Experiments in Infrastructural Ontography

From Medialab Prado

Project Overview

Simple Project Statement | Declaración simple del proyecto

A short (two or three sentence maximum) project statement could go here.

We can start by listing all of our own versions in this section (for whomever is interested in going further), and then trying to agree and synthesize appropriately.

List of Additions and Changes

It could be helpful to extract from our emails and our minds how we want to grow/change the site and project. I think to do this well, it would be best for each to define their version of the project statement in the section above. That way, we can develop both the vision and what we want to do together.

Objetivos

El objetivo global del proyecto es crear un portal web que documente la historia, existencia y actividades del movimiento 15M, en el marco de una serie de proyectos experimentales que usan metodologías ontográficas.

El proyecto está dirigido a aquellas personas que han participado o están interesadas en el movimiento del 15M, así como a aquellas personas interesadas en desarrollar una práctica de visualización fundamentada en la percepción crítica de ecologías de imágenes.

Nos gustaría que el proyecto sirviera para desarrollar la agenda y los objetivos del 15M, así como de todos aquellos colectivos interesados en crear un futuro de comunidades y contextos socio-económicos sostenibles. La posibilidad, en suma, de extender el futuro de nuestra especie y su ecosistema.

El proyecto debiera comunicar la relación existente entre los movimientos sociales y la necesaria resistencia a un futuro de insostenibilidad humana.

Goals

The overall goal of this project is to create a web portal that documents the history, existence and current activities of the 15 May Movement, while framing it through a series of experimental projects using ontographic methodologies.

The project is addressed to those involved or interested in the 15 May Movement, as well as an audience of those interested in developing a practice of visualization based on a critical awareness of image ecologies.

We want this project to be of potential use in furthering the overall goals of the 15 May Movement as well as others interested in creating a future that has the capacity to sustain us in our communities and socio-economic contexts, while contributing to the possibility of extending the future of our species within our ecosystem.

The project should clearly communicate the necessary relationship between movements for social change and the need to counter the condition of human unsustainability.

Teorías, contexto, referencias

El término ontografía se acuño en el contexto de un proyecto de visualización en el 2010 para referirse en términos genéricos a la descripción (visual) del ser-en-el-mundo. La ontografía aspira a hacer comprensible a través de la imagen las formas de in/sostenibilidad del ser-en-el-mundo.

Nuestra pregunta de partida podría ser: ¿Cómo y qué clase de imágenes podemos crear para ayudarnos a ampliar las posibilidades de nuestro futuro humano?

Con ello no pretendemos imaginar o crear un futuro humano concreto, sino simplemente llamar la atención sobre el tipo de práctica ética necesaria para crear y aumentar las condiciones de futuro de nuestra especie. La imagen como creadora de futuro.

Dicho en otras palabras: nuestras prácticas sociales, económicas y estéticas debieran conducir a la satisfacción de las demandas básicas sin que ello signifique seguir comprometiendo las condiciones de nuestro futuro.

Fuente de inspiración de la práctica ontográfica es el trabajo de los diseñadores y teóricos australianos Tony Fry y Anne-Marie Willis sobre diseños ontológicos y práctica redireccional. El trabajo de Fry y Willis se fundamenta sobre la premisa básica de que en su expresión contemporánea la especia humana es, en su constitución misma como ser-en-el-mundo, una especie insostenible. Por ello, para Fry y Willis, el desarrollo de un futuro sostenible pasa necesariamente por diseñar previamente una nueva manera de ser-en-el-mundo para el ser humano.

En su trabajo Fry y Willis intentan dar cuenta de cierta crítica de la práctica histórica del diseño: la práctica del diseño, sugieren, se ha visto dominada por la producción de objetos e imágenes, sin noción alguna de la necesidad de diseñar en el tiempo y hacia un futuro. Lo mismo se puede decir de la práctica artística en general. Cabe decir, de hecho, que sólo muy recientemente la humanidad ha asumido el desafío que sus acciones puedan llegar a plantear a su propio modo de vida.

El diseño ontológico, por otro lado, describe también la capacidad que toda práctica de diseño tiene de diseñarnos a nosotros mismos de vuelta. La totalidad de la cultura material humana revierte sobre nosotros mismos – sobre nuestra manera de comportarnos y desenvolvernos en el mundo – sobre nuestra manera de ‘ser’ en el mundo. Ello quiere decir que si nuestros diseños son insostenibles, revertirán sobre nuestro propio ‘ser’ en el mundo de manera insostenible. Debemos, por lo mismo, desarrollar prácticas de diseño que nos permitan transformar la sostenibilidad de nuestro ser-en-el-mundo: una práctica que nos permita ‘redirigir’ nuestro futuro, abriendo nuevos y más futuros a nuestra sostenibilidad.

Theories, context, references

Ontography is a term that was developed for a visualization project in 2010, and which refers in general to the (visual) description of being. What this creates is a need to understand the relationship between the image and human unsustainability. The question it asks is: How can we produce and create images which have the potential for creating more human future? This does not refer to any specific kind of future, but to an ethical practice of creating more future for our species. All of our social, economic, aesthetic and other practices and formations should, in this view, satisfy a basic demand of not further limiting human future more than it has already been mayweather vs cotto.

A significant inspiration for this practice of ontography is the work that Australian design theorists Tony Fry and Anne-Marie Willis have produced on ontological design and redirective practice. This work bases itself on the view that the human species itself is unsustainable in its being, and frames all other attempts to create a ‘sustainable’ future relative to the practice of designing human being itself.

This is informed by a critical observation that historical and current design practice has focused on the production of objects and images, but not on the work of design in time and into the future. This can also be applied to most art practices as well. In fact, until recently humanity hasn’t had to consider the possibility that its actions have the potential of eliminating the conditions under which humans have the continued capacity to survive.

Ontological design also refers to the process whereby what we design, designs us. The totality of human material culture has the effect of shaping our being on the ontological level – who and how we are in the world. Although it is an assumption of ontological design that humanity as a species is not infinitely ‘sustainable’, at this historical juncture our being has been designed (by us) as perilously unsustainable. We therefore need to develop practices that have the ability to redirect us from more to less unsustainable being. This activity of ‘redirective practice’ then has the capacity to create more future.

Objetivos a corto plazo

Durante las próximas dos semanas el grupo recolectará información de fuentes documentales materiales y virtuales, tanto archivísticas como en tiempo real. Algunas fuentes a considerar, aunque no las únicas, incluyen: la producción documental sobre el 15M que ya se encuentra en Twitter, YouTube, Flickr; fotografías y documentos producidos por los miembros del equipo.

La obra colectiva que desarrolle el equipo la volcaremos en una plataforma web. Contamos con nutrir una parte importante del contenido de la plataforma de feeds. Esperamos que la misma sea de utilidad e interés al movimiento del 15M.

La página web debiera por lo mismo reflejar el espíritu del movimiento y su compromiso con la creación de un futuro humano sostenible.

Short term objectives

Within the next two weeks, our group will be collecting data from virtual and material sources, both archival and real-time. This can include, but is not limited to twitter, youtube and flickr feeds based on 15 May-related tags, data accessed from the already extensive archives of the movement, and photographic or other documents produced by members of this group during the workshop.

The collected work found and produced will be brought to a web platform that can begin its life before the workshop ends. We plan that the site will be relatively flat by the use of feeds for much of the content. It is hoped that it will be of interest and use to those involved or interested in the 15 May movement.

The website should reflect the spirit of the movement within the overall context of creating human future.

Objetivos a largo plazo

La página web reflejará en tiempo real las actividades del movimiento y ofrecerá a aquellas personas interesadas información general sobre el mismo. Esperamos con ello contribuir a fortalecer el mismo.

La dimensión ontográfica y redireccional del proyecto puede asumir un marco estable que no tiene porqué cambiar al término del taller. No obstante, esperamos que pueda seguir ofreciendo un modelo que ayude a contextualizar los objetivos específicos del movimiento 15M en su proyección hacia un futuro ontológico sostenible.

Long term objectives

The website will reflect in real-time the activities of the movement and provide those interested with current discourse and information. It is hoped that it can contribute to strengthening and growing the movement wherever it might lead.

The ontographic or redirective component may remain a stable frame that need not specifically change after this workshop finishes. However, it is hoped that it can continue to provide an influence that contextualizes the specific goals of the 15 May movement in terms of the larger framework of countering human unsustainability on the ontological pacquiao vs bradley level.

References

Baudrillard J (1994) Simulacra and simulation. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor

Blackmore S (1999) The meme machine. Oxford University Press, New York

Caquard S, Cartwright W, Vaughan L “Call.” Arts & Cartography Workshop: Mapping Envi-ronmental Issues in the City. International Cartographic Association. http://mappingworkshop.wordpress.com. Accessed 23 November 2010

Dawkins, Richard. (1976) The new replicators. In: The Selfish Gene. Oxford University Press, London

Dennett, D (1995) Darwin's dangerous idea : evolution and the meanings of life. Simon & Schus-ter, New York

Fry T (1999) A new design philosophy : an introduction to defuturing. UNSW Press, Sydney

Robbe-Grillet, A (1977) Topology of a phantom city. Grove Press, New York

Unger, R (2007) The self awakened: pragmatism unbound. Harvard University Press, Cam-bridge, Mass

United Nations (2007) United Nations declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples. UNPFII - United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/en/declaration.html. Accessed 30 Nov. 2010.

Desarrollo / Development process

Final Week Plan

The plan for Monday is to get the first working prototype of the website, with all existing content, up and running. The website will not be perfect and the content might not be finished, but setting this goal for Monday will enable us to view what we have and see how much work is involved. This will allow us to use Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday revising the website design, improving the existing content, and if possible bringing any new ideas and visualizations to the site.

The poster is also due on Monday. Marijo has offered to design the poster. I have put photographs of mine and the ontography map in the Dropbox. It would be helpful for Raquel and others with photos or other materials of possible use for the poster also put files for Marijo in the Dropbox.

The images I put in are not full size, nor is the ontology final. Once Marijo has a design, we can provide her with final art. One of my full size images' pixel dimension is about 3000x4000, which can be sized to 25x33 cm at 300 dpi, or 38 x 50 at 200 dpi. We cannot print at less than 200 dpi. Some of my images are cropped a little, so keep that in mind when designing. (Raquel, if you could provide your normal pixel dimension as a guide to Marijo, that might be helpful.

Below is the list we quickly made on Saturday to give us an idea of what we would like to accomplish on Monday.

John Bring flickr set into blog or page get of catagories finish mind map write intro text create ontography page Create home page

Sara modify template Language switch Flickr Plug-ins photo galleries New widgets - tag cloud

Raquel translate text post photos @ links

Mirijo Design poster. I have put files in Dropbox.

Once we have a prototype up, we can try to generate more visualizations. I am at medialab this morning, and Andrew is here. I talked to him about other ways to visualize my ontology mind map, and he was very helpful. He suggested that it would be difficult to make it fully interactive in the time we have. However, he introduced me to various online tools to generate visualizations quickly. Here are a few links we looked at: http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/page/Visualization_Options.html http://www.wordle.net/gallery?start=3805582 http://hint.fm/seer/ http://correlate.googlelabs.com/

Back-out Schedule

Day	Task
F 1	Celebrate!
Th 30	Final changes to content and interface. 7 pm: Final presentation of developed projects
W 29	Finish uploading all content
Tu 28	Begin uploading content
M 27	Finalization of all content. Review web interface.
Su 26	Finish making and collecting.
Sa 25	Make and collect
F 24	Make and collect
Th 23	Continue making and collecting
W 22	Review all visualizations to date. Discuss strategies for further making and collecting. Discuss final produced form.
Tu 21	Make and collect
M 20	Make and collect
Su 19	Begin make and collect phase. 15 May tour and demonstration.

Updates

I'd like to encourage everyone who is going to the tour and march to bring some recording device with you: camera, pencil-paper, a good memory, etc.

We'll be making, beginning today. As the poet Wallace Stevens remarked, "no ideas but in things" [or in infrastructures].

The past week, we have been living in the invisible (ideas, aspirations...) and pushing to try to make it visible. Now, we will start from the visible (recordings, designs, downloads, images, words, phrases, etc.) and pull it towards the invisible.

From today through Tuesday, make or collect visualizations of whatever kind. Do something specifically on infrastructure, ontology or 15 May; or just do anything that feels right and it will likely make its way into our project. Have fun.

On Wednesday, we will look at everything, see where we are, and pull it towards the invisible. By the end of the workshop we want to visible to be right next to the invisible.

Our final project will represent 15 May, but we will use all kinds of other stuff to frame it. All kinds of infrastructures may be compared, contrasted, juxtaposed, may inform, enlighten, provoke each other.

16:45, 18 June 2011 (UTC)