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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.

Borders: Gardens

My initial explorations around borders and gardens started with some reflection. I love nature, trees, and forests, and never thought I would live — and love living — in a city as big as Chicago. Over the last couple of years I started my own urban garden on my back porch as a way to connect more to nature, as something to nurture and cultivate, as something to take my mind off of the pandemic, and for a variety of other reasons I’m sure. So it strikes me that gardening for me could be creating a border between different mental states, building a border between myself and the outside world… I also wonder about what constitutes the border or boundary between nature and gardening.

I then started research with Wikipedia. I learned that people have been gardening since ancient times and that gardens have served a variety of purposes. They are status symbols, sources of food, and expressions of art and philosophy. I learned that there are different ideals of what gardens should be that vary from culture to culture and across time periods.

I read an essay called Gardens as a Metaphor, by Clare Cooper Marcus, who talks about gardens from the context of creating myths and paradise myths. In many cultures, there is a creation myth in which order is created out of chaos in the form of a paradise garden. People have searched for this paradise garden on earth, and have claimed to have found it in many places. Early European and other Medieval mapmakers put paradise on maps of the known world, usually depicting them around the borders.

Marcus goes on to describe Tibetan Buddhism’s concept of Shambhala, a hidden oasis beyond the Himalayas, and searches to find Shambhala. There are many guidebooks that have been created to help people find Shambhala, which I definitely want to look into. Edwin Bernbaum concluded that Shambhala is not a place, but a state of mind, and that “we can read the guidebooks into Shambhala as instructions for taking an inner journey from the familiar world of surface consciousness to the hidden sanctuaries of the superconscious.”

Marcus theorizes that we are drawn to gardening because it unites the different hemispheres of our brain, and it “requires knowledge and intuition, science and nuturance, planning and faith.” Perhaps this theory points to gardening as something that lives at the border between different modes of being, different ways of seeing and operating in the world, an activity that can live in some sort of intersectionality.

And finally Marcus points to the idea that gardens are often set apart, held sacred, held dear. This definitely relates to the idea of borders.

I also read an essay called Nature is More Than A Garden by Ian L. Harg. It was not terribly informative, but illustrated Harg’s perspective that gardens present nature as orderly, benign, abundant, and peaceful, which is in contrast with some of the realities of nature untended by humans.

Things to research more

  • Tibetan guidebooks for Shambhala
  • T in O maps from the middle ages
  • Rain gardens
  • Victory gardens –> what would be a current form of victory garden?
  • Gardens as a tool in response to climate change
  • Gaia Hypothesis
  • Findhorn Community garden

Explore

  • Border bw nature and gardens, wilds and gardens
  • trees and gardens and borders
  • garden as collaboration bw humans and nature
  • gardens and the idea of home
  • “the known world” –> what is our version of the known world. and the unknown world?

Could make

  • T in O maps
  • Guide to Shambhala
  • Seed collection book, survivalist seedkit
  • garden quilt or a map as a quilt

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:

 

Post 1: Emergent Strategy

“I often feel I am trapped inside someone else’s imagination, and I must engage my own imagination in order to break free” (18)

  • Q: Have you felt trapped inside someone else’s imagination? How have you broken free?
  • A: I believe if you look at society as a larger system, we are all, at one point or another, trapped inside of someone else’s imagination. There are many ways to approach life, yet many of us have followed a similar set path or societal standards; school, college, work, marriage, and purchasing a home. So much of this “straight and narrow” approach to life was systemized through someone’s thoughts or imagination. In the media and mainstream America, standards of beauty, worthiness, and reward are bestowed upon us through one lens built from a collective imagination of those in the power of the narrative and to be given the designation of tastemakers. Much of this sentiment is outlined in the list of concepts from the reading. As I have gotten older and experienced some fallout from sticking so closely to the binary of  “right” and “wrong,” I took stock of what was important to me, not what was being projected by others and have attempted to approach my life with that compass. At the risk of sounding selfish, the lifestyle shifts from the pandemic provided a silver lining of fully leaning into remote work, the ability to live nomadically, and to apply and partake in this program 13 years after graduating from undergrad.
  • Q: What is a negative pattern that you see in a small way that reverberates outward that you could attempt to disrupt today?
  • A: This quote particularly resonated with me, “Transform yourself to transform the world.”—Grace Lee Boggs. While it feels like a drop in the bucket, my partner and I have recently started to introduce more plant-based food into our diet and routine to attempt to combat the environmental impacts of the meat/farming industry.

 

Skin: Fenestra

I started with the definition of “Fenestra” (Since it is my first time seeing this word):

From Collins English Dictionary:

  1. Biology: a small opening in or between bones, esp one of the openings between the middle and inner ears
  2. Zoology: a transparent marking or spot, as on the wings of moths
  3. Architecture: a window or window-like opening in the outside wall of a building

After searching for the definition, I was amazed that Fenestra could be associated with many disciplines.  The fact that it is a biological word at first but also has an architectural meaning truly attracts me.  I was curious about whether there is bionic architecture related to Fenestra and plan to do some research on it later.

Before diving in, I also went to the Wikipedia page and more pages related to it to learn more about the word itself, and here is some information that interests me:

  1.  It is the Latin word for “window.”
  2.  It is used in various fields to describe a pore in an anatomical structure.
  3. In microanatomy, fenestrae are found in the endothelium of fenestrated capillaries, enabling the rapid exchange of molecules between the blood and surrounding tissue.
  4. In plant biology, the perforations in a perforate leaf are also described as fenestrae, and the leaf is called a fenestrate leaf.
  5. Fenestrae are also used to distinguish the three types of amniote.

For now, I understand that Fenestra is mostly about describing a kind of structure. More disciplines and systems are mentioned, and this makes me think that exploring and introducing how much knowledge and infomations behind this world to the public would be exciting.

Two research directions appear :

  1. For The Future:  Dive deep into bionic architecture (or bionic itself) and check how Fenestra can be used in non-biologic way. Future possiblilities of this structure and how it can contributed to the society.
    1. Problems and questions:
      1. Who should be the audience/readers/users for this topic?
      2. Need a expert in this area to help since this is too technical.
      3. Is there enough infomation I can final under this time limitaion?
  2. From The Past:  For “Fenestra” is not a common word in daily life. I want to focus on the meaning of this word in different systems. Introducing this structure’s beauty to the public shows that there are always some common points in this changeable world.
    1. Problems and questions:
      1. Some people may feel unconfortable with this structure, like intensive phobia. How to recudce the discomfortableness?
      2. It is a technical term. How to shorten the distance between it and the public? How to make it easy to understand and attractive?
      3. It might be too much information for the public. How to control the balance?

 

The moth with a skull pattern: Both holes on bone and the transparent marking on the wings of the moth called Fenestra

Borders: DMZ

Notes from research so far
• DMZ is area where no military personnel, activities, or installments are allowed
• Usually the result of a treaty or agreement
• They can form a kind of border (example separation of North and South Korea) but don’t necessarily need to
• Space is a DMZ! So is Antarctica!
• There are currently thirteen DMZs on Earth and they are pretty spread out.
• A lot of DMZs become wildlife preserves or even just stay demilitarized
• There are fourteen former DMZs
• They can vary pretty dramatically in size from a few kilometers or less to massive (all of space)
• They are actually a subcategory of buffer zone which is a neutral zone between two+ bodies of land, and they are usually set up to avoid violence like in the case of a DMZ
• Demilitarization is the reduction of a country’s military forces usually through the reduction of soldiers or military equipment
• Demilitarization is often imposed after wars, particularly to the losing side, as a means of punishment and to prevent future violence
• There are usually towns or other gathering places within DMZs that become neutral zones
• Just because a region is marked as a DMZ does not necessarily mean that the border the DMZ creates is enforced. In the case of North/South Korean DMZ, there have been troop crossings and continued violence throughout the years especially during the initial years of the DMZ. This means that the DMZ is not totally effective in stopping violence or avoiding conflict.
• The most prominent DMZ is the Korean DMZ between North and South Korea
• DMZs are formed by verbal or written agreements. They are usually very detailed and outline how a DMZ should be fortified and watched. Sometimes there are even policing forces placed within or around the DMZ to ensure that both sides are abiding by the terms of their agreement.
• There is also a type of DMZ called a DMZ Network that works as a border between a private and public server. Basically, you use the DMZ Network to protect your private server from potentially untrustworthy public servers.