in front a computer, and maybe it would be a useful exercise to create something more tangible, and less technical. During the summer session, I noticed that I sometimes struggled to be creative at my computer. Since I write code for work, it’s sometimes challenging to turn my analytical, work-focused brain off, and be creative when writing code.

When brainstorming about analog ways to tell a story of movement, I came to the idea of creating a pop up book. This seemed like a good way to show movement in a paper form. After doing a bit of preliminary research, I realized that this is also a very technical skill, that will require my analytical mind. But, it’s away from a screen, and doesn’t require my fingers to be on a keyboard, so I think that it may be a good choice for my own creativity.

Now I am thinking a bit more critically about the metaphor I want to use, and how a pop up book may enhance that narrative. To sum up the metaphor that I keep coming back to, in the style that Lakoff and Johnson use in Metaphors to Live By, it would be “diversity is good”. I also keep realizing that though my form and the specific narrative will be different, the over all theme and metaphor is very similar to Parable of the Polygons. I like the idea of using Hart and Case’s general premise, but doing it in a different form. I think that the pop up form will be a bit limiting, mostly because it is new to me, and I will likely not be able to tell such a full story due to time limitations and lack of skill. But, I think if I focus on reimagining this first interaction of Parable of the Polygons, I can still create an effective guide.

 

It would be interesting to show different elements (zooids?) that when they get closer together, they become “happy”, and when they’re further apart they are sad. Maybe something like this:

 

 

I wonder if this is too similar to Parable of the Polygons, and if there is something different I can do to bring the narrative a bit more closely tied to colonial organism, and biology, and kinship. Potentially, I could borrow the ideas I learned from Margaret about slime mold, and their potential self-sacrificing behavior.

I also wanted to add a couple images of my first pop up experiments. These were created by following the Duncan Birmingham’s first two tutorials in The Popup Channel on youtube.

Metaphors We Live By

  • Lakoff + Johnson give several examples throughout the text of linguistic metaphorical systems. Are there any you found odd, outdated, or different from metaphorical systems that you use, either personally or in your language, culture, or social sphere? For instance, do you speak about conversation as battle, or use orientational metaphors the same way the authors describe?

    One metaphorical saying that has never quite clicked in my brain is when someone says “shoot”, and they mean “go for it”, like Lakoff and Johnson mention, “You disagree? Okay, shoot!“. Though this is a pretty common phrase in English, and in my culture, my brain usually interprets the word “shoot” as a euphemism for “shit”.  So my first instinct is to understand the person as saying, “shit, you disagree with me”, rather than the intended meaning of, “okay, you disagree with me, let’s hear your argument”.
  • Can you identify a metaphorical system that you commonly use? What do you think is the motivating rationale (“experiential basis”) behind that system – or is there one? Have you ever intentionally (or unintentionally) changed the metaphorical system that you use to speak about a certain subject, to reflect a different experience or worldview? 

    This is so hard to identify! I usually don’t know when I speak in common metaphors and idioms until I’m speaking with someone who English isn’t their first language – because I recognize that English has a lot of idioms that don’t make much sense when taken literally. But trying to come up with something on my own is difficult!One system I have been able to identify is “north is up or straight ahead” and I think this is mostly because when looking at a map, North is usually oriented at the top. This has some cascading implications that “south is down or behind”, “west is left”, “east is right”. This obviously gets tricky, and becomes untrue when I am not in fact facing north. Furthermore, I realize that I internally think of specific places as being up, down, left or right from my current location, or possibly from where I grew up. For example, even if I were always facing north, when I think of “the west coast”, I often envision a place that is to my left. But, this is very dependent on where I am, and which “west coast” we’re talking about. The west coast of Ireland for example is actually to the east of me, and is “to the right”. So in this case west is not left.

  • What metaphors/systems of metaphor are commonly used when discussing your topic? If “the essence of a metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another” (5), what other kinds of metaphors might be useful for discussing your topic, or an aspect of your topic? 

    The term “colonial organism” itself could be part of a system of metaphors. It is using a human-centric idea of colonies and applying that to organisms as a way for humans to understand how they live and survive. But the organisms themselves likely don’t have any concept that their way of living, and being dependent on one another for life is “different” in any way. Scientists also seem to use the term “kin” or “kinship” when talking about microorganisms that are genetically similar, and use this metaphor to understand how the interact with organisms that are genetically different. This has become especially interesting to me since talking with Margaret about slime mold – she mentioned that science doesn’t know if the slime mold amoebas even “care” that their neighbors are kin or not. Based on their behavior of self-sacrificing in order for others to survive, it is unknown if this is done because they are competing with those that are different, of if they are just cooperating to that life can continue. Humans use a human-centric metaphor system when looking at anything that is not human as a way to understand their biology, behavior, relationships, etc. And though that metaphor system makes sense, since it is a way to compare, it is not always accurate.

 

Interview with Margaret Smith

Once I learned that Margaret has a degree in Evolutionary Biology, I knew that she would be a great person to talk about colonial organisms with! A couple of big picture ideas that came out of our conversation were:

  • Maybe nailing down exactly what a colonial organism is, or isn’t, doesn’t really matter. I was feeling the need to put this concept in a box, but maybe it’s okay if the idea of a colonial organism is a bit more fluid than that. After all, the term “colonial organism” and its classification is all based on decisions made by humans. The organisms themselves don’t necessarily care how they’re classified! Lots of organisms live in colonies, and are dependent on one another. And maybe that is the more important thread to pull at, over determining if a bee is a colonial organism or not.
  • On the other side of that coin though, it is very interesting to zoom out and consider if all earth itself, all living things are colonial in some way. For much of human existence, the species weren’t able to survive without other living things, or continue the species without each other. I’m now reflecting on how to some extent that is changing, with modern science we are able to generate food in a lab, have a child without a partner, etc. The colony of living things on this planet is certainly changing.
    • A couple other terms we touched on, that I’d love to do some additional research on are:
      • biome
      • superorganism
  • When Margaret worked in a lab, her focus was on dictyostelium discoideum, an amoeba known as slime mold. We specifically talked about several life cycles these amoeba, and spent some time looking at their social cycle. This is a cycle that the amoebas go through when they need food. They start out being individuals and aggregate, changing into several different shapes to eventually form a sort of fruit. When the fruit erupts, so to speak, it’s spores are transported to a place where there is hopefully food.

    Once piece that is particularly fascinating about this is that only the amoeba in the fruit survive this cycle. The rest die, and sort of sacrifice themselves so that the ones that are in the fruit can survive. In the lab, Margaret and her colleagues found that the fruit was not an equal split of the different genetic material in the aggregation. Are the amoebas that die sacrificing themselves for those that are more genetically similar? Is it cooperation or a competition?
  • Based on the above, it’s clear that the systems involved in how dictyostelium discoideum live, are complex. I also learned just how difficult it is to compare the life cycles of organisms to each other. At first, I thought that perhaps humans have more cycles than dictyostelium discoideum, since we are larger, more complex creatures. But Margaret questioned maybe humans have less cycles that  dictyostelium discoideum – we cannot reproduce asexually! It makes sense, but was still an interesting revelation to see how human-centric my thinking is.