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Wentao Wang

Reading response – Metaphor

  • 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 Are there any you found odd, outdated, or different from metaphorical systems that you use, either personally or in your language, culture, or social sphere?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 example I found different from the metaphorical system I use is argument. To a certain extent, argument can be related to war, but in Chinese, the concept of argument emphasizes more on the idea of “exchange”. Winning is the goal of an argument, but the process is not the same as war. In a war, you kill people. The more powerful you are, more people you kill, and in the end, winning the war. But that not the same with argument. When you argue with others, you are exchanging thoughts and ideas, instead of killing ideas. You win an argument not by eliminating other’s ideas with power, but by convincing others to understand and agree with your point.

 

  • 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?

 

In Chinese, there is a type of phrase called “Chengyu”, a kind of idiom that all made up of four characters. Each of these idioms has an apparent meaning and a metaphoric meaning, which relates to a story in the history. As time passes, the meanings of some idioms are understood and used differently from its origin. For example, there is a phrase “kong xue lai feng” (空穴来风), the apparent meaning is “wind blowing from an empty cave”. Its original metaphorical explanation is that for wind to blow through, there needs to be a cave or a hole, meaning that there needs to be reasons for rumors to get spread. In nowadays, this idiom is used in a different way, meaning information that has no basis, since the wind is coming from an “empty” cave. in this idiom, information is compared with wind, they both flow from place to place. However, our understanding of this idiom changes. Before people believed that there is always a reason for information to be passed on. But nowadays, with internet and social media, too much information is transferred every day, too much information coming from nowhere. Under this situation, people started to change the use and understanding of this idiom.

 

  • 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?

 

I would use the metaphor “planation is colony” to discuss my topic. In fact, colony is a actual metaphoric meaning of planation in the dictionary. I think the word colony is a good representation of plantation, they have a lot in common. In a colony, people occupy an area of land that are not owned by them; while in planation, people occupy a land that originally belongs to other animals and living things. People gain profit in a colony by gathering things and resources; in planation, people also gain profits by harvesting fruits from the cash crops. I think that’s a useful metaphor for describing planation.

Reading response – space

The three pieces of reading inspired me of thinking space differently. In Yoko Akama’s article, I like the part when she discussed the idea of kokoro, and talked about how Japanese traditions, spiritual and religious thinking are incorporated in the design. It reminds me of the yoga topic, in which the notion of space is more about spiritual, non-material power. We often think about the physical space in the outside world, but when we go deeper into our heart, into our kokoro, as mentioned in the article, there are endless space for us to explore. The physical space might be limited by material, but the space in our mind, in our heart, in our imagination is not restrained by anything. And I think that’s the larger space for us to explore compared to the physical world.

That leads to the article of The Poetics of Space. In this article, the author mainly talked about the space of a room. By adding significance and meanings to the limited space in a room, the non-material space of the room is widely expanded. Connecting back to my own topic, plantation, for now I’m merely focusing on all the physical aspects that relate to space. For example, the land used to establish plantation; how plantations occupy of other living things spaces, in other words, their habitat; or from the world market view of how plantations influence the connections within the world. I haven’t think much about how people’s perspectives would connect the idea of plantation and space. I might be able to find more lead in this aspect.

Systems mapping – plantation

This is the concept map I made for the topic plantation.

This is a casual loop map.

This is a borderline map.

When I’m making the concept map based on my researches, I started to think in a more systematic way, especially inside each branches. Every branch forms a smaller system, and when thinking about the connections between each nodes, it became easier for me to find missing pieces in the system. If there was something I missed, the system would not be complete, driving me to do more research to fill up the gap. What’s more, my mind become clearer. Last time, my thought was mostly driven by the research results. I took down what I gathered from my researches and put them there. Now that I’m looking at the topic in a more systematic way, the processes of finding the connections in the system, completing the systems provide me with directions and smaller topics for me to research on.

System Thinking

  • 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 think I’m more aligned with system 1: A system of scientists doing research; system 6: A system of global food supply and demand; and system 7: A system of potential threats to human health and well-being. I’ve learned about GMOs during high school and college, I’ve even conducted scientific research and experiments on GMOs. I understand that to scientists, GMOs are their research projects, aiming to gain more knowledge of GMOs and create better gene-modified plants. And I believe one of the greater goals for creating better crops lies in system 6, producing more and better food for people in this world. Although the main cause of hunger and poverty is the unequal redistribution of resources, but increasing food production is also important. However I also picked a opposing system, system 7, because I think gene-modified crops is not a fully developed technology, we haven’t understand everything about gene and its modification, thus there are still potential risks in GMOs.

 

  • 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 several systems that could be taken into consideration about “plantation”.

  1. The local economic system.

This system includes the landowner, the workers in the plantation, the workers family, local villagers, etc. The owner of the plantation pays money to hire workers to take care of the plantation. The workers earn money for themselves and families. After they have money, the workers and their families would buy things, benefiting more people in the village, increasing local economy.

  1. The world market system.

One key feature of plantations is that they only grow one kind of crops in order to increase the efficiency of the production. Each country or region has a particular type of plantation. So in order for us to get different foods and crops, countries trade for different kinds of crops in the world market. There are sellers who sell crops they grew in their plantations. And there are also sellers who want certain types of crops. The sellers can also be the buyers.

  1. The economic system

Plantations are all artificial, meaning that the area of plantation was not naturally that way. Manmade plantations cause changes to the original environment and ecosystems. For example, some native species might not able to survive in artificial plantations; the original animal habitats would be destroyed; animals and plants would die, decreasing the biodiversity.

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.

Space: Plantation

Here is a mind map I made based on the general research on the topic of plantation.

For the topic of plantation, there are two main aspects that are worth digging into: economic and ecological impact. These two aspects contains more detailed topics, for example:

  • slave economy (past and present)
  • world market influences
  • local economy influences
  • biodiversity
  • habitat
  • genetically altered crops

There are other topics that drove my attention when I was researching, for instance, why different crops are planted in different countries/regions; technology applications in modern plantation industry; the history of plantation, etc.

upsides:

  • produce cash crops
  • make money
  • grow crops efficiently
  • create jobs for local people
  • a key component in the world market
  • if planted on degraded lands, it can help increase biodiversity and habitat

downsides:

  • low wages for the workers
  • increase inequality
  • decrease biodiversity and habitat

cultural differences: 

  • different crops:
    • China: bamboo
    • Far East: teak
    • Australia: eucalyptus
    • Caribbean: Sugar-cane
    • America: Christmas trees
  • different historical background (colonialism and slavery):
    • America
    • Europ
    • Afica
    • Asia

problems:

  • worker’s condition
  • environmental damage

norms: 

  • forest plantation management

experimental making: