Mapping Metaphor Theories
In this week's reading: Understanding Problem Framing through Research into Metaphors1, demonstrated learning metaphors may provide an avenue for understanding how problem frames are created, thus help designers to see challenges in a new perspective. We had a discussion of metaphor making in the seminar (Figure 1). In this practice, we regarded blockchain as a universe and analyzed elements, relations, properties and patterns of inference in the scenario. I found that the use of metaphors can not only analyse problems in a greater depth, for instance, I get a better understanding of how proof of stake works and how blocks generated, but also a clearer approach to introduce the project, so I wondered if we can use metaphors to deliver our ideas in this week's presentation.
Figure 1: Mapping of blockchain and universe, made by Ines, Manali and Svaney
Street Research
Yet, our main task for this week is to combine our idea with Brixton features, situated practices in the local environment, so we planned a trip to Brixton and used co-design as a method for practical experience. We called our activity "Share Your Culture", expecting local people to share their impressions of living in Brixton as well as their unique cultural background. We started our interview with a simple greeting and a question of “what is your culture?” as a guide, which enables people to communicate more actively and naturally.
Besides, We prepared T-shirts for participants to draw or write down whatever they'd like to share as well as biscuits as a gift for their participation in research. What surprised us was that people were very enthusiastic and they were willing to share their excitement towards their own culture, they talked about music, languages, beliefs, experiences...
Video of Street Research, filming by team, editing by Ines
After that, Manali and I were responsible for summarizing research fragments and making mood boards. Brixton is world-renowned for its extraordinary character, rich diversity and heritage. Brixton is famed for its independent retail, diverse economy and rich cultural offer.
Mood boards by Manali and Svaney
Brixton Pounds Experience
On the same day, we met with Charlie and his team in the Brixton. They discussed with us our project processes and gave us some real Brixton Pounds. It was an incredible experience as we were having our own Brixton pounds to purchase the cocktails in the bar. During the talking, they provided us with a closer look at how the blockchain works and introduced a new mechanism of it – proof-of-human- using biometrical data like fingerprints or facial features for identity authentication. After they heard of our interests in promoting local cultural diversity, they inspired us to think about the transaction of cultures (like food, fashion, languages, etc.) based on the blockchain might be a good direction according to the information we collected that day.
Talking with This Ain’t Rock’n’Roll, image by Svaney
Presentation & Feedback
We did our research on Wednesday, so didn't get enough time to organize all information we got that day. Therefore, on Thursday's presentation, we briefly displayed our journey, introduced our direction of cultural diversity and showed some rough ideas about proof-of human and transaction of care. People were impressed by how we are moving forward with the values of Brixton but encouraged us to synthesis the research and bring the situations where these qualities could apply.
On the other hand, some participants expressed their concerns about the concept of “proof-of-human”, reminding us to pay attention to privacy issues by using the biometrical data to verify the identities, and suggested we further consider a specific direction we could design in.
References
Pee, S., Dorst, K., and van der Bijl-Brouwer, M. (2015). Understanding problem framing through research into metaphors. In IASDR 2015 Conference.