Welcome to Mattie Brice’s Pre-Thesis page!
PROCESS | QUESTION | WHY | HOW | ABOUT
Exploration of Interests
Step 1: CARD SORTING – INSPIRATION CARDS
I’m interested in a large range of things, and one of my main challenges is finding out which are the ones I want to focus on, which act as interesting mash-up material, and what are just going to be hobbies and daydreams. So while I do have a good idea of what I want to do for my thesis, there’s a bunch in my head that wants to try to get added in as prominent actors and it can make the task seem impossibly large. I also draw a lot of inspiration from outside of my field of work, which makes it tempting to learn a bunch of new skills just because. It was a good exercise to make myself skim down my inspirations to what seemed to be important to my most pressing interests. I ended up with various sorts of playful media and activities along with design thinking and works centering around intimacy. I would say I was thinking of possible precedents for the work I want to create and was able to clarify my vision that way.
Step 2: CARD SORTING – INTEREST CARDS
Since I worked from the concept of precedents instead of starting with every interest I have, I was able to chart out the interests I have that relate to the themes in the works I wrote out for my inspirations. Conveniently enough, the interests I drew out fell quite evenly into the three topics I’m interested in pursuing, play as a medium, design thinking for social change, and intimacy politics. I’ve always known I wanted to combine play and game design into design thinking for tactics concerning cultural systemic issues, and I want to express that in a work surrounding how erotics are used to categorize and marginalize people and how technology and culture are used to reinforce those systems. So many of my interests are parts of those topics, as it breaks down visually in the next steps.
Step 3 & 4: INVESTIGATION – Start the Archive
Step 5: NARROWING IT DOWN – ACTION WORDS
Step 6: FORMULATING QUESTIONS
Step 7 :GRID OF NINE
Step 8: PRESENTATION
Click here for my presentation.
QSFPR 1
Three Step Formula
Design
Topic: I am studying different types of design used for social impact
Question: because I want to find out how to enable change on a personal level
Significance: in order to help my audience understand how they can manifest their own speculative futures.
Intimacy
Topic: I am studying how intimacy works and is created
Question: because I want to find out how I can make environments for exploring desire
Significance: in order to help my audience understand how they can form intimate bonds with people they typically wouldn’t.
Gastronomy
Topic: I am studying the gastronomic experience
Question: because I want to find out how food and the context we eat in can be used as a medium
Significance: in order to help my audience understand how to communicate commonly subtle or unspoken feelings to one another.
Critical Reading and Writing
Design
Articles:
– Holt, Matthew – Transformation of the Aesthetic – Art as Participatory Design
– Irwin, Terry – Transition Design – A Proposal for a New Area of Design Practice, Study, and Research
– Kimbell, Lucy – Rethinking Design Thinking – Part I
– Power, Pat – Playing with Ideas – The Affective Dynamics of Creative Play
Ted Talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/alejandro_aravena_my_architectural_philosophy_bring_the_community_into_the_process
Events:
– Eyeo
– DiGRA
– By the People: Designing a Better America at the Cooper Hewitt
Reflection: Design still struggles with translating its use to social impact outside of product-based paradigms. Scholarship at the very least recognizes this, but it’s only recently that designers are changing design models and processes to reflect this shift in ideas. It’s also apparent that a lot of practitioners are not very rigorous in research, which blocks relevant critical theory and community participation from entering the process. Affect and aesthetics beyond taste or simple preference are needed for design to create a stronger foothold in culture-making.
Intimacy
Articles:
– Better, Alison & Simula, Brandy L. – How and for whom does gender matter – Rethinking the concept of sexual orientation
– Davis, Alexander K. – Epiphenomenology of the closet – Feeling and fashioning sexuality in everyday life
– Green, Adam Isaiah – Playing the (Sexual) Field – The Interactional Basis of Systems of Sexual Stratification
– Lindemann, Danielle – BDSM as therapy?
Ted Talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/mandy_len_catron_a_better_way_to_talk_about_love
Events:
– Sensory Speed Dating by Guerilla Science
– TEDxViennaSalon “The Future of Intimacy”
– Splendor in the Grass by Droog at the Museum of Sex
Reflection: As it commonly pans out, there’s definitely a gulf between critical theory surrounding intimacy and sexuality and the major ways these topics play out in real life. What’s common is how thoroughly identity-based it is and very little room for a generalized intimacy or a process or tracking of how people in general can become more intimate. Instead things are stuck in straight people vs queer people doing their own own things, and often both research and projects on intimacy presumes heterosexuality. It’s difficult to imagine what is the dissemination of ‘practice’ when it comes to intimacy and sexuality outside of sex ed. Playful intimacy tends to fall into plain titillation instead of creating critical bonds with one another.
Gastronomy
Articles:
– Duruz, Jean – Love in a Hot Climate – Foodscapes of Trade, Travel, War, and Intimacy
– Kera, Denisa; Denfeld, Zack; & Kramer Catherine – Food Hackers – Political and Metaphysical Gastronomes in the Hackerspaces
– Landis, Kevin – Culinary Pataphysics – Dining, Theatre, and the Historical Avant-Garde
– Levin, Jennifer Burns – Food, Service, and Play in Restaurant Culture
Ted Talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/homaro_cantu_ben_roche_cooking_as_alchemy
Events:
– Food Loves Tech
– In the Mouth NYC
– Symposium of Australian Gastronomy
Reflection: I haven’t looked too much into Food Studies until recently. The discipline, and anyone really talking about food outside of elite cooking, is mostly concerned with sustainability, waste, and food justice. Many are interested in food systems and cultural identity through food, and it only seems recent that the movements of modern cuisine or molecular gastronomy is starting to affect discourse. There is a lot to be said about the context and affect of eating, and I was personally hoping for more reflections on the structure of meals, eating rituals, and the different avenues of communication throughout the eating experience.
Rework the Three Step Formula
Design
Topic: I am studying how to incorporate art practices and critical theory into design processes
Question: because I want to find out how to use design for grassroots/art activist purposes
Significance: in order to help my audience understand how they can manifest their own speculative futures.
Intimacy
Topic: I am studying how intimacy works and is created
Question: because I want to find out how power works through beauty and intimacy
Significance: in order to help my audience understand how they can form intimate bonds with people they typically wouldn’t.
Gastronomy
Topic: I am studying the affective aspects of the gastronomic experience
Question: because I want to find out how to design affective contexts around eating
Significance: in order to help my audience understand how to communicate commonly subtle or unspoken feelings to one another.
Presentation
Click here for my presentation.
QSPFR
Click here for my QSPFR sheet.