Friends
I am sorry that i have posted the mail with out re reading and hence
have posted a completely opposite message.
The sentence - Production of waste is the first anti nature activity
invented by man
as there is 'waste' in nature!- is wrong as i missed one - no. please
see the correction below.
Production of waste is the first anti nature activity invented by man
as there is NO 'waste' in nature! There nothing called 'waste' in
nature.
And coming to issues raised by Fernando
The 'toy' that you saw in the paper is made by children because they
'see' car in their context.
One of the most important misunderstanding in our modern consumerist
society is about what is toy and its connection with 'learning' the
world (their respective contexts)
Play is also similarly misunderstood and hence 'learning'.
Children are playful and hence they play with almost everything they encounter.
When children sit on a soft sofa they bounce. So sofa becomes their
'toy' at that moment. But most 'educated' parents would 'teach' the
children manners and ask the child to sit 'properly'. this they do
with almost everything they encounter. They slide the moment they see
floor that are slidable. all this will happen only if children have
'freedom'.
So what i am trying to say is that children has a way of responding/
exploring/ imbibing what ever is happening in their contexts. so it is
adult who is responsible for the formation of the child. Children do
not need toys but freedom to explore/ experience the world they are
in. But the consumerist society won't let this happen. (Many well
meaning designers want to 'help' children by making toys!)
Toy as a product teach the child to be a consumer. Toy as a self
initiated/ autonomous process helps the child to understand how the
world works!
Take the example of how modernity constructs gender. In indigenous
communities there is no gendered play at least till they are 7 years.
Both girls and boys play same games/ make similar toys etc
In modernity even from the time of birth they are made to segregate by
putting them into blue and pink rooms. Then all the 'toys'
manufactured only promote this awareness of difference.
Children liking bright colors is another strange idea being promoted
and hence everything they have is bright today- their room, bed
sheets,cloths, toys, books and even food and their underpants! We are
yet to address color pollution unlike sound pollution! (impact of
bright color on humans- may be over excitement in children has
something to do with this bright colors!)
We have come a very long way travelling along the wrong path. This is
true of sustainability as well as our understanding of the existential
needs of children/ life.
Jinan
On 14/07/2016, Fernando Alberto Alvarez Romero
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear professor Jinan; I find your paper quite reflexive and I so
> inspiring. But I could notice a piece of unsustainable issue also
> defuturing (Fry, 2012). Let me explain with the toy cart made from a
> plastic bottle photo in your paper.
> The thing is that a symbolic play is great to child, but the car reference
> in the idea of sustain-ability seems to me contradictory. Following Tony
> Fry idea, perhaps a toy cart made from a plastic bottle, is a good example
> about kind of sustainable reuse. Nonetheless, is not enough in a
> sustain-ability idea. Due to the fact that implies -defuturing- adult
> choise (quite natural desire in some societies as a modern consume
> paradigm), specially in non wenstern societies such as I live in
> (middle-class dwellers in Colombia wants a car, no matter their economic
> situation). It prepares a future consumers to this kind of unsustainable
> devises (another example are: Disney stereotypes, wenstern movies
> stereotypes, and stuff). Also, implies more paths, maintain the system,
> more polution, as well known.
> So, I recognise your remarks about an attitude for sustainability built in
> to the cognitive space, also vernacular sustainable traditions. But I would
> like to point out that besides sustainability, Fry invite us to consider
> Sustain-ability, also consider Futuring design in order to contribute with
> types of life styles more appropiate to diversity (not only a mono-cultural
> path) but also ideas of wellbeing, Buenvivir, Suma quamaña or Sumak Kausay,
> among others.
> Fry, T. (2012). Becoming human by design. London: Berg
> *Fernando Alberto Álvarez Romero*
> *PROFESOR ASOCIADO II*
> PROGRAMA DE DISEÑO INDUSTRIAL
> PBX:
> [log in to unmask]
> - Colombia
>
>
>
>
> On 12 July 2016 at 20:31, Jinan K B <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Friends
>>
>> I feel the more we focus on designing 'products' outside we will
>> travel along the same path. One way could be to design 'inside' by
>> which I mean design cognitive conditions that form 'sustainable'
>> people. Then instead of creativity we may have to shift to sensitivity
>> as the primary criterion of what we want of the 'learner'.
>>
>> I have been studying the quality within the human being that lives
>> sustainably and the ones which don't. This is not to blame anyone but
>> to understand OBJECTIVELY what causes human being to become anti
>> nature or pro nature.
>> Ecological crisis is a cognitive crisis- how we perceive the world and
>> become what we become!
>> What we are encountering is a cognitive crisis. For the 'modern man'
>> sustainability is an afterthought. In his beingness (formative
>> conditions) the seed for sustainability is missing. So the context/
>> conditions and the process with in the sustainable cultures needs to
>> be the first and for most thing to be understood. So not only what is
>> produced but what makes them produce that.
>>
>> There is an assumption that the modern man and traditional man are
>> very similar. (one is educated and the other is not!) This is not
>> true. They are of totally different being ness/ paradigm. We assume
>> that the by changing the use of materials sustainability can be
>> brought back. This is possible only by initiating some fundamental
>> changes within the human being. Modern man is an engineered being,
>> disconnected from his own being and
>> his context.
>>
>> An example of the impact of cognitive condition on the formation of
>> beingess is about the word 'waste'.
>> There is no word for waste in non literate communities and hence the
>> very concept called waste is absent. People use, re use, recycle
>> everything with out that being any 'conscious' decision. It is part
>> and parcel of their being-ness. So in their world view ' waste' is
>> absent. I know you will find it difficult to believe me.
>> Just by keeping a waste paper basket in our living rooms we teach
>> children to waste. The concept of wasting is introduced by the
>> cognitive condition.
>>
>> Production of waste is the first anti nature activity invented by man
>> as there is 'waste' in nature!
>>
>> I would bring in re imagining education as the key aspect and to look
>> at Design and architecture education as designing of cognitive space
>> that enable the awakening or re connection with existential values of
>> sustainability and survival of life.
>>
>> I have looked at what is happening to the vernacular way of building
>> from 1992 to date as i have been living with a traditional potters
>> community and have seen how it all changed in this span of 20 odd
>> years.
>>
>> Vernacular cultures knew how to live and let live. But modernity won't
>> let this happen as it is not in its DNA to let the other survive.
>>
>> By the by the very terminology we use establish the hierarchy.
>> 'Modern' implies superior as opposed to 'tradition' and all the other
>> terms that modernity creates is done with this in mind. I no longer
>> use indigenous/ traditional, vernacular etc to describe the other way
>> of knowing and being. I use the word existential knowledge system due
>> to its quality of timeless ness, universality, sustainability and the
>> total life sustaining quality. Even though it is contextual it is also
>> universal in its principles. Or another way of naming them would be
>> contextual and non contextual. This would be more objective. The same
>> goes with the use of the terms 'literates' and 'illiterates'!
>>
>> I am sorry i may sound very pessimistic. No. on the contrary I am
>> telling there are no short cuts or compromises possible.
>> Mono culture of modernity has impacted not only architecture but all
>> aspects of life. We need to engage at this level to tackle this.
>> Designer/ Architect is in a position to engage with this as their
>> profession in reality encompasses all this. (we don't practice that
>> way). A true architect/ designer has to be an anthropologist/
>> sociologist/ historian(more objectively than is done today)/
>> psychologist/ educationist/ artist and finally a technologist. We
>> seems to be engaging with the last two
>> only.
>> Why I am raising these issues are to keep this in mind so that
>> whatever we plan to do we undertake it with total humility and respect
>> and with an understanding that we are attempting the impossible
>> (because there will be lots of chicken and egg situations).
>>
>> Sustainability is the way of Nature. It can't be practiced as an
>> afterthought. Sustainable system is one in which harmony of all
>> aspects of production- man, material, method have a symbiotic
>> relationship. In the act of engaging with the world man is awakened to
>> the cyclic nature of life. This defines the process and the way
>> material- re source-able, renew-able, re generate-able and
>> recycle-able- is used.
>>
>> I have a paper at academia on this.
>>
>> https://www.academia.edu/7285844/To_Hell_with_Good_Intentions_Lessons_on_sustainability_and_psychological_well_being_from_socio-culturally_rich_but_techno-economically_poor_communities
>>
>> --
>> Jinan,
>> 'DIGITAL MEDIUM IS A TOOL.DIGITALLY MEDIATED KNOWLEDGE DESTROYS THE
>> BEING'
>> http://rethinkingfoundation.weebly.com/
>> existentialknowledgefoundation.weebly.com
>> www.re-cognition.org
>> www.kumbham.org
>> reimaginingschools.wordpress.com
>> http://designeducationasia.blogspot.com/
>> https://independent.academia.edu/JinanKodapully
>> 09447121544
>> 0487 2386723
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