Critical Perspectives 7/12/2017. Mediated Culture (Rachael Miles).

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Critical Perspectives 16/11/2017. Critical Thinkers Lecture 'Jean Baudrillard' (Alex Franklin)

Select an image from the mass media and discuss (in between 200-400 words) its relationship to the hyperreal.

Critical Perspectives 16/11/2017. Participatory Culture (Jenny Rintoul).

Nowadays I would label the most recent and current phase of participatory culture as a “Change in Value”. There is no doubt that the one of the key features is fact that at one-time media existed for benefit of people, then people wanted to contribute to them and nowadays we live to be part of the media. People care more about what the others think about themselves. Other people must think that “I am the best”. Secondly, at some time people devoted time to themselves, today they spent huge amount of time trying to be part of mass media. They published useless stuffs like photos of what they ate or memes, fail compilation, vlogs about nothing. Those things do not bring anything to life – they do not have any value. Next example – some day when people wanted to go for a run, they just took their running shoes and went. Nowadays everyone must know that acquaintance from Facebook was running, how many miles, how long – it is like saying “Hey people, look how good I am because I was running/I went to the part/I cooked the dinner”. People do not know themselves, but everyone thinks that it is unique. 

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Critical Perspectives 09/11/2017. Visual & Cultural Hierarchies (Rachael Miles).

Make your own top ten list of your favourite practitioners in your field and consider what it is about their practice that you value.

Walter Gropius – new way of seeing and understanding buildings, spaces, interiors. Returning to the workshop.

Philippe Starck – charisma, his understanding of people’s needs, focusing on basics

Es Devlin – understanding of her clients and the desire to provide an unforgettable visual experience

David and Sandy Reynolds-Wasco – creating sets which are the perfect reflection of atmosphere

Rockwell Group – ability of working as a team of 250 people on cross-disciplinary architecture and design projects

Jean-Louis Deniot – subtle colour palette and harmony in his projects

Stephen Sills – ability of using history knowledge and today’s needs in projects; timeless interiors

Timothy Whealon – mixing items from different cultures and periods

Herman Miller – creating new pieces of furniture and solutions for wide range of interiors; promoting sustainability

John Comparelli – enthusiasm, ability of sharing architecture knowledge and his experience; encouraging to using hands as a tool

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Critical Perspectives 02/11/2017. Making Histories lecture (Clare Johnson)

Lots of people can consider historical fact and events that happened in the past as the same thing. To be honest I have never thought about that as two completely different things. After lecture and my own consideration, I am surprised that there is a huge difference between both. 

When I hear “historical fact” I have in my mind something what was or happened in a time and space. It is also something which is put in a right time and place and has a historical base.  Regarding to “something that happened in the past” I can tell that it may be accurate, but we do not take it to be fact. It might be considered as all things which happened before right new. Everyone can refer to the same thing which had place in the past, but every single person may remember different things which are important to he/she. 

Some facts about the past are recorded and remembered because they have meaningful influence on development of historical occurrence, they had an importance for the history process. Some of them could focus of the history of mankind. Other may not be considered worthy of committing to memory because concern only small groups or individuals.

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Critical Perspectives 26/10/2017. Reading Group Task: What is Visual Culture?

Over the past 50 years, there is no doubt that there has been a social and cultural shift away from the verbal/textual and towards the visual. My first thought is emoticons which in some way displace completely texts. They became inseparable part of our email or messages. Thanks to them we can convey our feelings and emotions. There is no doubt that it is faster to send them instead of call and talk about the feelings. It does not mean that it is better way.  Another example is the radio which evolved into television. Also, letters lost their important. It is hard to find people who communicate in that way. Instead of the letters we have many social media like Facebook or Twitter which restrain interest of the text. It is common that more often people share with photos than text.

I think that during 10 to 20 years this shift has accelerated. W can notice it when we look at social media. There is enormous amount of website which using visual ways. Instead of blogs, many people decided to do vlogs or visual diary like Snapchat or Instagram. The world is rushing towards new technology and as a result everything is changing. 

Critical Perspectives 12/10/2017

Considering all the readings that I have been engaged with, in my opinion the most interesting idea is coming from the second one. I had never heard about the ‘pattern language’ before. It is a set of the core solutions for problems which occurs in our environment. Using the logical sequences, we can move through the issues. It also shows the process of designate the problem and then represent how to achieve the aim. It is really important for beginner designer that his method applies to any level of design. Nowadays, after forty-four years since he coined this term, people still use it. I would like to read his book and start applying his idea in my future projects. I am sure that if in the future I have any designing problem I will use his outstanding idea. It will help me to save the time of solving the problem. It may also teach me how to deal with the hardest designing problems in a completely different way. When I started to read the explanation, I was impressed that someone had such a brilliant idea. I am sure that it has a wide range of application for designers and architects. It would be also good if someone would be able to create ‘pattern language’ for everyday problems.

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Critical Perspectives 5/10/2017 - Introduction An Interior Design. Edwards

Glossary for Interior Design purpose:

Building code – Rules which must be applied by every interior designer. They refer to protect health, safety and welfare of people who inhabit the spaces and building.

Cognitive theory – This is theory describing self-development. It reduces talents and inborn traits to convenient start in life. The true talent and intelligence develops with maturity, hard work and positive environment. It is a rule ‘every day is a day at school’

Colour schemes – Certain colours and combinations of colours have specific influence on our mind. Such traits are visible in modern society, advertisements or even games and films. Such combinations have certain behavioural effect on people.

Critical distance – is a concept describing our perception and ability of critical thinking. Without ability to ‘distance’ yourself from certain situations we are unable to approach them subjectively. It is therefore crucial to ignore our personal opinions and employ logic from the different perspective. ‘opinions are not admissible’ as they are influenced with our feelings. It also has specific meaning in the sound engineering.

Environmental psychology – area of psychology focusing on the interactions and influence of the environment on the individual.

Holistic approach – Approach carried through the tradition or style which try to mimic such approach.

Meta theory – it is theory which regards the other theory as the central idea of contemplation.

Pragmatic – Useful in practice, practical. As an adjective is a way to sensible solve the problem for the existing condition.

Semiotics – branch of science considering meaning behind symbols and creations. Interior designer should stress the importance of it because it allows to understand the relationship between signs as they are and people who would interpret them.

Sustainability – The feature of object to be productive, useful, relevant for a longer period.

Synectics – Methodology of solving the problems – a theory which aims to measure and analyse the creative process while its going on to identify one driving power behind all creative processes. 

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Critical Perspectives 28/09/2017 – Teaching – Introduction. Hooks. B

Bell Hooks published her book in 2010. Many things changed, many stay the same. As a young white woman, I can have a completely different point of view. In the introduction, she tries to acquaint us with her route of education. Considering the time of her education I can agree with some of her points but there are few, which make that I have many more questions. In her text she highlighted that Stanford University was predominantly white collage. I am assuming that people (black and white) had a choice (as Bell Hook) about university, so why most of the students were white if everyone had access to it? I do not think that they needed “more autobiographical accounts of the first generation of black student” to enter the university. University should be independent and accept student based on their grades. It is nobody fault that some people learn better than the others.

Bell Hooks also complain about teachers who did not believe that they are “fully human” or hate them. For me her attitude of avoiding lectures because of that is ridiculous. First, she should have needs to show that the lectures were wrong. Her thinking was unproductive.

The next aspect was going to collage to become a teacher when she did not feel the desire. How is it possible to choose the course if you do not want to do it? It is like taking any course from the list and say, “maybe I will like it, maybe not”. It is wasting time and place for people who really want to do it and feel desire. I know that later she loved it but I still think that it is not a good example for people who face the problem of choosing the right course.

Las but not least is the stereotypes as “an angry black woman” about which she wrote. I have never heard about this. Wikipedia tells that “the angry woman myth assumes that black women are aggressive”. To be honest I do not think that it is only stereotype. I have been working in the customer service area and it happened lots of times that black women are rude or aggressive towards me. Of course, there are some white customers who are behave inappropriate but It happens more often when black people, predominantly women are the customers. So now should I tell that they were not aggressive, they just have temperamental character? I do not want to tell that if I have completely different experience and I know that I did not do anything to provoke this kind of behaviour. 

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