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Emergent Strategy

Prompt 1: In your view, what is a function of humans in the universe?

I think the core function of humans is to create. Through creation we are able to build and experience. We collaborate and expand. Creating brings us together and allows us to express our individuality and perhaps, if we’re lucky, to leave a lasting mark that can tell future generations and species that we existed.

Prompt 2: How would you define emergence? What is its opposite?

I would define emergence as collaboration. It is a process that requires the individual to work with others around them bringing a mindset of “let’s solve this together, slowly”. It very much involved individuals working together is a cohesive and seamless manner to achieve a desired outcome. One example cited in the reading is the migration of birds. If they are grouped too closely together, they cannot move efficiently. If they are grouped too far apart, they cannot gain the benefits of streamlining, etc. So all of the bird need to collaborate in order to achieve the outcome of migration.

I would say it’s opposite is isolation. When we silo ourselves and focus on individual output rather than collaboration we are unable to get more out of the system than we put in. When there is the absence of collaboration, individuals don’t reap the benefits of their communities.

Emergent Strategy

  • Q: Have you felt trapped inside of someone else’s imagination? How have you broken free?

Yes, I think I’ve been trapped inside my parents’ imagination for at least ten years. It forces me to be an “ideal daughter” who should have a high GPA, choose a good person with a high salary to be my husband after graduation, and put others’ thoughts and emotions in a higher priority.  I do not “break” free. I just build up my own imagination of who I am by asking myself: what do you want to hear from your friends and families about yourself at your funeral? When my parents found that I could live happily within my imagination, their imagination became the same as mine.

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

For me, “Move at the speed of trust” is the most difficult one to achieve. Under the definition of the speed of trust, speed goes up when trust goes up in a “relationship.” However, a “relationship” is not a one-sided thing. Usually, I can trust my partner/teammate, but they cannot trust me easily. It’s hard for me to gain others’ trust. What’s more, I am easily inferior, so trusting myself is also difficult for me. As a result, the relationship of trust cannot build up quickly, and the speed of trust doesn’t show up in the end.

Emergent Strategy

Introduction 

“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?
  • I have often felt this way growing up. I had felt as though the person that my parents have in their imagination of me, I had to strive to be. I always had to do beyond what was expected of me and nothing else. I often had gotten frustrated because, although I did want to do really well, the pressure became overwhelming. The way I had broken free from that imagination was to have deep conversations with my parents. The process is still ongoing but has improved greatly.

General Questions 

  • Q: Do artists, designers, and technology have that same or similar responsibility? What are the nuances between those roles?

Artists, designers, and technology do have a similar responsibility. Their responsibility is to create things that will impact future generations. Artists all try to create pieces that will be viewed as a start to a new era in art, whether it be digitally or physically. Designers are the same, fashion is constant and many are trying to create a piece that will stand out to make a new type of style in fashion. Technology is constantly updating to meet and surpass the expectations and reality of many. Each roll will continue to impact future generations.

Skin: Taxidermy

Every organism has a “skin”. Most have skin that we can see, touch, or even taste. The idea of “stuffing” the skin of an organism to preserve it is called Taxidermy. Taxidermy by Merriam-webster.com is, “the art of preparing, stuffing, and mounting the skins of animals and especially vertebrates”. Taxidermy dates back to the Egyptians according to “bonesandbugs.com”, “In ancient Egypt, taxidermy was not used as a means to put animals on display, but rather, to preserve animals that were pets or were beloved by pharaohs and other nobility. They developed the first type of preservation of animals through the use of embalming tools, spices, injections, and oils.” Taxidermy evolved from something that was noble to everyday practice. Many museums today, use taxidermy to show animals. Taxidermy is also used by many animal owners who wish to preserve their precious animals.

Since taxidermy is a bit odd for many people, there has been a backlash against it. According to “adventure.howstuffworks.com”, the downside of taxidermy is that people think of it as a way to boast about hunting an animal. Also the risk of getting “Chronic Waste Disease (CWD), which is in the same family as the human disease Creutsfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD)”. Humans have not been contaminated with the disease, but can be spread throughout the area, possibly to other animals.

 

Taxidermy Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster

The History of Taxidermy – Kodiak Bones and Bugs Taxidermy

Introduction to Taxidermy | HowStuffWorks

kinship & quilting

At the beginning of my research, I found the basic meaning of quilting from wikipedia, “Quilting is the term given to the process of joining a minimum of three layers of fabric together either through stitching manually using a needle and thread, or mechanically with a sewing machine or specialised longarm quilting system.” It basically stitches different fabrics together for decoration or increase thickness. The use of quilting could be found in a variety of textile products that includes “bed coverings, home furnishings, garments and costumes, wall hangings, artistic objects and cultural artefacts.”  

Historically, quilting could be the early format of upcycling because it use of remnants and offcuts for the creation of new products.

Originally, the word “quilt” is associated with the Latin word culctia which means cushion. The term is firstly used in England in the 13th century. However, this technique of quilting has long history that can be traced back to the ancient Egyptian first dynasty. 

Quilting could represent different meanings and roles in different culture. For example, From the book Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt, enslaved people used quilts as a means to share secret messages in order to escape slavery. For Native American, they learned quilting and use star quilts to replace buffalo robes which were used in births, marriages and ceremonies. 

Relationship between kinship and quilting:

From my basic research, quilting played an important role in some country’s society. It is a good way to maintain relationship between friends, family and community. For example, in Pakistan and India, Friends and relatives gather to make a ralli for a dowry quilt. Community helps to stitch different layers of cloth. 

Moreover, in the history, quilting also reflect women’s “voices” which cultural studies has overlooked. According to the quilts women made, they don’t only tied family and friends together, but also show female’s social value. Quilts became presentations which showed women’s concerns, vision and aesthetics. 

Problem:

For the future research, I am concerned the connection between quilting with poverty, female and society.  For the reason, historically, quilting is the method to connect leftover material, and in Chinese background about poor family, women always take the role to stitch different cloths together for the family. Therefore, what is the function of quilting and what does it means to women in a poor family?

Related words: Patchwork, quilters, quilt, textiles

Quilting in different country:

China:

Africa:

Native American:

experimental making:

I tried to simulate quilting by using some image textures as the leftover material. Then i do some operation to these fabrics(cutting, sewing, patching) for making different designs of patterns.

Related article reference:

Beeman, L. L. (2003). Connecting Centuries, Countries, and Cultures: Quilting and Patchwork in South Asia. Piecework, 11(6), 61–65.

Colleen R. Hall-Patton. (2008). Quilts and everyday life. Emerald Group Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0163-2396(08)31008-4

Emergent Strategy Responses

Principles

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

When I went through the principles of Emergent strategy, I agreed with most of them, but just found two of them difficult to achieve. The first one is “Small is good, small is all.” I believe that small is good and a great work is composed of many small pieces. However, it is also necessary to have a comprehensive understanding of the work or project. And there are rules which might be visible or not, or that manage and integrate all the small ones. 

The second one is “Less prep, more presence.”  This is definitely true for experts who master the skills with rich experiences. Too much preparation might restrain creativity. Being at present can enable the subject to be more focused on the object and his or her senses and feelings. But this doesn’t apply for less skilled or experienced people.

 

Elements

  • Q: Without overthinking it: which of these elements brown describes most immediately feels evident as part of your creative work, and how? Or, if none of them do, which feels like one you might intentionally integrate, and why?

I feel that “Resilience and Transformative Justice” most evident to me. Creation itself entails a long, exhausting and sometimes even miserable process. The creator goes through a repetitive cycle of “self-affirmation and self-denial”, in which Resilience is absolutely a must to regain energy and confidence to continue to create. This is also where the vitality of the art work comes from.

Kinship: Coat of Arms – Topic 1 Development

Research Questions:

1.What is “Coat of Arms”? 

Coat of arms, the principal part of a system of hereditary symbols dating back to early medieval Europe, is used primarily to establish identity in battle. Arms evolved to denote family descent, adoption, alliance, property ownership, and, eventually, profession.

 

2.Origin and Evolution

The term coat of arms itself in origin refers to the surcoat with heraldic designs worn by combatants, especially in the knightly tournament, in Old French cote a armer. The sense is transferred to the heraldic design itself in Middle English, in the mid-14th century.

In the 17th to 19th centuries, the period known to armorists as “the Decadence,” arms were embellished to record personal or family history, often in ways that ignored the traditions of heraldry’s origins. Arms were designed for organizations far removed from war—schools, universities, guilds, churches, fraternal societies, and even modern corporations—to symbolize the meanings of their mottoes or to hint at their histories. During the 20th century, however, there was a return to the classical simplicity of the early heraldic art, exemplified in the medieval rolls that were compiled when arms were slowly being organized into a disciplined system.

 

3.Code of Arms in Different Regions (need to do deep-dive work)

  • Europe: Britain, France, German
  • North American: Canada, United States
  • Asia: Japan
  • Africa:South Africa, Nigeria
  • Questions: why there are not Code of Arms in China? The initial finding is that there might be Coat of Arms in China in very ancient times for a short time. While with the evolution of patterns, oracle-bone inscriptions and pictograph, they became Chinese Characters. Also, another reason might relate to China’s history. Since Qin Dynasty, China was a highly centralized country, in which all the army forces were owned and controlled by the emperor. Therefore, troops didn’t have their own identity.

 

4.Design your own “Coat of Arms”

– thinking of provide elements for users to design and build up his/her “Coat of Arms”

 

  • Experimental “Making”

 

 

 

Sources: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms#History

https://www.britannica.com/topic/coat-of-arms

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/members-area/kids/kids-rule-things-to-make-and-do/design-your-own-coat-of-arms/

Satellite Research

There are two definitions of the satellite:

1. Natural satellite which in the most common usage, an astronomical body that orbits a planet, dwarf planet, or small Solar System body (or sometimes another natural satellite)

2. Artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space.

However, the artificial satellite is mostly people referring to the satellite.

Satellites are placed from the surface to orbit by launch vehicles, and then change or maintain the orbit by propulsion. In 2018, about 90% of satellites orbiting Earth are in low Earth orbit or geostationary orbit, a small number of satellites orbit other bodies (such as the Moon, Mars, and the Sun) or many bodies at once (two for a halo orbit, three for a Lissajous orbit).

The first artificial satellite to be launched into the Earth’s orbit was the Soviet Union’s Sputnik 1, on 4 October 1957.

Earth observation satellites gather information for reconnaissance, mapping, monitoring the weather, ocean, forest, etc. Space telescopes take advantage of outer space’s near perfect vacuum to observe objects with the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Because satellites can see a large portion of the Earth at once, communications satellites can relay information to remote places. The signal delay from satellites and their orbit’s predictability are used in satellite navigation systems, such as GPS. Space probes are satellites designed for robotic space exploration outside of Earth, and space stations are in essence crewed satellites. There are lots of other usages of satellite,s for example, experimental satellites(Biosatellites) are satellites designed to carry living organisms, generally for scientific experimentation; Weapon satellites for Space weapons or Anti-satellite weapons.

Issues like space debris, radio and light pollution are increasing in magnitude and at the same time lack progress in national or international regulation.

  1. Space debris poses dangers to spacecraft(including satellites) in or crossing geocentric orbits which could potentially curtail humanity from conducting space endeavors in the future.
  2. With the increase in numbers of satellite constellations, like SpaceX Starlink, the astronomical community report that orbital pollution is getting increased significantly.
  3. The effects of large satellite constellations can severely affect some astronomical research efforts.
  4. Due to the low received signal strength of satellite transmissions, they are prone to jamming by land-based transmitters.
  5. Also, it is very easy to transmit a carrier radio signal to a geostationary satellite and thus interfere with the legitimate uses of the satellite’s transponder. It is common for Earth stations to transmit at the wrong time or on the wrong frequency in commercial satellite space, and dual-illuminate the transponder, rendering the frequency unusable.

Experimental Sketch:

 

Data Source:

https://www.destinationspace.uk/how-we-use-satellites/how-far-away-close-are-satellites/

Emergent Strategy Response

Q: Have you felt trapped inside of someone else’s imagination? How have you broken free?

A: When I was watching a movie, such as Hayao Miyazaki’s anime, I felt trapped inside the director’s imagination. I like to immerse myself in a movie when it is playing. After watching it, if it keeps me thinking about the characters and the plot, I was “caught” by the author’s imagination. To free myself, I have to change the view angle from an audience to a character. Though this change even traps me in the author’s world deeper at first. I can develop the character and break the author’s world. Jumping out of the original imagination this way, I get the space to create my own story.

 

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

A: The principle “Less prep, more presence.” I always want to have the work ready to show pre-designed results and get the expected response. But it is impossible. Both impossible and unnecessary. After reading Brown’s article, I feel like I was putting the focus on the result, “the mass”, instead of the process, the connections. This is a mind shift. Especially using a non-native language for me now. However, it is also an opportunity to see the creative process from a different angle.

 

Emergent Strategy Response

“A mushroom is a toxin-transformer, a dandelion is a community of healers waiting to spread…” (9)

  • Q: In your view, what is a function of humans in the universe?

For my point of view, the function of humans in the universe is helping other people and let other people feel the beauty of the universe. Also, it will be admirable if people leave something and keep have positive impact to the world. It has so tiny chance to be an intelligent life entity in the universe. Therefore, we have to utilize the opportunity to bring happiness and love to other people, and live the the life we will remember.  

From Buddhist ideology, any life will become other life forms after their death. What you will become in the next life loop depends on how much good things you did in the past. If a people do enough good things to the universe, they will live above the universe and no more life loop for them. I believe this could guide us to make our world a better place.

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

The principle I feel difficult to achieve in my own creative practice is “change is constant(Be like water)”. I remember Bruce Lee also said the similar sentence, “Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water. You put water into a cup, it becomes the cup.” This is also a key concept from Tao. For my understanding, Water could be different forms in different environment. As humans, if we could be like water we will be adaptive to both negative and positive situation. Our world is constantly changing and our mindset should also keep up with the times. Our life will be easier if we become comprehensive and receptive. 

For myself, I always strictly follow the instruction and flow of work or study, which make me be inefficient and less creative in different aspects. Some times, we have to break rules(it has to be legal), then we could find multiple possibility especially for doing art works.