Haley's studies

Research

2007-04-25T14:27:00.000+10:00

stila alessi

http://mms.eq.edu.au/aboriginal-toys/spinning-tops.html
http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/LGweb/toys/1931_86_156.htm
www.knappstudios.com/Spinning_Tops.htm
www.civilization.ca/tresors/ethno/etb0160e.html
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Spinning_tops

Product outcome – fish wall hanging

2007-04-02T18:38:00.000+10:00

Fish wall Hanging: I still don't have a marketing name for it.

Made from waste: scrap corrugated galvanised iron and rivets
The shapes are all cut out and then riveted together in the shape of a fish. The scrap metal can really be of any shape and size, and the design can be worked around what is there. The rusted corrugated iron can’t really be used when it is rusted as its main use is weather protection. Though rust doesn’t matter and leaves good patterns to work with.

The material I used was sourced from my Dad's work. It originally came from an old shed, where dad got all the material free he just had to dismantle the shed and remove it himself. There are lots of old rusted pieces of corrugated iron from roofs, and sheds when they are rusty they are hard to reuse.

Material Play with paper

2007-04-02T18:31:00.000+10:00

This could become an interesting light if LEDs where hung around the bits of paper too. So far it’s just a thing which hangs, made from old wrapping paper. Though wrapping paper is interesting as it really has one use involving wrapping gifts.

By Product

2007-03-11T16:01:00.000+11:00

System ideas:

To set up mini recycling practices within each office complex, where their own waste is recycled and they receive their own profits. Eg: teach workers to become efficient with their resources on hand.

Old office furniture can be sourced out and collected then redistributed. Eg a whole lot of old chairs can be collected and refashioned with new covers to become the same, similar to Pascal’s idea with the cutlery. This could also be done with fabric with uniforms, creating whole pieces. You would ring up and order new old chairs, could trade in your existing furniture. There hasn’t been any real advances in office furniture, can easily reuse desks, chairs, filing cabinets, office dividers.

Rebuild: many old houses materials can all be used to rebuild a new house from flooring, to windows, walls, plaster, insulation, roofs etc. So the idea is you only use old materials first then source out new. So all old housing materials come together to be reconstructed into a new house.

Refurbish: Like a giant garage sale, where items from old homes that are still in good condition come together and the resold. Could start off with things like couches, tables, beds, etc that are all restored. Later could develop into electrical equipment as well, which will be examined and repaired. The system would be great for people who have just moved into their first house, people moving from overseas or interstate.

Recycling Fluorescent globes:

Made from glass, copper, tin, lead, tungsten; Manufacturing contains phosphors, lead, tin, mercury and glass.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp

Re use old paint tins…They are the same size…

Wooden crates:

Shipping containers:

Textiles and fabrics:

Wastes which could be interesting:

2007-03-11T14:12:00.000+11:00

Wastes which could be interesting:

Rusty Corrugated iron from roofs
Old Carpets
Fabrics - textiles
Plastics – orange road grid barrier
VHS tapes
Glass – bottles
Tires – rubber
Packing crates - Wood
Ceramics – Plates
Tuna Cans
Barbed Wire
Cellulose

Old phone covers, CDs, Shoes, Old Balls, Plastic cutlery, fluorescent lights

Old tools – blunt knifes

Pot plants

Shipping containers crate boxes and crates.

Old wardrobes

Desks

Broken glass, wrapped in bubble wrap.

Candle holders: Make up waste, old bottles, lids

Bubble wrap, inside tuna cans as a jewellery box.

Jewellery box made from something that is perceived cheap, easily sourced to contrast between something cheap and expensive.

Create a lid for pot plants to turn them into a storage container

Use old lights to create something new, transparent materials look really different with a light behind them

Clothes hanger lamp, using old clothing as a light, create a frame for it to hang from, can put meaning into it personalise it with your old clothing

Corrugated iron fish wall hanging, light

Hanging shelves from old cans/bottles etc.

Potpourri - Making your own connection with environment, the container it is held in needs holes to let out fragrance.

Interesting ideas

2007-03-10T22:55:00.000+11:00

'If new isn't for you, consider the refurbished route. Increasingly, companies are using refurbished desks, chairs, and space dividers, and a whole industry has grown up around providing these things. With good reason: each year, U.S. companies buy about 3 million desks, 16.5 million chairs, 4.5 million tables, and 11 million file cabinets. Experts estimate that about half this amount is thrown away annually; according to one estimate, that's enough to furnish all the offices in Boston.

Open Plan Systems, a "re-manufacturer" based in Richmond, Va., is a typical example of this trend. To offer lower-cost, recycled workstations, the company cleans and repaints metal, replaces fabric, and recycles used materials. Open Plan uses low-VOC coatings, fabrics made from recycled plastics, and other environmentally friendly processes'

Ideas

2007-03-10T13:50:00.000+11:00

Billboard Posters as waste paper bins.
99.9% post-industrial waste paper from billboard test prints Designer Jos van der Meulen

Citrus peel boxes
Orange, lemon and grapefruit skins
Designers Elena and Alexander Deutsch

The skins are soaked for several hours in water, then turned inside out and placed over a mould. They spend the next three days drying in the sun before being removed from the mould and polished. Suitable for jewellery, paperclips etc. The box will last for decades and the scent will stay for at least 3 to 4 years.

Video Tapes Designer REKO

Large numbers of video tapes are sold and rented, and without a change of policy these products will eventually swell the mountain of waste. This prompted the Video Division of NVPI (Dutch Organisation of Producers and Importers of Videograms and Phonograms) to explore possibilities of recycling videotapes (cassettes as well as packaging) now and in the future.

caddie for golf clubs

The caddie is created as a work of art. The process of
tracking down the right tins and combining them with
other used materials resulted in this Bab Mansour
caddie, named after the caption on the cans.

Used Truck Covers
Used PVC Billboards

Gummikruka flowerpot
Flowerpot from recycled rubber from used car tyres.

Products from this site

By Product Elective

2007-03-10T13:12:00.000+11:00

Links:
Products
http://www.biome.com.au/

cellulose material
http://www.musterkiste.de/en/holz/pro/index,60_Cellulose_material.html
http://www.apn.com.sg/rc_materials.htm

Sustainablity Festival fed square (Bioimagination Posters)

2007-02-21T23:03:00.000+11:00

Final Touches

2006-10-25T10:12:00.000+10:00

Yay it's almost finished just a few blending problems and I’ll add in some more colour as looking at everyone’s on Friday mine is a little white. I don't think it will be too much just one or two spots to balance the colours out, It doesn’t help I am also next to one of the magnificently coloured in posters on my right. (James) Though you can tell it has come along way.

The story

2006-10-24T12:19:00.000+10:00

Details

2006-10-24T12:15:00.000+10:00

Reflection of using Drawing as a communication tool:

2006-10-24T12:07:00.000+10:00

Though studies so far has covered verbal and written communication tackling the visual side of this has been left alone. Choosing to do this sustainability studies not only for the many trips we would be taking outside the classroom but also the opportunity to strengthen a visual tool like drawing was a great chance. Though not realising the full time commitment and difficulties in trying to communicate through a different medium like drawing there have been many long nights and collaborations with other students.

Linking with another person either side, required many discussions but the most successful are those which have interconnecting systems and flows and used it as an opportunity to enhance the story within. As the two posters feed of and continue on from the other creating a network placing it into a strong context as different lifestyles coexist and feed of each other in real life.

The different levels of enthusiasm shown through out the semester was at times a struggle as the concept really relies on collaboration, though in the end people have spent a lot of time towards the end with amazing transformations and connections. Though even now a few posters lack context (With Melbourne and its suburbs as the focus) I understand this is a future cities project and in the future with global warming it might be possible to grow bananas (scary thought) but there needs to be identifiable objects which are here today otherwise people get lost and scared and don’t understand that it’s based on factual research.

It is amazing how children draw things in a scale which is what is most important to them, so heads are heaps bigger than the bodies. Though our drawing don’t quite follow this scale there is quite a lot of detail and sub stories through out, engagement to drawing is when we can place our own ideas and thoughts within the story to make it our own, hopefully people can develop their own scale to our drawings.

Interesting Books used as resources:

2006-10-22T11:48:00.000+10:00

Pendergast Chuck, 1972, Introduction to organic gardening, Paperback Library New York.

Morrow Rosemary, 1994, Earth user’s Guide to Permaculture, Kangaroo Press Pty Ltd.

Holmgren David, 2002, Permaculture Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability, Holmgren Design services.

Duke Geoff, Thornton Trevor, Lang Josephine, Donaldson Paul, 2001, Issues of Sustainability, Victorian Association for Environmental Education Inc.

Birkett Lisa, Thorp Veronica, Van Gameren Marion, 2001, Monitoring Ecosystems, Victorian Association for Environmental Education Inc.

Principals of permaculture

2006-10-20T23:40:00.000+10:00

1. Observe and interact: Analysing the systems around you and developing more sustainable but still efficient ways. Understanding patterns with top down thinking and bottom up action. It is important to realise that systems interconnect with other systems and things don’t just operate in isolation then we can see the impacts, inputs and outputs needed.

2. Catch and store energy: The use of inefficient, unsustainable, non-renewable recourses such as coal, oil and gas use should be minimised and not be used as the primary energy resources. Nutrients, water and seeds can all be stored but supplies need to be replenished, long term thinking is needed so there is no shortfall.

3. Obtain a Yield: Need household an economic self-reliance. EMERGY accounting is an accounting system developed by Howard Odem in the late 1960s. It is based on energy laws, and natural systems. This is a deeper understanding and more of a challenge than the ecological footprint, providing a severe message about environmental cost, but it redefines what we mean by wealth and work.

We need to focus on achievable goals for today. Reduce our ecological footprint with self and community efficiency. The consumer verses conserver, providing positive feedback and strengthening emotional benefits within communities. Bioregions are an association of people who live together in a definable region, within this area different spices grow native species are to be incorporated as much as possible.

4. Self-regulation and accept feedback: Monitoring systems set in place, so they can evolve and change overtime. Carrying out self auditing programs can show you the overall efficiency and where wholes are, knowing and planing ahead can also help you set achievable goals over a length of time. There are going to be some changes which are more costly and will take longer to implement. Helping to rethink social change by thinking globally but acting locally, small changes in one area can often be used as a platform to start change.

5. Use and Value renewable recourses and services. At times like in nature there may be an abundance of resources, though we still need to limit consumption. In winter time we don’t often think about limiting our water consumption but in summer time when demand is higher we will stop and try to conserve, the most effective approach would be to monitor water consumption and use all year round. In existing ecosystem services we notice that other animals assist and create roles. An example is a chicken aerates the soil and acts like a tractor, grazing animals act as mowers.

6. Produce no Waste: this title fits in perfectly with the future cities idea of a waste free lifestyle. If this is the goal then the proper cycles are in balance, waste is something which we see as holding no value reanalysing this approach will help us become more sustainable. Overtime there are natural systems for the removal of what we see as waste, but if we create a backlog or high intense area it almost becomes possible for natural systems to do so.

7. Design from Patterns and details.
Often patterns can be arbitrary or inappropriate. Just like making a garment careful consideration of what pattern to follow will alter the outcome, if we want to make pants we don’t use a dress pattern, understanding the next steps in the pattern and what follows next helps to chose the most appropriate design model. In permaculture understating the land layout, soil conditions and climate will make you more successful. Trying to grow bananas in Victoria’s cooler climate will ultimately fail. The example of growing rice is a good one as it is possible but uses excessive amounts of limited resource- water.

8. Integrate rather than segregate: each element performs many functions, each element is important before the next is carried out. A holistic approach is needed, we can become blinded if look and focus on one area to long without seeing the whole picture. Mutualism relationships where we include others and not excluding offer the greatest results. Urban areas are a great example of reintegration, instead of zoning everything like work, industry, parks and housing it is more sustainable to include these into the areas so people can transport between each themselves.

9. Use Small and Slow solutions.
Tasks can be implemented instates so resources can be pooled into appropriate areas and outcomes can be achieved. The slow food movement is a great system as it looks into the avoidance of fast food not to reduce fat intake but to enjoy a lifestyle with the appreciation of food and its culture. This means we can still eat the same food but the fish is from a market, the potatoes are grown locally within the area and the lemon used for flavour is grown in your own back yard. A longer term look could be growing the potato yourself and not just a lemon but a starting direction is needed to achieve goals.

10. Use and Value diversity: This adds security as well as long term thinking and management. Relying on one source or species to deliver a result is dangerous as the saying goes don’t place all your eggs in one basket. The survival of the fittest operates at a systems level, as well as an individual level. In our diet we need a diversity of food to access different nutrients Diversity can also be of cultural significance with a certain plant that reminds you of someone, maintaining cultural diversity helps give grounding and understanding of who we are and our place within society.

11. Use edge and value the Marginal: There is an edge or interface between non-living mineral Earth and the atmosphere. Design which sees edge as an opportunity rather than a problem is more likely to be successful and adaptable. When we think of Marginal things we often get tunnel sighted and lose sense of the peripheral, following the most common obvious and popular systems are not always best. Coastlines are a good example of edge between the terrestrial and ocean, incorporating the movement of the tide many ecosystems exist. Edges can be seen in Venn Diagrams as overlapping. With life spiritual culture in the centre, abundance wealth knowledge, landscape, structures, institutions and growth succession and economy overlapping with Persons, Society, Resources and Element/ species (difference, possibility, diversity) Energy Sources and flows (EMERY flow and productivity) and Network Ecosystem connection (connection, feedback)

12. Creatively use and respond to Change: Evolutionary change is essential in permaculture, as it’s about durability and change of natural living systems and human culture. ‘We live and design in a historical context of turnover and change in systems at multiple larger scales, and this generates a new illusion of endless change with no possibility of stability or sustainability.’ * Top down change, reflect our power and relationship to the system. Start with smaller changes and increase towards the bigger problems. Focusing on external factors of a physical and biological nature, personal change can be easier faster than the external environmental factors as results can been seen and felt, making a personal connection.
*Permaculture Principles and Pathways beyond sustainability. Page 239

Permaculture the counter culture:

2006-10-20T20:04:00.000+10:00

Permaculture was started by Bill Morrison and David Holmgren in response to the degradation of soil, water and air, caused by industrial and agricultural systems. The reduction and reliance of natural non renewable recourses (oil, gas, coal) and the destructive economic system based upon the increasing consumption and heavy realise and trade upon limited resources. The loss of biodiversity is also a concern for future generations as the ability for natural systems to heal are decreased and there is an increased chance of one killer pollutant to wipe out entire ecosystems as they loose their ability to heal and have lower chance of resiance.

The base structure of permaculture is formed around ecology making it sustainable and easily adaptable to change once when one choses this lifestyle. This means it looks at long term solutions for tomorrow as well as ideas that can be implemented today.

Ecology is the study of natural systems, their flows and interconnections. This includes activity in the hydrosphere, (aquatic) lithosphere, (rocks) atmosphere (air) and Biosphere (this is the region where the three spheres overlaps and where most organisms live. The environment is everything external to an organism includes biotic (living organisms, plants etc.) and abiotic (non living such as water, wind, air, rock.)

Ecosystems are a group of different organisms that are dependant and interact with each other. Understanding how energy and materials move between organisms is important. The inputs and outputs are measured, as systems can affect or be affected by other systems. For example if there is an abundance of food then more organisms can be supported, if there is a decline of food mess organisms can be supported and die out.

Inputs are matter and energy entering an ecosystem, outputs is all the energy leaving the system. Matter can be cycled using physical, chemical and biological. Eg: A plant inputs include solar energy, water carbon dioxide to produce glucose and oxygen from photosynthesis the output is heat.

Energy is never created or destroyed it merely changes from one form into another. When energy is converted from one form to another it is degraded to a lower form of energy. 90% of energy is lost when it moves up the food chain passing from one organism to the next. So only 10% of the energy is used within each trophic level, the species at the top end need more energy to survive. 47% of solar energy reaches the earth 19% is absorbed into the atmosphere, and 34% is reflected back into space.

The health of humans is interconnected with the environment, degrading ecosystems caused by pollution can lead to new hazards and diseases, this can be seen with air pollution and increased sensitivity like asthma. Caring and maintaining the environment leads to healthier people. Socioeconomic environmental indicators measure the effects of monitoring like actions taken by society and introducing regulations so asthma related deaths decrease. The number of public reserves in an area and the amount of money spent on regeneration projects.

Biodiversity: the variability among all organisms including terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the complexities of which they are part of. This includes genetic diversity, increase reliance to viruses and other mutations. Species diversity the amount of different types of species consideration of endemism (if that species is restricted to that one area) is also taken into account.

Permaculture the counter culture a small minority ready for change, networking out as everything is interconnected and like natural ecosystems really off each other. Community aspects include Education with the belief everyone can be taught the fundamentals and don’t need to know how to read and write. The lifestyle is looking after yourself as well as others sharing resources and information, ethics, care for earth setting limits to consumption, understating the indigenes people who lived in harmony with their surroundings. Thinking and analysing the material and that humans and nature should no longer be viewed as separate but as one feeding of the other. Like all other organisms we depend on other ecosystems to survive we should no longer see our existence above other organisms but equal and in collaboration.

Rules for water use in Permaculture use as many litres as you can before it leaves the system, using biological filters to restore the water quality and keep it purified. Reduce the consumption of water and treat it as a finite recourse. Planting trees is said to reduce heat and make the air cooler absorbing solar energy and providing shade.

Maintaining the soil structure is essential to any plant life and with organic gardening is achieved using no chemicals. Good soil is made from finely ground rock 95% of the soil is minerals and 5% is dead organic materials, soil profiles are in layers called horizons. This can be seen when the earth is cut away with topsoil turning into clay and the clay into rock. It naturally takes 500 – 1000 years to produce 3cm of topsoil. The Earth is covered in top soil about 45cm thick.

Micro-organisms, bacteria and fungi are responsible for natural chemical transformation within compost heaps to begin the transformation and break down of organic waste into humus. Humus increases the capacity for soil to store mineral nutrients (phosphorus, potash, sulphur, iron, zinc, calcium) as well as absorbing carbon and water. Is appearances is a dark colour and contains 30 to 35% protein which a nitrogen source. If there is too much nitrogen waterlogging occurs but this is not a problem for organic gardeners but occurs with the use of chemical fertilizers.

Phosphate is cycled with the weathering of rocks, passes up through the food chain the returns to the soil with dead matter. It is responsible for plant life and reliance. Bones, manures, dried blood and fish are high in phosphate. Citrus like orange peeling are also good but the acidic content means that not too many can be added. Nitrifying bacteria found in aerated soils converts ammonia into nitrate then to nitrite through oxidation.

Farming hard hood animals compact heavy clay soils, if these animals are needed a smaller breed is used as well as lighter stock rates. Smaller watering points instead of a dam is better. Trees should be planted to maintain the soil and provide shade. No animal should have to walk more than 400m to a shady spot.

The zones referred to in permaculture refer to how much time and labour must be put in as well as the intensity of land use. Zone 0 starts of with the house, and its energy use we can understand why a lot of human time and labour is kept in maintaining it. Zone 1 is your garden as a food supply. The layout of the garden is also critical as the right amount of space is needed to maintain and ensure it remains efficient, both to the users and the right conditions to grow plants. The garden should be fully irrigated which saves on watering time.

Zone 2 is about orchards often in permaculture they also contain native fruit species either as a wind brake or as part of the orchard. The fruit chosen should be based on climate to ensure the best yield. Birds and bees are important for the pollination of flowers and pest control. Bees in a bee hive can also supply honey which is a much more sustainable form of sugar. They forage within 5km, it is best to place hives 50m away from most intensive area, as this gives time for the nectar to dry off. Chickens also help aerate the soil and their manure provides many nutrients for the soil. They are social animals it is best to have a ratio of 12-15 hens to one rooster otherwise problems will occur.

Zone 3: Commercial Farming this can be either large scale organic farms or modern farms producing a commercial crop, sown pastures and plantations (unirrigated), dams and livestock. The plantations are used as income as when they reach maturity the trees cut down and sold. Zone 4 Managed forests, marines and wetlands. This means that we put out traps to control introduced pests, assist in habitat rehabilitation with tree plantations, monitoring and taking animals and assisting in breeding programs, relocation of pest animals.

The last zone is Wilderness ecological reference this is the natural state of the environment with out human interference. This would mean that trees grew wherever and weren’t spaced out. Though this is now of an unachievable state of just indigenes native plants as introduced animals like foxes and rabbits are here to stay.

Urban orchard and orgainic food

2006-09-16T23:23:00.000+10:00

info:

Urban orchard: A community lead idea with the sharing of resources where everyone who contributes can befit. Spare fruit and vegetables are shared around and given value on supply and demand. This means I can trade my pears for some plums, and depending on what is in demand 3 pears might equal 12 plums.

info:

Organic Food: Is much more sustainable has it helps to preserve the biodiversity of plant species by moving away from genetically modified food, as well as relying on natural eco systems for pest control and fertilisers. Instead of the chemicals used to kill pesticides which are known to cause bioaccumulation in the food chain, an inturn effecting the environment with catastrophic consequences. The chemical fertilisers strip the soil of all nourishment and take years to regenerate.

Australia’s soil is structurally very old with little new nutrients, being added nutrients are spread around through erosion, plant structures and their roots help prevent erosion keeping the nutrient locked in the soil and are cycled around as the plant decomposes. These nutrients first arrive in the soil through volcanic activity, and are released overtime with the weathering of these rocks.

Chemical fertilisers also contribute to other major problems such as algal bloom. Since there is a sustainable and easy way to add theses nutrients by manure and blood and bone we should make best use of these processes. Only the topsoil around the earth holds the potential to grow plant life, the next horizon is clay which is difficult for plant life to penetrate and grow.

Organic food is not only healthier with proven nutritional value, as produces grows naturally with out accelerants but is also without the pesticides which can cease food allergies and built up toxins. Organic eggs and chickens have free range and live in better conditions they also are antibody free. Maintaining a garden also holds health benefits by keeping you fit and active, especially in older people.

My ideas on Permaculture

2006-09-01T23:22:00.000+10:00

Permaculture design is site specific, client specific, and culture specific. Great quote from http://www.attra.org/attra-pub/perma.html

My definition and thoughts on permaculture and what is it?

Originally thought it was some hippy concept with no real tangent to ordinary people lifestyles, need large amount of land and work for it to be effective. I know that this isn’t true it can be done on a small scale, and there are different levels of sustainable people, within sustainability small goals are good goals but with this future cities idea we have stepped into the best possible idea and are living it out as normal.

Community is a main focus along with planning and development, use of appropriate technologies (solar, wind, composting toilets, grey water, and water filtration, solar cooking and drying.) and lifestyle changes. Bioregionalism deals with both people, and land centred issues.

The areas around the home are divided into different areas which can be analysed and assessed as to what is needed to be done and where. Area 1 would be concentrated around the home itself with the inputs and out puts, such as material, water and food consumption and energy consumption. So time and resources can be managed to combat the problems little achievable problems can have action taking against them strait away and large goals can be outline and worked towards.

Looking at the simple problem of the input of food we can see the alternate of growing it yourself. The layout of the garden will assist in a more productive and time efficient design. Foods which are needed to be eaten and collected fresh should be planted with easy access to the user like herbs.

The vegetables grown need watering and crop rotation is also recommended, so the plants chosen should have different nutrient properties which can be added to the soil to avoid overuse and damage to the soil.

The orchard and fruit trees don’t have to be as close to the house as they don’t need as much maintenance, only when that particular fruit is in season. Where as the vegetables can be grown all year round with the appropriate choice for each season. The garden can also be incorporated with the trees or in separate garden beds.
More information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture
“The core of permaculture has always been in supplying a design toolkit for human habitation. This toolkit helps the designer to model a final design based on an observation of how ecosystems themselves interact.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem
The term is generally understood to refer to all biotic and abiotic components, and their interactions with each other, in some defined area, with no conceptual restrictions on how large or small that area can be.

A book called Monitoring Ecosystems – ‘An ecosystem is a group of different organisms’ dependant on each other, and with the abiotic conditions surrounding them. An ecosystem is made up of a community. A community refers to a number of populations of different species interacting within a particular environment.

Sustainability studies proposal:

2006-09-01T20:30:00.000+10:00

There are two things which I want to look at during this semester they are the cultural side of sustainability, and ecosystems. Fortunately for me I discovered permaculture which is the whole system and combination of elements of where humans and their lifestyle exist with the biological systems.

Within my final drawing I can hopefully represent a system suited to homes with land which is turned into cultivating food and proving energy, while enhancing community life. On the outer sides before my picture merges into another I would like to show a city level where the basic principals are applied like that within the CO2 building, and with plantings of food on balconies and herbs indoors in pots.

Within the permaculture I will break it into two main areas one is food and how its maintained using sustainable water, energy, organic farming, and weed, pest control. What it means to the soil structure, introducing native plants to gardens to encourage native animals, and the smaller micro organisms involved in filtration. Insect life will also play a key role in pest management and pollination. Chickens will forage around and use waste scapes which are not put into compost.

The second focus will be people and their attitudes and lifestyles as if some of this can be seen as normal it will be readily taken up. Some things within our current lifestyle practices are worth maintaining but our current attitudes; of it uses less means we can consume more need to change. (For example don’t worry about turning of florescent lights as they use less energy.) To break down some fences to create a larger communal backyard, would be an interesting concept as it’s seen as private property. Some fences need to exist to keep out foxes and feral dogs to protect chickens, and to keep pens in the back yard to keep dogs in control. Maybe a community pen could be there for dg owners to share this means dogs would have to get on with other dogs…

Research will be done using both the internet (the advanced search of course) and the library. As most of these aren’t really new ideas, in the area of organic gardening I don’t have to be too up to date, but with sustainable renewable energy ideas are emerging all the time so current research will need to be done.

sustainability

2006-07-29T18:14:00.000+10:00

Yay sustainability, hopefully studies this semester will be good unfortunately I am in the giant class with Steven which is kind of annoying almost wasn’t going to do it because there where so many people, not sure if every one will tun up or not. It’s different with the first years been there. Not sure if I’ll use this blog much at all as I might just post everything on my studio one as I am doing eco sense for my studio and it would be easier to keep all the sustainability stuff together

Social Anxiety Disorder

2006-07-05T15:45:00.000+10:00

http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Social_phobia?OpenDocument

http://www.socialanxiety.com.au/sad-facts.htm

http://www.ada.mentalhealth.asn.au/social.html

A reflection of studies – just thought it would be nice to see if I kept my word from last semester.

2006-06-15T15:05:00.000+10:00

‘There is a threat that the amount of people being motivated could be to low, and I’ll start to lose interest or can’t look to my peers for another view. This could also mean that if activities are organised or problems arise there will be such a lack of interest it will be over looked and then we will not be contributing to our own learning.’ Humm this was from last year has anything at all changed? No not at all…

Yes ok so it’s not only seems to be 2nd years with the problem, as well in the first year lecture time spot there was a nice total of three people all from second year. Though I would say that there were enough people turning up to class to make it valuable, and the fact Brittany was there gave everything another perspective and I think us second years where very lucky she was there. Though in the lecture as I said I don’t understand why people didn’t turn up it’s obvious that the majority of people didn’t see it as valuable, and found better things to do as I only know of a few people that weren’t there as they where working.

As for my first challenge the library it was a huge success, and I managed to find valuable information and the fact remains if you have an idea even if it’s a little snippet of a quote there will always be books to support it or debate with, there are so many books. So I am glad the library has become my friend and I plan on using it for the rest of the course.

SWOT

Strengths: I would say that my high motivation for studies came in very hand when reading books as normally I would think of a whole lot of things and then ask some one if they knew of any book on it, well that was what I did last year. I became a lot more independent with searching resources and didn’t ask anyone to find a book for me instead I did it all myself. My motivation also let me jump over the brick walls, when I couldn’t find certain things out and to keep on searching around the library even though it was extremely difficult while trying to learn the system of how to find things on the shelves.

Weaknesses: I think that I can still hold back at times with my ideas though I feel like I can say anything within the lectures as these people are very unique and want to listen. I am not sure if I opened out anymore than last year, but it’s hard to break a habit when I always think so much in my head then speak later, but then the moment has passed so I don’t say anything again. I also feel that for a lot of the semester I never really had a great deal of faith within myself and thinking that my topic wouldn’t be exciting to anybody else I didn’t really share what I learnt with anybody else. I don’t think I’ll ever see myself as someone who isn’t boring so I for now much of my thinking is still going to remain in my head.

I still struggled with referencing but thankfully Brittany was able to save me, which made my essay flow a lot better. The other problem I had was feedback… no offence but getting feedback from 2 international students and no one else is a bad idea, I could clearly see that they struggle with English within there sentence structure within their critique, but when going for a HD mark every little word, the grammar, everything counts to make it more concise.

Opportunities: The weirdest opportunity may have come from the topic of social judgment in which I chose to study as I found out that I clearly hover between at least to of the categories depending on how I feel. One of them being a total state of paranoia which is so controlling and restrictive, where I can become so embarrassed by myself I want to just crawl under a rock and hide away. Knowing that there are probably always going to be times like this and the best thing to do is have a quicker comeback time into where I become more rational and realistic and will speak out a bit more or at least not keep on feeling my first instinct to run and hide.

Having the experience of the third years there like Brittany (as she did turn up to class to) was extremely good as she realised the frustration that there is never enough that you can do and the feeling how you still haven’t finished. I also looked to her for feedback when I felt what I got was of little use as it wasn’t critical enough. I also had a great time with Brittany as I feel she thinks similar to me and she took an interest in my work so I could always come up with more ideas after a discussion.

I found that I should never stop hassling people for feedback and I also know who I can ask and will take the time to read it. I also found it valuable to bring in someone who knew nothing of my topic to read it as when you live with a process and topic for so long you forget about others reading it who haven’t gone through it wont know what your talking about.

Threats: If I begin to doubt myself and begin to see myself as wrong, even when I know I am doing the right thing such as the instance of lectures where I felt since I was in the minority of people attending the class I was in the wrong. I find it extremely had to continue liking something that no one else seems to have no interest in, and found out I can really believe I am wrong over anything. At times I know I am the person who holds me back the most, and that I can’t hold faith in myself for to long. I ended up hating my essay as an outcome because I feel it still doesn’t represent the journey or process but maybe that’s because I don’t think studies will ever feel like it’s finished.

Social judgement: the effect on our behaviour.

2006-06-04T15:18:00.000+10:00

As humans it is only natural on a subconscious level to judge others; on the way they look, behave and act. Is there a reason we judge others and dose this affect the way we live our lives. Is social judgment really something which can affect who we are as people and our behaviour towards others, I believe that it is one of the most controlling things in our lives but it is something we all know little about or how greatly it affects us in our day to day lives.

What is it that makes us behave so differently under a critical eye when we know that someone else is watching us and judging us? Why do people think about and judge others? “People think about other people in order to interact with them.” What is it that changes under observation and are there different ways to react to judgment.

The hardest thing to face is the knowledge that we can’t control what other people think of us, sometimes it is quite concerning and then we either try and avoid it or to challenge it. We all try and predict what other people are thinking and act out scenarios in our minds but in order to have the most control over other people’s thoughts we firstly need to have control over them. Though sometimes this control over other people doesn’t come directly from another person but in the form of paranoia and fear within the individual, letting thoughts control them.

Paranoia causes most rational thoughts to leave the mind and is almost an obsession it can’t be switched on or off it just there having good days and bad days. On the bad days the feeling of constantly been watched, judged and criticized is overwhelming. The simple task of walking down a crowed busy street is unbearable so many eyes waiting for a mistake. Better not walk around the same block with out a long distance people might think I am lost the will question why for that is not normal.

Constant fear of being wrong, fear of rejection, of being laughed at, of being betrayed alters our actions. Turning to silence and isolating ourselves is an easy response as people wont have much to remember you by or judge you on, avoidance is a good answer. There is a big gap between who we are and who we want to be, within keeping silent hopefully know one else needs to know. Trying to hide faults within us is an ideal way to live but as paranoia is controlling it leaves often to a degree of social outcast as people can’t relate or understand the way others minds think, they come to the conclusion that they are strange or not worth spending time on.

“Why do all people assume that they will discover painful nakedness when their eyes are open to see? It is because the negative and unwanted parts of the self have been pushed away from awareness…” Something within us we all fear is being rejected by other people and for them refusing to interact with us. We all contain undesirable parts within us which we hide, but when it turns into our obsession paranoia sets in. Our behavior towards others changes and becomes something which may be unlike the other self, which is only portrayed to those we trust so there is a breaking of character.

Distorting or overacting using your own opinion of yourself can also lead to undesired and un-rational thoughts which are not viewed by others. Within an experience after purchasing a new pair of jeans I decided to wear them. Having not worn jeans in 15 years I had taken the risk that they might not be fashionable or that they might not suit me. Turning me into someone who is different and awkward looking and people would stare and laugh at me. But seeing as no one really gave me a second glance I realized that my risk was fine and I was viewed as someone totally normal. It would have been much more comfortable not to test out my theory, but my anxiety was all for nothing.

If we removed all the fears associated with paranoia in the hope of creating a utopian society there would be no interaction with others at all. There would be no chance to judge others as either everything would be accepted or everyone would follow the rules. If there was no fear of rejection, and expectation that people where all trustworthy and predictable there would nothing to compare others to as there would be no difference.

Within the understanding of how we judge others, is also by understanding our own selves and experiences we can realize we have a limit to fully understanding others. With this in mind we construct the view of ourselves by other people’s reactions and the way we think they see us. So we take upon societies morals as a whole as a starting point to guide us how one should act. From there we can begin to act out scenarios of what others will think of us, as well as reactions when then begin to feel emotions of guilt and betrayal when we break these moral rules. As one of my encounters I was facing a fine of $150 for having my feet on the seat while traveling on the train. This rule is in place to respect other travelers on the train, and as I realized this I viewed myself as a bad person and that I should be fined accordingly. The fine was a just punishment, I was extremely upset when I incurred the fine and began to cry. The ticket inspector appeared to empathise with me, subsequently letting me off the fine.

How we feel about ourselves also has a great impact on to how we think others will see us, as I found out with an encounter on a depressing day when it seems that we don’t matter to the world no one is sure to notice and see us right and if they do it doesn’t matter. We seem to be self focused interacting with others is the last thing on our mind so we stop judging others on only judge ourselves we are distanced from society.

There are some genuine personalities who notice judgment but remain unaffected by it even if it is wrongs as they to in turn judge others and realize that a first impression of a person is never really correct. As we all share different experiences and at different stages of or lives there are many factors which effect how we view others.

People act out different characters as a barrier of defense, because if people reject them they are only rejecting a character. It is easy to hide behind a mask of confidence helping to deceive others. “such performances involve individuals in continually monitoring the impressions they give off to, and make upon, others; public identity is thus performed for an audience, and the private self knows that such performances are essential to identity and to the maintenance of respect and trust in routine social interaction.”

We all play slightly different roles which we test out to different people, through this we try to appeal to different aspects of people’s personalities making us more desirable characters. We judge people’s reactions to see if what we are doing is something desirable and then work out a routing to give them.

Some altruistic people desire to look kinder to others and become patronising and sympathetic “A final egotistic argument asserts that empathy cause people to merge self with others into oneness, so that helping the other becomes helping the self”’ When the simple act of helping out others is merely to get direct benefits it’s insulating as they don’t really bother to spend the time in understanding the other person and they see they can improve their own situation they use helping as means to receive their own desires.

‘“Knowing what is good for others,’ is basically ‘egocentric’ or ‘ethnocentric’-being able to perceive the world from only one’s perspective.” Feeling pity for others and judging them against what you would have done if in the same situation undermines other people and show the complete lack of understanding. As you would never had the same experiences and would not understand what they are thinking. To see the world through one right view point (your own) will limit your ability to learn from others and their experiences.

When researching in the library I was able to find an example in a book titled Social Beings that there are rare cases of people who help out others without knowing the benefits. There was an old cleaning lady who had all her life savings she couldn’t see any direct benefit in spending it all on herself and donated it to the local university even though she never attended a university herself. She would never see the benefits of what the money could do.

Though life experiences can alter our outlook and cause us to feel empathy for others we can then use this to genuinely help through understanding and can be there for support. They don’t feel it’s their obligatory duty or see that they will get direct benefit from it, but have concern from others and an overlapping experience which they share.

Empathy is a difficult emotion as we have no real control over it; through it we are able to see different points of view. By understanding that we are different but as humans we all share similar emotions feelings of anxiety and being honest we can try and to relate to others about how it would feel in different situations. This can’t be limited to people we like it has to be used on people we have never met before, showing respect and value for what others have to say.

The teenage outlook is something that most of us go through at some stage though it’s not a simple thing which people just grow out of. They see themselves at the center of things and as the most import and knowledgeable person. They also act up to audiences when they know people are watching, pushing the limits and constantly challenging what other people will see of them. Going out of their way to seek judgment, they want every one to remember them, as superior to others.

Attention seeking, dominating, large arrogant egos seek affirmation each day to see their place in the world and to reestablish this image within everyone. They see themselves as the center of the universe and seek to please themselves. They view themselves as being constantly right, and wish to prove it to everyone. They enjoy the challenge of predicting outcomes from people; in order to have control over others by convincing them that you are more important and knowledgeable giving control, power and authority over them. “Controlling people struggle for understanding in order to predict their outcomes and perhaps to control them. Many of the studies based on understanding in the service of interacting also reflect people’s desire for control…”

”Humans actively seek control and respond to the loss in a wide variety of ways, implicating it as a central concern and prominent problem to solve in everyday life.” To control outcomes in what others think of you helps to affirm your place within society. People with a high desire to control will conform less to rules. We are more likely to remember someone with a high desire for control over others especially if they have a big ego or dominating personality.

What is the most unique or minimal form of social judgment? The most interesting way to communicate with new people or even people that we know is over the internet. As a bodiless identity we can no longer use body language to fill in the gaps of what is not being said an communicated, unlike the telephone we can no longer rely on the tone on which something is said, the sarcasm, when there is pausing and waiting to not talk over the other person, the wait for a response to what is said.

On the internet we can continually type out lies and ignore responses to things. We can delete words, talk over words, and deliberately choose to misread words. Without the extra clues within verbal and physical contact while talking we can’t pick up if this person is telling the truth. So on the internet we always expect lies or alterations from the truth, before we start reading things, it’s easy to exaggerate things be patronising. Tell things one sided while pretending you’re saying the honest truth, write things that you know will appeal to one person’s style. It is also a place where you can talk to yourself and ask questions; knowing that there is an off chance someone will read it and then your not insane talking to yourself. We chose what to read and what to ignore we put our own emphasis on key words.

“To live in the post-modern world, according to Turkle, is to live a discontinuous, fractured episodic, consequences-avoiding life. Her argument is that the internet is the socio-technical field which best expresses these post-modern tendencies, a field in which people explore and develop new selves.” It is easy to avoid consequences so within this form we feel safe, in control and have power over what others will read and can choose for emotive responses. We are only on the internet for episodes of time we can choose how often and frequently to talk, conversations are never continues and they don’t seem to date.

It’s easier to be a loud person on the internet as people are constantly drowning each other out with words. There is not much shock value left as anything is already out there, we have control of what we see. There is so much of a visual overload things can get looked over. We expect the place to be full of lies, shocks, horrors distortions and alter egos, reality meeting non-reality so what is left to judge? There is no need for mass social acceptance as like minded people will tend to find the place creating its own type of acceptance. Those who are not tend to avoid that place and prefer not to think it’s out there, as with the case of pornography and the communities which form around it.

Putting ourselves out to be judged buy others always holds a bit of anxiety as we don’t have the control or full understanding on how they will think and react to us. There is an element of trust and understanding which can’t be denied. Though there are multiple ways we can act or deal with others upon our first encounters of interaction with new people. Through my encounters and experiences I was able to discover that in interacting with people there are certain instinctive feelings like when the old man muttering about me made me what to escape. The boy on the train wasn’t worth my time getting to know as he already and a hugely wrong idea of my personality and my values.

Feelings are always unavoidable and they all link back to past encounters to characters who we view as similar. We can see competition within others, fear of being harmed, being betrayed, not sharing the same values or morals. We seek out similar people to interact with as we know our place of where we stand. These people have similar interests and we can understand them and enjoy being in their company. Our personalities are greatly influenced by what we value (such as our morals) so we can’t interact with others who have extremely opposite values as there is a great lack of understanding. Social Judgment is totally inescapable and as long as we interact with others we will be judged and tried to be understood.

Social judgment plays a huge role in our behaviour towards others, and the way in which we fabricate and portray who we and our beliefs. As we all have different experiences some people find it easier just to conform to society’s expectations but there will always be people who will challenge it. The feeling of control holds its own power and this is why we all wish to seek it to some level. Sometimes it might just be controlling our selves as with paranoia in order to end up isolating ourselves from others. Controlling with domination and giving ourselves positions of power within society ensure that we will be remembered by others. Everyday when we initially meet someone we will subconsciously start to judge and compare them to other people who we have previously met in past experiences. This will affect weather they wish to interact with us and form a friendship, or if it is a pre-existing friendship will conform to their expectations and please them. Through identify that there are different types of responses and ways to act it gives us a greater understanding what is going through peoples minds when they hide away (as in the case of paranoid) or shout out for attention (like most teenagers.) When we understand others we gain a greater understanding of ourselves and our place and belonging to society.

All weekend

2006-05-21T21:31:00.000+10:00

It has taken all weekend but the flash book for studies is now finished just need to redo the essay to a standard which I like and is grade worthy. When I say I have been working on it all weekend I mean literally all weekend as I am trying to avoid sleeping as I have this really bad dream which makes me feel like shit, and even worse it just shakes me up into this really depressed mood. So I’ll probably be crashing and burning soon though strangely enough it already feels like I am.

Number 13 for Brittany!

2006-05-21T12:54:00.000+10:00

Number 13: Sunday 7th May – Depression is one of those feeling which just alters the way you view everything in the world around you at that point in time, though it’s always bad to speak of the horrible feeling and thoughts as it’s not viewed as pleasant and people tend to judge you in a different way and get all concerned and upset about something that they know nothing about.

So I’ll reveal what I thought that day. With a feeling that nothing mattered and everything was irrelevant it’s like a negative mood where you only see bad; but feel that you totally deserve it and don’t question it. It was really overcast outside and I went out for a walk, whenever the path when really close to the road (there are four lanes) I wondered what would happen if I jumped in front of a car (they where travelling at 80km/hour so would be quite messed up) what would happen if they just found me dead, what my dead body would look like and how much blood would be everywhere.

Then I got really wet and cold from the rain and hoped the numbness would just take over and I’d stop thinking all together. I’d have given up anything not to feel, just to be numb all over.

12 experiences and encounters

2006-05-20T19:27:00.000+10:00

These are my 12 experiences and encounters though some way along the way I forgot and now have ended up with 13 but I killed out the last one as it was quite depressing and a bit too personal.

Number 1: Friday 24th March – Watching the French film Liam brought in was confronting and bad and made me feel weird and sick and I didn’t end up eating anything until 9pm that night when I gave in because of hunger as breakfast that morning was at 7.30am. The film put me way over my comfort zone to the point of me feeling ill; people don’t normally just sit and watch these types of films.

Number 2: Friday 24th March – dancing on the tram, with Soumitri and his family when I first started to dance I was so self conscious and was thinking I was just going to fall over flat on my face, but then I let go and had a heap of fun. It was quite confronting as the train is crowded with people watching you, and I was doing something different and strange. But when others are with you it is easier to let go and join in I don’t think I could have done it by myself or if I did wouldn’t have had as much fun.

Number 3: Thursday 30th March – Buying my first pair of jeans in 15 years, even though I had no idea about what was in fashion and I felt as though I was going to get it horribly wrong. I was almost embarrassing buying the jeans incase if it was some kind of mistake I was making was actually quite nervous what the sales lady though of me.

Number 4: Friday 31st March – Wearing the jeans into uni even though the whole morning I felt wrong and different, becoming increasingly paranoid and was beginning to think I looked like a fat elephant in them or was wearing something which was very dated and not fashionable. Though discovered that I was totally normal and no one noticed anything different.

Number 5: Sunday 2nd April – I went to Katie’s house warming party and stayed the night there. I caught the train in it was on a different train line, the Werribee line, with all my luggage like sleep bag and pillow. Then there was this guy on the train who asked me if I was moving out of home as he thought I looked a lot younger than I really was. To realize people can get the totally wrong idea of you is quite scary as he jumped to all his conclusions through observations which is what most of us do, he even determined my personality.

Number 6: Friday 7th April – After staying back in the city working on SolidWorks, I had a really bad time and nothing really worked at all. On the train trip back I think I was a bit distracted about how much time I had wasted on SolidWorks and had my feet resting up on the seat. Then at Mitcham station one of those undercover men came over and started checking my train ticket then he wanted to see my id so he could write out a $150 fine. After he had taken down all my details he then asked if this was my first fine and I said yes.

Then he said that I looked like a good person, and slowly the inevitable thing happened and I started to cry as I always cry when I am really upset. It was those silent tears that just seem to escape. Then he told me to stop crying, and then he said not to worry and that he wasn’t going to fine me anymore so I didn’t have to pay the fine. Then as I was hoping off the train to change at Ringwood for the Lilydale line he winked at me because I was still half crying, so I learnt my lesson and will never have my feet any where near the seat and that the people who give out the fines are not heartless people at all.

Number 7: Saturday 8th April – I was still really upset about the whole crying on the train thing, so decided that maybe 2L of Cadbury triple choc ice-cream might help (as I really love ice-cream) Though I never even got close to eating even half the tub, and some of my brothers friends where over and I don’t think I’ll ever live that done. Yep its true food doesn’t make you feel better. But yeah it was kind of embarrassing as ice-cream is still my favorite thing and every one sees it as something a child likes.

Number 8: Friday 14th April – After we finished class extremely early without any studies lecture, some of the guys decided to head off to a few pubs before we meet up with everyone else at the workshop. They where all buying and sharing jugs of beer and where offering me some but as I don’t like beer I said no. Then we all went off into an interesting conversation about drinkers and non drinkers and they where saying that they never really hung around and talked with non drinkers all that often (the reason was obvious because there hanging out at a pub.) It’s kind of weird as I think I have this weird image of myself beginning to start going out and not drinking.

Number 9: Monday 17th April – This weird old man was yelling at me that I was his ‘baby girl’ outside building 87 I decided to walk really fast to avoid him. One of those situations where you seem to be ‘attacked’ by others with just what they say. Though on encountering new weird and difficult situations the easiest thing is to run away, if I did say something like go away I felt he could get violent so I judged him and seeing him as a threat.

Number 10: Monday 24th April – I went along to an information night about golden keys where only students with a certain percentage can join the organization. The other people where all studying engineering or chemistry, in my mind I’d distance myself from these people seeing them as real nerds. The whole aspect and way they worded things seemed to be for high achievers with no social life who never made a friend by themselves before. I viewed myself as extremely different from these people and the way they were thinking, I was an intruder into this lifestyle which I wished to avoid.

Number 11: Wednesday 26th April – The instillation that I created for studies I decided to put it up before its due date and show it off to all the students who enter the building. My artwork is something which I have always kept hidden away as I don’t really enjoy criticism from people who don’t have any appreciation from art not seeing value in it. It was kind of embarrassing putting it up and I was a bit reluctant. The third years where busy having their presentation so lots of people stared at me putting it up. Though it’s still up now for everybody to view and judge my ideas even though at the same time I want to rip it of the walls into little shreds and then put it into the bin.

Number 12: Friday 5th May – for my final experience I decided that I would put myself out to be judged by others by dressing up for studies. Though I am sure many people did notice only two people commented about it to me. Though in Brittney's own comment she said she felt she should have paid a bit more attention to what she was wearing so maybe people might not have commented as they didn’t then what to turn the judgment on themselves.

Reflection of studies and the learning along the way:

2006-05-20T14:49:00.000+10:00

How is social judgement fit into design? Social judgement can be one of the factors that help fuel consumption, as fashions develop. It can decide upon what is going to be the next hit item such as the ipod. Social judgement has a huge impact on the way we behave and what we value. There is always a common view point on things or something which leads the way. Take this course for example there is a common view of what is design and what we should learn and focus our time on, though we haven’t been out there in the industry and we don’t quite know where we will end up so we don’t quite know exactly what will be most relevant to us. This common view will drag everybody else along defining a normal.

Social judgement holds an enormous power over all of us is there a way we can escape it. The simple answer is no, as I can’t stop judging others myself, and I know that others can stop judging me. There are ways to minimise it, such as places like the internet but we all judge each other in order to interact.

I have always been intrigued by behaviour and the effects of social judgement upon it and how much your values affect your behaviour and attitudes towards our environment. The most interesting thing though was realising my own values and how values come to be. Through readings it was clear that the stronger values come from society as a whole and these are where the laws are formed. Then there are values from those close to us such as family and friend. Values tend to change over time with our priorities but what we see as right and wrong wont change unless our belief system dose.

Though in the normal studies way it has now breached across into my life where I now understand others a lot better when I stop and think why they have chosen to act the way the have, I now feel I can relate to others a bit more.

This studies class has been important as I have developed a new way to research using book borrowed from the library, which is something I have never done before. I found a new passion and energy from the books as they showed that others thought similar things and I had proof to show that what I am saying is true, and not end up with a totally opinionated essay like last year.

mapping

2006-05-20T00:32:00.000+10:00

The beggining just started with words.

Look 100 posts who ever new I'd get up to this amount?

Butterfly

2006-05-17T00:10:00.000+10:00

This is the flash thing that I showed for studies as an introduction to the installation.

need to edit down 3000 words

2006-05-11T22:43:00.000+10:00

Social judgement: the effect on our behaviour.

It’s everywhere but how often do we think about it or acknowledge the power which it has over us, those judgemental eyes analysing, thinking and criticising us. Why is that we are constantly judging others, we can’t stop ourselves from doing it, but in order to interact with someone we first judge which category do they fit into. We judge people using stereotypes and past experiences. ‘People think about other people in order to interact with them’ page 123 Social Beings

We all try and control things, predict things out and play out scenarios in our minds. ‘Humans actively seek control and respond to the loss in a wide variety of ways, implicating it as a central concern and prominent problem to solve in everyday life.’ Page 71 Virtue, Vice and personality. To control what others say and think is almost impossible, to understand they why other peoples mind works is impossible as we all know how hard it is even to begin understanding our own mind.

People respond to this lack of control in many different ways, some people are very controlling and seek out opportunities where they know they can dominate, others can stand back and try and control themselves more than others acting out roles, while one of the responses is paranoia which plays on fear. Fear is something which is very controlling, often is irrational and has the ability to change thoughts.

This paranoia is a thing which is inescapable, it is always there though on good moments it’s not visible as mostly reasonable rational thoughts prevail, but on bad depressive times there are eyes always judging. Imaging walking along a crowded street there is a feeling that all those eyes are watching you feel the pressure to look right, to be right and to act right. I can’t walk past the same building twice in a too short of gap of time they will notice I am lost, or think that I am strange.

There is a constant fear of being wrong, fear of rejection, of being laughed at, of being betrayed we can’t control others actions, our own actions may respond with us isolating ourselves, avoidance is best… Avoid areas of controversy and change, be agreeable, be quite, and hide away. It is better to be forgotten than to be remembered imagine the shame of being remembered for the wrong reason. ‘…there is always a considerable gap between our ideal and real selves, the space between the private self and the social identity.’ Page 18 concepts of the self. There is always room for improvement within ourselves goals in which we set to become better people or to learn. Paranoia can distort this making us see only our faults in what we still have yet to do, feel uncomfortable all the time and feel wrong, there is a lack of faith in being right.

‘Why do all people assume that they will discover painful nakedness when their eyes are open to see? It is because the negative and unwanted parts of the self have been pushed away from awareness and because a gap exists in every normal person between what one wishes to be (ideal self) and what one actually is (actual self).’ Page 49 The social self.

If we don’t push away the unwanted parts we become distorted and can be filled with self hate, then it is hard to understand why others can see the good in us to, see past the faults. As we understand others through ourselves, we judge ourselves against others to see where we stand for honest people it is much easier to see the good in others and the bad in ourselves as we know what can be done to change us and our own goals within our minds.

Before we try new things we often act out scenarios in our minds of how a possible event could occur, when wearing the new pair of jeans for the first time in 15 years, I felt totally different though I looked strange and that every body would notice and stare at me seeing me in a new light, and suddenly realizing that I was fat, or extremely short out of per potion. None of things happened at all of course no one saw me any differently or even realized that I was wearing something which I had never worn before.

Distorting a view point, creating unrealistic scenarios which we have no control over, or seeing ourselves being rejected by society leads to a fear altered perspective in which we need to make the choice to continue and say let the worst happen laugh all you want or to do the thing which seems far easier safer and logical avoid the situation altogether don’t take the risk, don’t leave yourself open fly under the radar, let them judge you as normal.

A utopia out look for the paranoid would be no laughter at others, to be right all the time, people are all predictable, everyone is trustworthy, this would away their fears they would be able know, understand and predict people and responses they know that it’s safe to be different, seeking a world with out social judgment is it a world without difference?

How we feel about ourselves also has a great impact on to how we think others will see us, on a depressing day when it seems that we don’t matter to the world it feels like it doesn’t matter what we do as know one is sure to notice and see us. So it doesn’t matter what others think or say as they could all just be lies. We don’t seek out other people as we don’t want to interact with them their judgment doesn’t matter we don’t need to act or judge them we want to avoid society.

Though we can recognize social judgment, it seems that most of us try to remain unaffected by it and remain open and honest, seeing that judge others and may not always get it right on first impressions they in turn accept the transition of judgment. We all share different experiences and not everyone has the ability to understand or imagine what it’s like, especially as youths we don’t have a lot to fall back on.

‘People experience great difficulty in understanding others who are significantly ‘different’ from themselves. The basis for understanding others is in the understanding of ourselves. Page 25 The Social Self To realize that we lack the ability to understand everyone and that we all have different responses to things because of our experiences and fears helps us to appreciate the differences and see we can learn a lot from others, and just because there not like us they are not wrong.

Another way to avoid social judgment altogether is to act; as if people reject us then it is only the character we pretend to be. Wearing a mask of confidence in who the are, righteous and act self centered in order to deceive others that they don’t need other people at all, as they will be rejected as many times as it takes as they want to prove they are better than us. Even if most of us don’t go to this extremity to act in front of people we all still do it, how do we act in front of our parents and people with authority compared to our best mates who we say whatever is on our minds to?

‘such performances involve individuals in continually monitoring the impressions they give off to, and make upon, others; public identity is thus performed for an audience, and the private self knows that such performances are essential to identity and to the maintenance of respect and trust in routine social interaction.’ Page 32 The social self

‘we have awareness of the different sorts of identity we fashion when moving between the social settings of daily life.’ Page 46 Concepts of the self. We are all actors within some sense we have all tested and acted out slightly different roles. Within these roles (or it could just be our own normal reactions) we can appeal to different aspects of people’s personalities, and we can also decipher the truth. During one of my experiences I managed to show that I was a good person, by expressing an emotion which is very hard to act out and seen as truth. As I was very upset and started to cry, the ticket inspector felt sorry for me and decided I was a good person and let me off the $150 fine for having my feet on the seat.

Though there are genuine acts of kindness, there is also patronising, sympathetic and altruistic people who are often only just doing good thing in order to make themselves feel better or look better to others. Others say that what ever we do for others in anyway to help some one out is so it can go directly back to us. ‘A final egotistic argument asserts that empathy cause people to merge self with others into oneness, so that helping the other becomes helping the self.’ P359 Social Beings though as I have seen in encounter and experiences this is defiantly not the case. As the ticket inspector wasn’t helping himself when he didn’t give me the fine in fact wasn’t doing the job he is paid for, risking his career.

‘“Knowing what is good for others,” is basically ‘egocentric’ or ‘ethnocentric’-being able to perceive the world from only one’s perspective. Page 29 The social self.’ Some people go around and see themselves as been better than others and blessed with all their qualities see fit to ‘help out others’ with their difficulties and problems but never understanding the full story, or just feel pity for others when they might be totally happy themselves and don’t need pity as they are just different. They judge others in how they are meant to be against one typical normal social character (often use themselves as this example) and see any one who falls outside this bracket as needing help, or unfortunate.

Though through research and discussions it is true to find people that really do just help others as they understand that the things that they could do with a large sum of money, aren’t needed at all to make them happy and there is a better cause out there, knowing nothing about what it really is will donate the money anyway, so they don’t see or feel any effects to their contribution so gain no self satisfaction in the knowing. One example was an old cleaner lady who donated most of her life savings to a university even though she had never attended one and received no direct benefit.

Life experiences can also transform us and allow us to feel empathy for others where they help others knowing and understanding the problem having gone through the same experience or difficulty (or one which is very similar and can leave you with the same emotions and feeling of being alone and lost) themselves and know and understand the struggle and wish to help others using their own experiences of how they overcome it. They don’t feel as if it’s there duty to society as they are so much better, they see there are differences out there and that no character is the same and doesn’t need to be, they help with what they know and are ready to accept that they wont know everything but in small places where experiences overlap there is an understanding.

‘In individual psychology, empathy deals mostly with overcompensating an egocentric outlook and being able to take another person’s point of view…empathy is more demanding and difficult, requiring the person to empathies with people and groups who are basically different, whose commonalities and similarities are minimal.’ Page 59 The social self. By understanding that we are different but as humans we all share similar emotions feelings of anxiety and being honest we can try and to relate to others about how it would feel in different situations. How someone could kill another and take their life, how someone can be a drug addict etc.

The teenage outlook and common way to act is to see themselves at the center of things and as the most import and knowledgeable person. Realizing that they have an audience to act to they push limits, and constantly challenge what other people will see of them. They go out of their way to seek judgment and show that they are superior to others and that every one should know and remember them. Attention seeking, dominating, large egos and arrogant they seek affirmation each day to see their place in the world and to reestablish this image within everyone. They look for peoples reactions try to shock them giving them control over how people will respond to them, like to see people as predictable.

‘The egocentric child sees himself or herself as the center of the universe, has only one (own) point of view, and can not readily take another person’s point of view.’ Page 119 The social self They see themselves as constantly being right, and want to prove it to everyone. They enjoy the challenge of predicting outcomes from people, ‘Controlling people struggle for understanding in order to predict their outcomes and perhaps to control them. Many of the studies based on understanding in the service of interacting also reflect people’s desire for control… Page 125 Social beings Convincing others that you are more important than, and more knowledgeable gives control and power over them they will give you a position of authority let you realize the lack of control you have over them, as you are the boss.

‘Humans actively seek control and respond to the loss in a wide variety of ways, implicating it as a central concern and prominent problem to solve in everyday life.’ Page 71 Virtue, Vice and personality To control outcomes in what others think of you helps to affirm your place within society. ‘compared with individuals with low desire to control, those with high desire to control conform less to the stated opinion of others.’ Page 78 Virtue, Vice and personality It is true though that we are more likely to remember the people with a high desire to control especially if they have a big ego as their dominating personality they tend to take up the most amount of time and conversations.

Is it at all possible to avoid social judgment or find it in a minimal form? The most interesting way to communicate with new people or even people that we know is over the internet. As a bodiless identity we can no longer use body language to fill in the gaps of what is not being said an communicated, unlike the telephone we can no longer rely on the tone on which something is said, the sarcasm, we pausing and waiting to not talk over the other person, the wait for a response to what is said.

On the internet we can continually type out lies and ignore responses to things. We can delete words, talk over words, and deliberately choose to misread words. Without the extra clues within verbal and physical contact while talking we can’t pick up if this person is telling the truth. So on the internet we always expect lies or alterations from the truth, before we start reading things, it’s easy to exaggerate things be patronising on the internet. Tell things one sided pretending you’re saying the honest truth, write things that you know will appeal to one person’s style. It is also a place where you can talk to yourself and ask questions knowing that there is an off chance someone will read it and then your not insane talking to yourself. We chose what to read and what to ignore we put the emphasis on our own key words.

‘To live in the post-modern world, according to Turkle, is to live a discontinuous, fractured episodic, consequences-avoiding life. Her argument is that the internet is the socio-technical field which best expresses these post-modern tendencies, a field in which people explore and develop new selves.’ Page 133Concepts of the self It is easy to avoid consequences as it’s hard to track down a identity without a body this identity can also alter and change, run and hide, die and grow and be reborn.

I found the only way to be honest to others within a blog was to think aloud, express emotions and concerns put in something which we can relate to. Though it’s easier to be a loud person on the internet as people are constantly drowning each other out with words, there is not much shock value left as if things are confronting click to close the page. There is so much shit out there that no one notices another page of shit. We expect the place to be full of lies, shocks, horrors distortions and alter egos, reality meeting non reality that what is left to judge, there is no social acceptance as like minded people will tend to find the place then there is acceptance. Those who are not tend to avoid that place and prefer not to think it’s out there.

As we judge other people’s personalities we categorize them and place them in a group of people comparing them to other people which e have met before. ‘Categorizing people into groups implies seeing them as similar to each other.’ Page 439 Social Beings We also look at their beliefs values and morals and say whether these people are good or bad. Morals play a large part in being able to identify and understand others, as if people are willing to break the law, steal from others we do not desire to interact with them and won’t trust them.

People with low morals are very undesirable people as we want to protect ourselves from them. If I say that I am a convicted killer as I got into an angry jealous rage and killed someone as they slightly resembled this guy I disliked you wouldn’t trust me as I wouldn’t have the ability to forgive, and see the difference between people, and are most likely to do the same thing again blame innocent people for mistakes others have made.

‘One can simultaneously love and hate parents, desire and loathe siblings, accept and reject friends.’ Page 51 Concepts of the self.

‘For many persons, the influence of minority experience is profound, overshadowing other life experiences and other socio-identities.’ Page 71 The social self.

‘Desire is at the root of the complex ways in which the individual and society interpenetrate. Problems of personal unhappiness and unfulfilment, of guilt and moral values…such forms of social and cultural estrangement are also fundamentally psychological.’ Page 47 concepts of the self.

last weeks stuff that was saved at uni

2006-05-11T22:42:00.000+10:00

1. The Paranoid – the fear of rejection
2. Fear of rejection
3. The actor
4. The patron
5. The do gooder
6. Transformed – empathy
7. Teenage
8. The open/honest

Abnormalities –
‘Aspergers - is a neurobiological disorder named for a Viennese physician, Hans Asperger, who in 1944 published a paper which described a pattern of behaviours in several young boys who had normal intelligence and language development, but who also exhibited autistic-like behaviours and marked deficiencies in social and communication skills.’
‘Persons with AS show marked deficiencies in social skills, have difficulties with transitions or changes and prefer sameness. They often have obsessive routines and may be preoccupied with a particular subject of interest. They have a great deal of difficulty reading nonverbal cues (body language) and very often the individual with AS has difficulty determining proper body space. Often overly sensitive to sounds, tastes, smells, and sights, the person with AS may prefer soft clothing, certain foods, and be bothered by sounds or lights no one else seems to hear or see. It's important to remember that the person with AS perceives the world very differently. Therefore, many behaviours that seem odd or unusual are due to those neurological differences and not the result of intentional rudeness or bad behaviour, and most certainly not the result of "improper parenting".’
By definition, those with AS have a normal IQ and many individuals (although not all), exhibit exceptional skill or talent in a specific area. Because of their high degree of functionality and their naiveté, those with AS are often viewed as eccentric or odd and can easily become victims of teasing and bullying. While language development seems, on the surface, normal, individuals with AS often have deficits in pragmatics and prosody. Vocabularies may be extraordinarily rich and some children sound like "little professors." However, persons with AS can be extremely literal and have difficulty using language in a social context.
http://www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/

Tourette syndrome - having violent muscle contortions (motor tics) and vocal disruptions (vocal tics) combined with outburst of swearing and obscenities.
Tourette Syndrome commonly appears in childhood, more often in males than females, and may worsen thereafter or subside. The absolute cause of Tourette Syndrome is unknown, nonetheless many theories and advanced information has increased considerably since 1885.

There is a possibility of common co-morbid conditions found in patients with Tourette Syndrome though they are not required for diagnosis. ("co-morbid" means the presence of one or more disorders (or diseases) in addition to a primary disease or disorder.) Examples are Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder OCD, and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder ADHD

Patients with Tourette's Syndrome who have other conditions as well, may be at increased risk for a whole host of other problems, but many of the problems may not be due to Tourette Syndrome but to other conditions they may have.

The definition does not require coprolalia (uncontrollable use of socially unacceptable words or phrases), though media presentations emphasize it because it can be dramatic. The definition is simply a multiple, changing pattern of tics (not necessarily at the same time) for at least 12 months, including at least one noise-making tic. (There is no requirement for severity or impairment.) You can have TS and function normally.

http://www.tourettes-disorder.com/introduction.html

Being drunk – often lose sense of judgment of what your doing, not thinking about the consequences of what you say, often words just come out and information and feelings.
Bipolar Disorder - Bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive illness, is a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in a person's mood, energy, and ability to function. Different from the normal ups and downs that everyone goes through, the symptoms of bipolar disorder are severe. They can result in damaged relationships, poor job or school performance, and even suicide.

"Manic-depression distorts moods and thoughts, incites dreadful behaviours, destroys the basis of rational thought, and too often erodes the desire and will to live. It is an illness that is biological in its origins, yet one that feels psychological in the experience of it; an illness that is unique in conferring advantage and pleasure, yet one that brings in its wake almost unendurable suffering and, not infrequently, suicide."
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/bipolar.cfm#readNow

An experience best left unsaid and forgotten

2006-05-10T23:11:00.000+10:00

Damn it realized still haven’t typed up my 11th experience, this is quite a crappy one but it really did alter my perspective on the way I judged the world. So last Sunday, I was in a really depressed mood, no reason to either I had been out the night before had a great time with some friends from high school.

Though I had totally ran out of motivation spent half the day in bed refuse to do any studio work even though I had planned to and really did need to do it (still do am so behind grrrr) Moped around all day. Decided I wanted to go for a walk, my ipod had just died so and nothing to listen to on the train into the city.

Started to walk and it pissed down with rain not just any rain but because of the wind came in such an angle that it was horizontal no umbrella could help me out. So there I was soaked in the rain hands numb, body numb. Walking around Lilydale lake, damn kids on their bikes I remember when I had a weekend once seems like forever ago. Damn rain damn numbness isn’t working, I want to not feel I want to not think, I wonder how long it would take people to find my body if I jumped into the lake, how long would it take to drown, would some one tried to save me, what harmful disease would I get from all that sewerage in the lake, how long would I remain in hospital if I did get sick, how long could I remain there to escape the real world, damn why doesn’t the cold numb your brain?

Experience 12 or whatever just a few bits and pieces really

2006-05-07T12:12:00.000+10:00

On Friday I decided to get overly dressed up for no particular reason, and it was weird that only two people noticed Ben and Liam, though I think Joel also commented something but that was more of an insult. Though maybe more people did notice but said nothing, or maybe it wasn’t like something that they didn’t expect from me so was no real big surprise or whatever. Maybe it could have something to do with the corporation game and always being dressed up for that.

Another thing is last night when I went to the footy with some friends from high school on the train home it was packed, but some young teenage guy offered there set to me which is weird but very good as I am so over the whole packed train experience thing where someone else’s leg is squashed up against yours and you can hardly breath.

mapping out stuff

2006-05-06T17:16:00.000+10:00

Intro why judge? ‘People think about other people in order to interact with them’ page 123 Social Beings

Perceptions from the self are structured according to an external image. – Jacques Lacan page 54 Concepts of the self.

Anthoney Giddens ‘…the mixing of certainty and anxiety that allow an individual to read cultural life and its textured flow of social action. P37 Concepts of the self.

Morals within our behaviour: ‘Moral reasoning reflects how people think about ethical dilemmas’ page 351 Social Beings

People are resistant to being “placed” in a group and stereotypically held there by others, yet they do the same to others. Page 56 The social self

The paranoid: fear of rejection, of being laughed at, of being wrong, of being betrayed
Fear isolating themselves, and avoid areas of controversy and change.

‘…there is always a considerable gap between our ideal and real selves, the space between the private self and the social identity.’ Page 18 concepts of the self

‘Why do all people assume that they will discover painful nakedness when their eyes are open to see? It is because the negative and unwanted parts of the self have been pushed away from awareness and because a gap exists in every normal person between what one wishes to be (ideal self) and what one actually is (actual self).’ Page 49 The social self.
There is a pressure of expectancy as our roles tell us what to do and with whom.

The actor: mask of confidence, righteous, self centered

‘We perform or act out particular roles in our relationship with others; we have awareness of the different sorts of identity we fashion when moving between the social settings of daily life.’ Page 46 Concepts of the self.

‘such performances involve individuals in continually monitoring the impressions they give off to, and make upon, others; public identity is thus performed for an audience, and the private self knows that such performances are essential to identity and to the maintenance of respect and trust in routine social interaction.’ Page 32 The social self

The power of roles is thus medicated through stereotypes of role holders and the expectations about their attributes, behaviors and performances. P222 The social self

The do Gooder; sympathy, patronising, altruistic

‘A final egotistic argument asserts that empathy cause people to merge self with others into oneness, so that helping the other becomes helping the self.’ P359 Social Beings

‘“Knowing what is good for others,” is basically ‘egocentric’ or ‘ethnocentric’-being able to perceive the world from only one’s perspective. Page 29 The social self.’
They help others because in turn it helps them to them feel good. They don’t fully understand the other person and feel they know and understand their problem anyway.

The patron: philanthropic, charitable, bighearted
There is often, people who help others and receive no direct benefit at all, such as donating money to universities even though they have never attended one, they see that there is a better use for money out there than what they could use it on.

Transformed: empathy, these people help others knowing and understanding the problem having gone through the same experience or difficulty themselves and know and understand the struggle and wish to help others using their own experiences of how they overcome it. They simply don’t just feel bad for them.

‘In individual psychology, empathy deals mostly with overcompensating an egocentric outlook and being able to take another person’s point of vie…empathy is more demanding and difficult, requiring the person to empathies with people and groups who are basically different, whose commonalities and similarities are minimal.’ Page 59 The social self.

The open and honest: unaffected by judgment, accepting, recognising a transition of judgment.

These people are aware that they might give unfair judgments to others so in turn if there are unfair judgments of them they forgive. They understand that not every one has the ability to understand them as we all share different experiences.

‘People experience great difficulty in understanding others who are significantly ‘different’ from themselves. The basis for understanding others is in the understanding of ourselves. Page 25 The Social Self

Teenage: seeking judgment from others, attention seeking, affirmation, reaction/ shock, egos

‘The egocentric child sees himself or herself as the center of the universe, has only one (own) point of view, and can not readily take another person’s point of view.’ Page 119 The social self

Controlling people struggle for understanding in order to predict their outcomes and perhaps to control them. Many of the studies based on understanding in the service of interacting also reflect people’s desire for control…In people’s efforts to control their own thoughts and in the effects of control moves on how people think about others. P125 Social beings

‘Egoism seeks the ultimate goal of increasing one’s own welfare.’ Page 323 Social Beings

‘compared with individuals with low desire to control, those with high desire to control conform less to the stated opinion of others.’ Page 78 Virtue, Vice and personality

‘Humans actively seek control and respond to the loss in a wide variety of ways, implicating it as a central concern and prominent problem to solve in everyday life.’ Page 71 Virtue, Vice and personality

Categories and minority groups:

‘Within a society and within groups in a society many values are shared. These group values play an important role in the development and organization of the attitudes of the individual.’ Page 129, Krech David, 1962 Individual in society a textbook of social psychology New York, McGraw-Hill

‘Categorizing people into groups implies seeing them as similar to each other.’ Page 439 Social Beings

‘The self is not fixed but depends on fitting categories salient in a given context.’ Page 438 Social Beings

‘For many persons, the influence of minority experience is profound, overshadowing other life experiences and other socio-identities.’ Page 71 The social self.

‘Resistance to self-awareness may be intentional but more often is nonconscious and without deliberate design.’ Page 48 The social self

‘Socio-identities are the “core” of one’s social existence, highly meaningful and central to group identifications.’ Page 224 The social self.

Desires:
‘One can simultaneously love and hate parents, desire and loathe siblings, accept and reject friends.’ Page 51 Concepts of the self.

‘Desire is at the root of the complex ways in which the individual and society interpenetrate. Problems of personal unhappiness and unfulfilment, of guilt and moral values…such forms of social and cultural estrangement are also fundamentally psychological.’ Page 47 concepts of the self.

The internet: The bodiless identity

‘To live in the post-modern world, according to Turkle, is to live a discontinuous, fractured episodic, consequences-avoiding life. Her argument is that the internet is the socio-technical field which best expresses these post-modern tendencies, a field in which people explore and develop new selves.’ Page 133Concepts of the self

Avoiding social judgment: social reflex, immediacy, bench marking, comparative, non comitial

Abnormalities: - being drunk
- Bi polar
- Terrets
- Asbergers

the map

2006-05-06T12:58:00.000+10:00

Be inspired!

2006-04-26T19:41:00.000+10:00

Another personal experience

2006-04-26T19:29:00.000+10:00

Another experience, ok so decided to put up my instillation before week 9, might even do something else to present then too. Half the reason I decided to show everything is hopefully to get others motivated, and start doing some work in studies! I also really enjoyed the break from reading books and getting back to art, it made me realise it’s still important to me, and that I still haven’t totally given it up though my skills are slowly degrading with lack of use but a solid stint of time can cure that. I found it good to realise that I still have a great love for my art, and that it’s a strong part of me.

I really don’t like showing of my work at all especially when my works the only one on display, there’s too much room open for criticism, and with emailing Liam to get his view on things, turns out I caught him at a busy time so I am still only left with my thoughts. Though I did find a nice little spot for it near the crumpet studio room, hidden away but not to far hidden.

Showing of my work so far has always involved too much chance for embarrassment as I don’t want my work to be socially rejected, and as I did quite enjoy making these things, and being handmade took a bit of time, so I don’t want people to see it and view it as rubbish. I don’t mind if people misunderstand my art as I like to make it abstracted and leave room for interpretation. What would be worse is having it up on display and no one noticing.

This is the first exhibition of any of my uni work so if it’s bad I’ll just be confirming what I already know within me and that’s my artwork doesn’t really hold to much value, the reason why I am not studying art.

It was interesting as I met Chris from third year, who elected first year studies as I was placing it up on the wall. Seems they have the same problem and no ones doing any real work. It was weird as we kind of had a connection via the blogs. Though it was kind of nerve racking as all these third years looked at me as I was working away, as they where all guys, and then briefly for a moment there was one of the guys from catalyst making a phone call. Even Soumitri briefly asked what I was up to, so hopefully all this time hasn’t been a waste and at least one other student some where is inspired thin it would have for filled its purpose.

My exhibition

2006-04-26T19:14:00.000+10:00

Another experience –nerds

2006-04-25T20:32:00.000+10:00

Went along to the Golden Keys information session tonight arrggg they’re such nerds I surly can’t be one of them? No I am not James the guy I met from chemistry and I agreed that it’s not true, while talking on the train back home. Yep he recognised me from the meeting so we began to talk on the platform and train. It was quite funny so typically nerdish, couldn’t even spare money for future members and decided to cut the pieces of pizza so they turned it into finger food, and half filled plastic cups with soft drink.

The graphics and presentation where so poorly done it was amusing, bad fonts, cheesy writing in a square, and clip art over board and pixelated images. Couldn’t understand what they where saying only repeating dot points on the screen so uninformative. Each question asked is told to check the website. It even seemed like the ultimate nerd thing when they bring out the phrase ‘make friends’ because that’s something I can’t do by myself…

You never understand what anybody was saying as it seems the only people who are part of it are international students who are probably only in it to honestly make friends and to kick start their careers and who generally highly intelligent.

It’s weird when you try and not define yourself by not fitting into that category, but defiantly don’t belong within a group of people like that. I serous had to check for my name on letter again and again. It’s surreal enough that some how by pure luck (no skill is involved) finding myself at the top 15% of the course due to my marks last year. Gosh I don’t even know how I made into the course in the first place, and I still hardly understand what Industrial Design is and I don’t think I’ll ever make it to being a product designer.

Social judgement - understanding who we are and our place:

2006-04-23T13:24:00.000+10:00

Sometimes though social judgement is a blessing and helps to put things into perspective. It can set us free from our fears and confirm or destroy our beliefs for the better. Sometimes we can judge ourselves against others and come up with the wrong conclusion such as we can think we are extremely fat, but then others might say things which are opposite and destroy this myth in your head.

It is also easy to pick up and understand of how we are meant to act at times, from other people and unconsciously they help guide us with their judgement as we seek their approval. We understand where we are going wrong and how we are meant to act.

We construct who we are from people around us. This may seem like it’s a bad thing, and we don’t want to stereotype ourselves, and be placed into a group but we do the same to everybody else. ‘People are resistant to being “placed” in a group and stereotypically held there by others, yet they do the same to others.’ Page 56 Sypnowich Christine and Bakhurst David, 1995, The Social Self, Sage Publications, London.

‘Roles influence not only the mental perspective and the behaviour of their holders, but also the ways in which role holders are perceived and judged by others in their social environment. The power of roles is thus medicated through stereotypes of role holders and expectations about their attributes, behaviours and performances.’ P222 Sypnowich Christine and Bakhurst David, 1995, The Social Self, Sage Publications, London.

We can identify and conform to roles and know and understand our place and expectations. We are following along the same path as those like us so have a clear map to follow and don’t have to try and make it up and understand by ourselves. Holding a place simplifies things making it easier.

‘In our attempt to see wherein the individual can retain his individuality and wherein group forces are too overwhelming…Whether a man expresses his own basic personality or the pattern imposed upon him by the society, whether he is a conformist or an independent, will inevitably and simultaneously reflect his uniqueness and his collectiveness.’ P529 Krech David, 1962, Individual in society a textbook of social psychology, New York, McGraw-Hill.

But each path that we try to follow is slightly altered along the way from our own personal experiences and our own morals. But with guidance from others expectations we can construct a comfortable and know and realise our abilities.

Paranoia and fear:

2006-04-23T12:01:00.000+10:00

The skeleton heads represent the paranoia feeling which some people get from constant social judgment and constantly conforming to the same system. These people have been broken down by society, being overwhelmed by the majorities views and caving in to their demands. They feel their identity is been lost or they are ruled by their constant fears of facing up to the standards. Every moral is important and every law must be followed and ordered. There are expectations everywhere and a critical audience watching waiting for their demands to be met.

When these people are walking down a busy crowed street they are so aware of the conscious eyes probing them waiting for them to falter and comment. What is to happen if they walked the same block three times in a row? Someone might think them as odd they must not stand out, the need to conform to the normal the standard, they don’t want to show disrespect to those who judge them. They must avoid the torture and embarrassment.

Blending and conforming into the majority of society is their place. They must avoid these situations where they might standout. They are abusing their self mentally, constantly analysing and looking for the majority where they can be inconspicuous.

To break out of people categories is unthinkable these people like to remain as predictable and quiet as possible. These people are determined to conform to society as they realise the importance of needing friends, when placed into a group those you see as similar seemingly share the same values.

The fear of being rejected by society after we have been judged choosing not to interact, as they see you as a bad person, these people could think we lack social values which is highly offensive and disheartening. They want to protect the common good, they want to maximize the amount of interaction and see the best way is to completely avoid meeting people and appearing different. They don’t want people to leave with the wrong image of them, and spread this wrong image around to others. ‘Understanding roles is especially pragmatic; they tell us what to do and with whom.’ Fiske Susan 2004, Social beings core motives in social psychology T, Hoboken, N.J. Wiley

‘People construct personal norms themselves, so they are internalized, although socially learned. When activated, personal norms are experienced as moral obligations, which guides helping, unless people neutralize those feelings by denying their relevance.’ Page 355 Fiske Susan 2004, Social beings core motives in social psychology T, Hoboken, N.J. Wiley

Their morals can make them feel a lot of guilt and have high anxiety. They feel a moral obligation often this is good as it is used as guidance, but if it controls us too much can be quite a burden to carry, constantly trying to discover what is on people’s minds.

The bodiless Identity:

2006-04-23T11:30:00.000+10:00

The eyes within these drawing are symbolic of a bodiless identity which is used on the internet. Our personal egos change on the net for there is no need to be controlling on the internet and it’s easy to be selfish and free from others.

The closet to avoiding social judgement is the self which is portrayed over the internet. As without a body it is harder to find the truth, as we often look for what is unsaid and unspoken within people. It’s easier to lie and deceive people over the internet as well. As a bodiless existence the idea of an identity is quite different as we can only know them through words.

Even though we are still critical of the words being used and judging them looking for truths, lies seeing it what they are saying is a joke or over exaggerated. You can search across the internet and find many inappropriate things which are not openly shown in public such as the expansive amount of porn. We can take back things seen on the net, as it harder to remember words. We can not feel the full extent of what is being implied.

The virtual people can have multiple characters which are far from the truth, I can change my age, my gender, my name, and my beliefs, can openly attack people and not fear the judgement or hurting and offending others as it always our own individual choice to read what is out there. If I am ever insulated by what I read or see I can close the page and turn my back. So when I write things I can do it knowing that other people are willing reading. It is hard to do the same with a conversation as we can instantly see when people are upset.

‘To live in the post-modern world, according to Turkle, is to live a discontinuous, fractured, episodic, consequences-avoiding life. Her argument is that the internet is the socio-technical field which best expresses these post-modern tendencies, a field in which people explore and develop new selves.’ Page 133 Elliott Anthony, 2001, Concepts of the self, Polity Press, Cambridge, UK

On the internet is possible to avoid many consequences if you insult someone they could live on the other side of the world so don’t have to deal with them. We can fulfil our own desires on the net with created selves and not feel guilty of embarrassing ourselves. We have no past on the internet and no future we can delete and erase ourselves and start again. There is only the moment of now; I don’t have a future to protect I am free of shame and guilt so with this I can be free of my morals and beliefs.

pulling out and piecing together quotes

2006-04-22T20:51:00.000+10:00

Our egos develop and evolve from many factors in life, one primarily important one is our morals which significantly impact on the way we socialise and interact with each other. But in order to interact with each other first we must juge them and then place them into a category of people who we think they are like.

As we are constantly being judged by people we often act certain ways, and we are always constantly noticing our behaviour. It is also common to feel extreme opposites about people at the same time ‘One can simultaneously love and hate parents, desire and loathe siblings, accept and reject friends.’ Page 51 * This means our interaction with people that we know is also continuously changing, so we are continuously judging the people that we know. ‘We perform or act out particular roles in our relationship with others; we have awareness of the different sorts of identity we fashion when moving between the social settings of daily life.’ Page 46*

So what influences our own personal morals, we know that we are constantly been judged and often some people take this to heart. Imagine that you’re walking down a bust street in the city, do you notice and feel the eyes watching you, judging you. Do you feel cautious, and watch and observer your actions, careful not to slip and fall? ‘Resistance to self-awareness may be intentional but more often is non-conscious and without deliberate design.’ Page 48 Θ

It may seem that there is always room for self-improvement, so when we are being critically judged by others we feel open and vulnerable. We are conscious of how we act and often desire that this isn’t the case, how feel on the inside of beliefs and personalities are not always truly reflected on the outside while interacting with others. ‘…there is always a considerable gap between our ideal and real selves, the space between the private self and the social identity. Page18 *

‘perceptions of the self are structured according to an external image.’ Page 54* We construct the idea of who we are from judging our own self against others. ‘compared with individuals with low desire to control, those with high desire to control conform less to the stated opinions of others.’ Page78 Ю .Seemingly those people with high self esteems are more likely to oversell themselves and make you have faith in their ability to control. Though there are many different levels of self esteem and some people can appear to have high self esteems but harbor negative thoughts about themselves inside. These people are very good actors convincing others that they are happy not to conform to others.

‘We perform or act out particular roles in our relationship with others; we have awareness of the different sorts of identity we fashion when moving between the social settings of daily life.’ Page 46 * We may seem to hold varying personas but our morals between each will stay the same. This sense of what is wrong or right is hard to alter and change. ‘The self is not fixed but depends on fitting categories salient in a given context.’ Page 438 Ω .We can alter between the categories of judgment to make others happy, we act very different around our grandparents then we do to our friends.

Anthony Giddens ‘…the mixings of certainty and anxiety that allow an individual to read cultural life and its textured flow of social action.’ Page 37* We are sure every time that we judge somebody that we are not getting the full information about them. It leaves us with a gap of the unknown in which we are unable to predict exactly what happens, but we draw on our own experiences to see what could have happened. ‘People experience great difficulty in understanding others who are significantly ‘different’ from themselves. The basis for understanding others is the understanding of ourselves.’ Page 25 Θ

‘Controlling people struggle for understanding in order to predict their outcomes and perhaps to control them. Many of the studies based on understanding in the service of interacting also reflect people’s desire for control’ p125 Ω

‘Failure to comply - and to be seen to be conforming - leads to dire consequences.’ Website http://www.totse.com/en/politics/political_spew/theencroachmen173722.html

If we are to draw upon our own experiences to judge other characters we are limited to the knowledge to understand others. Some people can easily accept others as different to themselves but those who want to understand others in order to control them find it difficult and frustrating to not know what they think and believe.

* Elliott Anthony, 2001, Concepts of the self, Polity Press, Cambridge, UK

Θ Sypnowich Christine and Bakhurst David, 1995, The Social Self, Sage Publications, London.

Ω Fiske Susan 2004, Social beings core motives in social psychology T, Hoboken, N.J. Wiley

Ю Chang C Edward and Sanna J Lawrence, 2003, Virtue, Vice, and personality the complexity of behaviour, American Psychological Association, Washington.

Ideas and outcomes for week 9…an instillation?

2006-04-22T00:32:00.000+10:00

hanging flowers and leaves

2006-04-21T23:30:00.000+10:00

These are all made from paper cut and sewn together; they hang from the ceiling and watch over you. It is meant to symbolize the many judgments hanging over you and guiding your decisions in a positive way. These judgmental people are the people with who we trust admire and listen to, these are people who we can be free and act ourselves to and they don’t mind our occasional slip in character, as we trust them.

The flowers and leaves are objects which are found in nature everywhere, a commonplace element, we see their presence and notice their existence but they are plants which do not harm us. Flowers are also used for their beauty, to symbolize that we all have something beautiful inside us and that too is not hidden from judgment.

Having a guiding judgment in which we trust and can confidently listen to means we are most likely going to be our truest self. As we act as many people within society ‘One can simultaneously love and hate parents, desire and loathe siblings, accept and reject friends.’ Page 51 the repression of the self. Elliott Anthony, 2001, Concepts of the self, Polity Press, Cambridge, UK

‘Resistance to self-awareness may be intentional but more often is nonconscious and without deliberate design.’ Page 48
Sypnowich Christine and Bakhurst David, 1995, The Social Self, Sage Publications, London.

This social judgment is not something we try and resist, unlike that which is on initial encounters with people

another book

2006-04-20T21:28:00.000+10:00

‘The self is portrayed as a resistant element to ordered structures, as that which gives the slip to theoretical and analytical categorisation.’ Page 16 Introduction concepts of the self.

‘…there is always a considerable gap between our ideal and real selves, the space between the private self and the social identity. Page18 Introduction concepts of the self.

‘The self consist for Erving Goffman in awareness of the multiplicity of roles that are performed in various situated contexts; such performances involve individuals in continually monitoring the impressions they give off to, and make upon, others; public identity is thus performed for an audience, and the private self knows that such performances are essential to identity and to the maintenance of respect and trust in routine social interaction.’ Page 32 Self, Society and Everyday Life

Anthony Giddens ‘…the mixings of certainty and anxiety that allow an individual to read cultural life and its textured flow of social action.’ Page 37 Self, Society and Everyday Life

‘We perform or act out particular roles in our relationship with others; we have awareness of the different sorts of identity we fashion when moving between the social settings of daily life.’ Page 46 the repression of the self.

‘Desire is at the root of the complex ways in which the individual and society interpenetrate. Problems of personal unhappiness and unfulfilment, of guilt and moral values…such forms of social and cultural estrangement are also fundamentally psychological. ’ Page 47 the repression of the self.

Freud showed the ego not to be the master of his own home. The ego, said Freud, is the servant of hidden unconscious desires.’ Page 50 the repression of the self.

‘One can simultaneously love and hate parents, desire and loathe siblings, accept and reject friends.’ Page 51 the repression of the self.

Jacques Lacan ‘The ego or self, says Lacan, is a fiction; selfhood is frozen as an image of something that does not exist…that the ego is constituted not from the inside, but from without – perceptions of the self are structured according to an external image.’ Page 54 the repression of the self.
The book also goes into a lot about the Oedipus theory.

‘To live in the post-modern world, according to Turkle, is to live a discontinuous, fractured, episodic, consequences-avoiding life. Her argument is that the internet is the socio-technical field which best expresses these post-modern tendencies, a field in which people explore and develop new selves.’ Page 133 The Post-modern Self

This is an interesting idea about avoiding most social judgement on the internet as people are without bodies and identity we only know people through words. But we still judge what we read, as if it fits into being appropriate, if we like what they say but it makes it harder to pick out lies. I would say that the virtual people and characters expressed online are the closet we as people come to avoid social judgement because we don’t have much to compare the person on weather its all lies, truths or jokes.

‘The ego, Lacan says, blinds the self to such loss; the ego covers over the fragmentation of the psyche through narcissistic illusions of perfection and completeness. Through immersion in the realm of images and representations, the ego is built upon various narcissistic identifications that defend against the painful and unsettling turbulence of the unconscious.’ Page 137 The Post-modern Self

2006-04-18T15:30:00.000+10:00

Friday 24th March – Watching the French film Liam brought in was confronting and bad and made me feel weird and sick and I didn’t end up eating anything until 9pm that night when I gave in because of hunger as breakfast that morning was at 7.30am.

Friday 24th March – dancing on the tram, with Soumitri and his family when I first started to dance I was so self conscious and was thinking I was just going to fall over flat on my face, but then I let go and had a heap of fun.

Thursday 30th March – Buying my first pair of jeans in 15 years, even though I had no idea about what was in fashion and I felt as though I was going to get it horribly wrong.

Friday 31st March – Wearing the jeans into uni even though the whole morning I felt wrong and different, becoming increasingly paranoid and was beginning to think I looked like a fat elephant in them.

Sunday 2nd April – I went to Katie’s house warming party and stayed the night there. I caught the train in and was on a different train line, the Werribee line, with all my luggage like sleep bag and pillow. Then there was this guy on the train who asked me if I was moving out of home as he thought I looked a lot younger than I really was.

Friday 7th April – After staying back in the city working on SolidWorks, I had a really bad time and nothing really worked at all. On the train trip back I think I was a bit distracted about how much time I had wasted on SolidWorks and had my feet resting up on the seat. Then at Mitcham station one of those undercover men came over and started checking my train ticket then he wanted to see my id so he could write out a $150 fine. After he had taken down all my details he then asked if this was my first fine and I said yes.

Then he said that I looked like a good person, and slowly the inevitable thing happened and I started to cry as I always cry when I am really upset. It was those silent tears that just seem to escape. Then he told me to stop crying, and then he said not to worry and that he wasn’t going to fine me anymore so I didn’t have to pay the fine. Then as I was hoping off the train to change at Ringwood for the Lilydale line he winked at me because I was still half crying, so I learnt my lesson and will never have my feet any where near the seat and that the people who give out the fines are not heartless people at all.

Saturday 8th April – I was still really upset about the whole crying on the train thing, so decided that maybe 2L of Cadbury triple choc ice-cream might help (as I really love ice-cream) Though I never even got close to eating even half the tub, and some of my brothers friends where over and I don’t think I’ll ever live that done. Yep its true food doesn’t make you feel better.

Friday 14th April – After we finished class extremely early without any studies lecture, some of the guys decided to head off to a few pubs before we meet up with everyone else at the workshop. They where all buying and sharing jugs of beer and where offering me some but as I don’t like beer I said no. Then we all went off into an interesting conversation about drinkers and non drinkers and they where saying that they never really hung around and talked with non drinkers all that often (the reason was obvious because there hanging out at a pub.) It’s kind of weird as I think I have this weird image of myself beginning to start going out and not drinking.

Monday 17th April – Weird old man yelling at me that I was his ‘baby girl’ outside building 87, then I walked really fast to avoid him.

The scary old man

2006-04-18T10:37:00.000+10:00

Ok another experience, I was standing outside building 87 yesterday, waiting for someone when this old man walked past and was muttering ‘baby girl’ or 'pretty girl' to me then he walked past, turned around and came back for me so I started walking again. He just kept on calling me his 'baby girl' and walking after me. There are so many freaky crazy people in the city. This guy’s hair was all frizzy and his eyes just kept staring at me very scary and unnerving.

Experiences to date: will expand later.

2006-04-14T22:03:00.000+10:00

1. - watching the film
2. - dancing on the tram
3. - buying jeans
4. - waring jeans
5. - the guy on the train thinking I was moving out of home as I had all my luggage
coming home from Katie’s and he though I looked younger than I was
6. - crying on the train
7. - trying to eat 2L of Cadbury triple choc ice-cream but failing miserably not
even getting to half way.
8. - not drinking beers with the guys, only there for conversation

More on control and self esteem

2006-04-14T21:43:00.000+10:00

Chang C Edward and Sanna J Lawrence, 2003, Virtue, Vice, and personality the complexity of behaviour, American Psychological Association, Washington.

‘Also people with high self-esteem whose egos have been threatened engage in maladaptive self-regulatory process (eg: taking excessive risks by overestimating their competency) that result in unnecessary slumps in performance.’ Page 5 High self-esteem

Varieties on high self-esteem
Variety Description
-Defensive high: Report positive feelings of self worth, inside
harbour negative feelings
- Genuine high: Report and feel positive feelings of self-worth
-high explicit: Conscious feelings of positive self worth
-implicit positive: Nonconscious feelings of positive self worth
-contingent high: Self worth dependant on achieving specific outcomes,
meeting expectations, matching standards
-True high: Secure, positive feelings of self-worth that do not
need continual validation
-Unstable high: Typical feelings of positive self-worth accompanied
by immediate feelings of self-worth that exhibit
considerable short term fluctuations
-Stable high: Typical feelings of positive self-worth accompanied
by immediate feelings of self worth that exhibit
little or no short-term fluctuations
Page 6

‘Humans actively seek control and respond to the loss in a wide variety of ways, implicating it as a central concern and prominent problem to solve in everyday life.’ Page 71 personal control

‘compared with individuals with low desire to control, those with high desire to control conform less to the stated opinions of others.’ Page78

More quotes from Politics of attachment

2006-04-14T19:43:00.000+10:00

‘Friendship is an Expression of community’
‘No one would choose a friendless existence on condition of having all the other good things in the world)
Friendly Society Page 94
(Aristotle)

‘It is only between those who are good, and resemble one another in their goodness, that friendship is perfect.’ Page 95

‘What today characterises ‘modernity’, in the work of these writers, is the idea of ‘reflexiveness’, the idea that that nature, society and now even human nature are not ‘given’ realties, but are continually transformed by our own understanding and choices.’ Page 222 attachment in context

‘The view that the world is a product of our own cultural definitions, or is, or can be, constructed largely in accordance with our wills, represents a critique of the idea of nature and of inherent constraint.’ Page 223

A mind boggling amount of quote from a whole book I read

2006-04-06T23:30:00.000+10:00

Sypnowich Christine and Bakhurst David, 1995, The Social Self, Sage Publications, London.

‘What are my group memberships? Who is ‘similar’ to me and who is ‘different’? How do I interact with those who are different? What are my beliefs and attitudes about those who are different from me along various dimensions of difference?’ page 21 The challenge of differences.

‘People experience great difficulty in understanding others who are significantly ‘different’ from themselves. The basis for understanding others is the understanding of ourselves.’

‘But even with in the similarity of a group, the unique experiences of individuals may be so varied as to create personal meanings that make it difficult to understand those who are ‘similar’.’
Page 25 The challenge of differences.

“Knowing what is good for others”, is basically ‘egocentric’ or ‘ethnocentric’-being able to perceive the world from only from one’s own perspective.” Page 29 The challenge of differences.

‘This imaginative entry into another’s perspective is called ‘empathy.’ It is relative easy to empathise with those who are similar.’ Page 43 A method of Inquiry.

‘Resistance to self-awareness may be intentional but more often is nonconscious and without deliberate design.’ Page 48

Why do nearly all people assume that they will discover painful nakedness when their eyes are opened to see? It is because the negative and unwanted parts of the self have been pushed away from awareness and because a gap exists in every normal person between what one wishes to be (ideal self) and what one actually is (actual self) page 49 Obstacles to self- awareness and self-enquiry

‘People cluster other people into groups and attribute them the characteristics of these groups’

‘People are resistant to being “placed” in a group and stereotypically held there by others, yet they do the same to others.’ Page 56 Obstacles to self- awareness and self-enquiry

‘In individual psychology, empathy deals mostly with overcompensating an egocentric outlook and being able to take another person’s point of view…empathy is more demanding and difficult, requiring the person to empathise with people and groups who are basically different, whose commonalities and similarities are minimal.’ Page 59 Obstacles to self- awareness and self-enquiry

For many persons, the influence of minority experience is profound, overshadowing other life experiences and other socio-identities. P71 Exploring life history.

‘Many people hold this negative stereotype about stereotypes and therefore are apprehensive about recognising and “owning” their own stereotypes. Stereotypes are generalisations about social groups-characteristics that are attributed to all members of a given group, without regards to variations that must exist among members of that group.’ Page 75 psychology of stereotypes.

‘The analogue to ethnocentrism in the individual psychology is “egocentrism.” The ego centric child sees himself or herself as the centre of the universe, has only one (own) point of view, and can not readily take another person’s point of view.’ Page119 intergroup relations.

Minority status has little to do with numerical or statistical minority, nor does the majority group consist of the largest membership. The definition rests on power status rather than sheer numbers. Page 150 Race, Ethnicity, Religion.

‘Most social behaviours are enacted as ‘role behaviours’, that is, persons act, react, and interact in a framework of various and varying roles. Socio-identities, values and beliefs, and attitudes are expressed through specific roles and specific role behaviour. Perception of others and interaction with them always take place within a framework of social roles, the roles defining “who” the person is at a particular instance, how the person should be perceived, and how the person is expected to behave.’ P211 social roles and role groups

‘Roles influence not only the mental perspective and the behaviour of their holders, but also the ways in which role holders are perceived and judged by others in their social environment. The power of roles is thus medicated through stereotypes of role holders and expectations about their attributes, behaviours and performances.’ P222 social roles and role groups

‘Socio-identities are the “core” of one’s social existence, highly meaningful and central group identifications.’ Page 224
‘“Minority status” means, among other things, that a group is limited in tis access to particular roles and positions in society.’ P225

Belief Attitude Intention Behaviour p231.

‘A value acts as an abstract principle to guide behaviour in a variety of concrete situations that have not been experienced before. Example young children are specifically taught to behave honestly in concrete situations. Later they are expected to abstract “honesty” as a value that directs their future behaviour. P234 Value Orientation and Ideology.

‘A few people have intense, personal, idiosyncratic ideology that is not a clear group membership. But mostly invariably the membership in an ideological group is most salient psychologically rewarding aspect of being ideological.’ Page 236 Value Orientation and Ideology.

Summery up to date! (everything said so far in a way you can understand)

2006-03-31T20:55:00.000+11:00

‘Wherever two or more people are gathered together there will we find a leader. With every formation of a group, some members are almost certain to take a more active role than others, to be preferred to others, to be listened to with more respect than others, to be dominant over others.’

There are three different levels of moral levels

• Egotistic- known as preconventional concern only for the self, short term focused

• Group- known as conventional concern for group standards, belonging fashion operates as collectivist, choices and actions formed as group

• Others- know as the post conventional, worries about larger society, equality, dignity, understanding motive and empathic person.

• Egoism- seeks the ultimate goal of increasing one’s own welfare, self enhancement and controlling outcomes

‘Egoism focuses on self-interest as a motive for prosocial behaviour. Self-benefit is the ultimate goal… egoism combines our motives for controlling one’s outcomes (contingency between what you do get and what you get) and self-enhancing, protecting self-esteem.’

– People with a big ego need or desire to control their outcomes

Initial inquiry of investigation: The influence of the human ego (what makes up how big our ego is, as we know that there are different sized egos, those with large, medium concern for others half the time and their self the other half, and small who don’t seem all that self focused and self centered.), while trying to avoid social judgment and categorization but ultimately failing… but by how much? We only think and judge others in order to interact with them. We categorize people into groups to make self assessment quicker. ‘Categorizing people into groups implies seeing them as similar to each other.’ People are grouped together by their personalities and egos as we don’t want to hang around people who are just to self focused if our ideas and opinions wont be valued.

How much are our personalities affected by morals? Morals help determine who we are as people, if we have high morals we don’t want to disappoint society, we can also feel a lot of empathy for others so when they feel bad we can feel bad too. Dominate personalities have big egos as they like Control.
What are the lasting egos- The ones which rise quickly squashing others along the way or the quiet developing others? Will need to ask others, and observe there is nothing in books. More research.
The mental breakdown of people – being overwhelmed by the majorities of society’s views and slowly caving in, or abusing oneself mentally We conform to society because we need friends and in order to make friends we go through the categorizing and judgment, when placed into a group those people are seemingly similar to you and share the same values.

The self is not fixed but depends on fitting into noticeable categories in a given context.

Why do we want to avoid social judgment? As soon as we meet people we are being judged it doesn’t matter if there new people who we have never met before or old friends we are still being judged. If we are rejected by others after they have judged or thought about us it means they don’t want to interact with us. This means they have judged us as bad people. If we have a big ego we can deal with it because our interest is within ourselves, if we don’t it means they think we lack social values which is offensive and disheartening as we want to protect the common good.

Why is it that sometimes this whole process can be overwhelming? We don’t want people to walk away with the wrong image as they may think we only have interest for ourselves, or might spread the word of how they perceive us to others and they will take their word and not want to interact with us.
Impact of guilt and morals in play in ones life… Morals determine a important part of who we are, people with large egos like control they will be less likely concerned for how others feel so wont feel as guilty if they can get ahead over others who deserve it more. A person with high morals is likely to feel a lot of guilt if the break moral laws governed by society, they also feel empathy so they can’t really advance without thing of others and their situations and worth.

How we view ourselves compared to the rest of society (are we more likely to over sell our under sell ourselves in our own view)
Braking away from the normal in society Still to research.

• What do our egos make us do so reinsure our social status?
• Is this to ensure that we are put into the right category?
• Is there a bad and shameful category (other than that of being a murderer, or criminal) or is it we just don’t want to see ourselves as been seen weak, or girly or manly or whatever. Still need to research

Summery of experiences up to date

2006-03-31T19:53:00.000+11:00

1. Watching that French film: feelings of anxiety, confronting, strange, unusual couldn’t eat for a total of 9 hours after film.

2. Dancing on the tram: self conscious people looking at you, didn’t want to fall over at the start, was heaps of fun good energy, trying something totally different never danced on the train before.

3. Buying the jeans: Baffled by so much choice, felt weird purchasing something spontaneous, normally feel guilty about wasting money etc, wasn’t to sure if was going to actually wear them, it was like buying a foreign object, let go of my individuality and conformed to the masses who wear jeans.

4. Wearing the jeans: Self conscious, felt like I stood out in my mind, different, not myself, paranoid, wrong, strange. Might wear them again next week.

The jeans

2006-03-31T19:27:00.000+11:00

Well I wore the jeans into uni today a weird experience as I felt really different and weird and when I looked at myself I thought I looked strange but no one even noticed, so I don’t think to anybody else I was different and it was mostly all in my head.

I was really nerves in the morning as I felt weird, and I was a tad paranoid. But there where no comments at all so I guess that I might have chosen the right style that I just blended right in. That was a huge relief as I did doubt my ability on picking a pair that was in style.

It’s weird to actually find out that you can create this image of yourself of what can be totally wrong and weird for you, but the rest of society doesn’t notice so it doesn’t lead to judgement. I mean I seriously was expecting the worst and had this period feeling like when you think you have sat in something and you’re not sure if people are actually staring at you. Maybe I should just have a bit more faith in my self image, and that I am not a total weird freaky outcast to be laughed at. Though I know I won’t be going off to add more jeans to my collection, one pair will do me just fine.

An experience or encounter.

2006-03-30T22:02:00.000+11:00

Ok well today a very significant thing happened. I brought my first pair of jeans in 15 years. I know have the intention on wearing them tomorrow. It may not see like a big thing at all put there was an underlining principal that I broke and now I have conformed to the majority of society, surrendered my individuality, but in turn will discover what I have been missing out on in these past years.

I don’t really remember the fundamental reason, why I stopped wearing jeans at age 4…But then again I did decide that I wouldn’t wear pants at all that year only skirts and dresses.

It was quite weird buying a pair of jeans after so long, I didn’t know quite where to start so many types and styles and shades of black and blue. A little overwhelming I am not sure if they suit me at all, but I’ll wait for other people’s reactions tomorrow and see I am actually a little nervous to tell you the truth. Nothing that much exciting happened within the purchasing, although the money I brought them with was birthday money if that’s significant. I hope no one laughs at me, the things I sacrifice for studies there be no reclaiming my dignity.

another book down

2006-03-30T21:36:00.000+11:00

Duncan H.D, 1968, Symbols in Society, Oxford University press, New York. Stop reading the book after very sexist comments on P47 and it’s so boring and old… Will read the other two books later had enough reading for one day.

Yep more stuff from books

2006-03-30T20:14:00.000+11:00

Book
Author’s surname, Initials Year of publication, Title of book - italicised, Edition, Publisher, Place of publication.
Example:
Jones, B 1995, Sleepers, wake!: technology and the future of work, 4th edn, Oxford University Press, Melbourne.

Fiske Susan 2004, Social beings core motives in social psychology T, Hoboken, N.J. Wiley

‘The self is not fixed but depends on fitting categories salient in a given context.’ P438

‘Categorizing people into groups implies seeing them as similar to each other.’ P439

‘Egoism seeks the ultimate goal of increasing one’s own welfare.’ P323

‘ people might learn that if they help people for egotistic reasons other than genetic survival. For example, people might learn that prosocial behavior ultimately pays off for the self. P325

A lot to think about

2006-03-30T20:02:00.000+11:00

‘People construct personal norms themselves, so they are internalized, although socially learned. When activated, personal norms are experienced as moral obligations, which guides helping, unless people neutralize those feelings by denying their relevance.’ P355 Chapter 9 Helping prosocial behaviour Principlism: Moral Understanding

New Zealand value stimulation more, Taiwan value conformity, Asian Indian prioritizes responsibility to help colleagues and siblings based on moral values. Americans prioritizes helping by personal liking and disliking.

‘A final egoistic argument asserts that empathy cause people to merge self with other into oneness, so that helping the other becomes helping the self… regardless people individually high on empathy (but not personal distress) do help others more. They learn empathy from secure and trusting relationships and are more likely to engage in a series of real-world prosocial behaviours. P359 Chapter 9 Helping prosocial behaviour

‘Theoretically, people might engage in prosocial behaviour for neither personal, interpersonal, nor group interest but simply because it’s the right thing to do. Principlism is the motivation to uphold a moral stand.’p351 Chapter 9 Helping prosocial behaviour Principlism: Moral Understanding

Moral reasoning reflects how people think about ethical dilemmas. There are three levels…

‘The preconventional level operates in an egotistic fashion, with concern only for short-term self-interest.’
- Immediate consequences for self; own needs, reward and punishment – Hedonistic level Concerns are for self.

‘The conventional level operates in a collectivist, belonging fashion, with concern for group standards.’
-upholding the groups rules.
-Obedience to social norms, rules and laws; Social order approval and disapproval Level Needs-orientated Stereotyped Concerns Others needs, image of good and bad people approval

‘The post-conventional level operates according to abstract principals thought to be universal to be universal, consistent with understanding motive.’
-would worry about equality, dignity, and justice also consistent with understanding motive
-Transcendent universal principals: generality beyond group. Level Empathic, Transitional, Internalized – others humanity Larger society Values, norms, responsibility. P352 Chapter 9 Helping prosocial behaviour Principlism: Moral Understanding

Maybe look up norms later.p348 Collectivism: Maintaining a group belonging.

‘Egoism (self enhancement and controlling outcomes) contrasts with altruism (which both indicates and maintains trust in the social world. Collectivism represents group belonging and principlism reflects a social shared understanding of the moral world by those belonging to particular groups, as well as sense of control over how people should behave.’ P320 Chapter 9 Helping prosocial behaviour What is Prosocial Behaviour?

‘Egoism focuses on self-interest as a motive for prosocial behaviour. Self-benefit is the ultimate goal… egoism combines our motives for controlling one’s outcomes (contingency between what you do get and what you get) and self-enhancing (protecting self-esteem.)’

In direct contrast to egoism, altruism describes a motive that makes people help because of genuine concern for others, to increase welfare of others. –experience empathy

Collectivism places group’s welfare as the central motive. P320-321 Chapter 9 Helping prosocial behaviour What is Prosocial Behaviour?

‘Controlling people struggle for understanding in order to predict their outcomes and perhaps to control them. Many of the studies based on understanding in the service of interacting also reflect people’s desire for control…In people’s efforts to control their own thoughts (harder than you think) and in the effects of control moves on how people think about others. ‘ p125 Chapter 4 Social Cognition What is social Cognition?
‘People think about other people in order to interact with them.‘ p123

– People with a big ego need or desire to control their outcomes

‘Personal Traits ‘two central dimensions of people’s trait impressions are competence and likeability, which are some what independent of each other. Likeable traits range from socially good (sociable, popular, happy, good-natured, tolerant, honest, helpful) to socially bad (unsociable, humourless, cold, pessimistic, irritable, moody, unhappy, unpopular.) The competence dimension also ranges from good (industrious, intelligent, imaginative, scientific, persistent) to bad (foolish, irresponsible, wasteful, unintelligent, wavering and unreliable.) Not only do people have implicit personality theories that tend to cluster these traits together, but also the implications for each trait.’ P148 Chapter 4 Social Cognition Schemas and Expectations: people understand and trust the familiar.

The effects of talking or being with someone, eg: they might do all the talking, might not listen to you etc.

People also have individual self schemas there are also schemas for social roles eg librarian (orderly, quiet, wears glasses drinks wine not beer.)

‘Understanding roles is especially pragmatic; they tell us what to do and with whom.’

People have social groups, especially outgroups, those groups to which they do not belong. These outgroups are based on stereotypes.

stuff

2006-03-26T19:06:00.000+11:00

Ok well I seem to have a whole bunch of stuff so I’ll try and break all this into smaller chunks…

Question 1: Why do we want to avoid social judgment? As soon as we meet people we are being judged it doesn’t matter if there new people who we have never met before or old friends we are still being judged. It a worst case scenario if the majority of people have conflicting issues with your ego then you are outcast and will remain alone. It seems though society waits to judge you for that one time you trip and fall flat on your face, they wait for the something not normal. When we reach the situation of an individual against a group if we don’t perform up to certain expectations, it is quite hard to live down an image.

Why is it that sometimes this whole process can be overwhelming?
Impact of guilt and morals in play in ones life…
How we view ourselves compared to the rest of society (are we more likely to over sell our under sell ourselves in our own view)
Braking away from the normal in society

I’ll come back and answer these later…

For now though more stuff from books: Individual in society a textbook of social psychology New, Krech David, York McGraw-Hill, 1962.

‘Wherever two or more people are gathered together there will we find a leader. With every formation of a group, some members are almost certain to take a more active role than others, to be preferred to others, to be listened to with more respect than others, to be dominant over others.’p422

People will always group together, when we are left out of groups we are at our most valuable. We need support to make choices, and to communicate ideas and express interests. To survive in society we form groups, though these groups are mostly known as friendships which offer support.

‘…that the personality of the chosen leader depends in part upon the personality of the followers.’p439

Similar personalities will group together as they share the same or similar views; a good example is mothers groups as they all have a common goal of protecting their children and the only reason that they have grouped together is to make sure that their children are taught correct values and are at learning the right things at the right time.

‘Within a society and within groups in a society many values are shared. These group values play an important role in the development and organization of the attitudes of the individual’ p129

Our basic morals are formed as a society like the laws in placed not killing people etc. Then within groups there are certain other morals such as partners who cheat on each other and within religions with attitudes on drugs.

‘In our attempt to see wherein the individual can retain his individuality and wherein group forces are too overwhelming…Whether a man expresses his own basic personality or the pattern imposed upon him by the society, whether he is a conformist or an independent, will inevitably and simultaneously reflect his uniqueness and his collectiveness.’ P529

Even if we see ourselves acting as an individual this is not the case as other people will categorise you into a group, like independent people, weird people etc we are still labeled and then placed into a group with other people carrying the same label.

In a rhizome way

2006-03-26T16:29:00.000+11:00

Just got a bit bored, so turned flash.

Just reminisce on a good studies exhibition...

2006-03-26T14:16:00.000+11:00

My good old friend.

I couldn’t find the whole file but this really was the only thing interesting as the other stuff related to the project…

Flash exhibition

Insane, this is just totally insane my head is sore my body is sore and my mind is sore.

2006-03-25T23:01:00.000+11:00

Well what is more to be said to the film we watched in studies yesterday but it was bad… I can say this knowing that the majority of second year is behind me on this. (With only a few students remaining to view the whole video) Why was it bad? It was way to confronting, made me ill I couldn’t eat in fact it wasn’t until 9pm at night that I ate again.

But then I woke up this morning the film was brilliant, I had changed my mind something which I found repulsive and disgusting had pushed me and confronted me so much I reached the place of unknown where I couldn’t react to things I felt numb. It took me awhile to regain all my focus even the seemingly mind boggling solidworks couldn’t draw the feeling out. Even dancing on the train I felt consciously aware of everything around me but surreal at the same time, it’s like a whole lot of wrongness piled up inside me.

Though as I was leaving the classroom other people said that it was a good film, I have no idea what happened to my mind I think I was trying to construct a justifiable reason rich Frenchmen would want to gauge themselves to death by eating extensive amounts of food, and while others would just stand by and let them do so. It was strange to experience something so far outside the normal (well for me anyway) where a group of people who have decide that they have nothing better to do or live for and will have one giant party with everything a French man seems to love and overindulge themselves to the point of death but in the process find it extremely satisfying.

Though suicide is I thing that I’ll never really understand because how do you know you have reached a point where there is nothing better to live for. If we are constantly indulging ourselves on all the good things in life then we are left with nothing to compare as there’s always that saying that there’s too much of a good thing.

I don’t really know why the film was so confronting at the time because looking back there are rather humorous parts, to coincided with all the disgusting bits but there was a bit of willpower from me to sit there a physically watch it. It’s hard to describe the feeling that I had come to it’s kind of a place of where you don’t understand anything, and justify anything bit of a head spin or something or somewhat a feeling overload to the point of you don’t know what you are meant to say or do. I guess I could include it as one of my experiences, even though I don’t know what I experienced at all. But it will do until I come up with something better. Though having watched it I am in the position of both seeing why people stayed and watched the ending of the film or why others just left.

Studies so far

2006-03-23T23:16:00.000+11:00

Me and My ego

Social Grouping

Recognition of dominance behavior
‘The simplest marker for dominance is that one individual can do something to another that cannot be done in return. Aggression and fighting are markers of the absence of an established dominance order.’

This is where our morals come into play, there are certain things which will do to retaliate back or define a position, or stance on something. There is also a degree on mental manipulation involved or bitchyness, where people try and control the other person to do what they want. This can be done with guilt, aggression or a serious of consequences of threats if the desired outcome is not achieved. The dominance order within mental manipulation is often harder to pick out or even understand who is actually in control.

just words...

2006-03-23T22:48:00.000+11:00

Introverted and extroverted:

Anti-social

Social stereotype

Social status

Categorization

Morality

Value system

Social dominance orientation

Body language

The politics of attachment

2006-03-22T23:46:00.000+11:00

The politics of attachment towards a secure society London ; New York, NY : Free Association Books, 1996 Roberts, Jane. Kraemer, Sebastian.

Today traditionally morality is shaken and no other has been brought forward to replace it. The old duties have lost their power without our being able to see clearly and with assurance where our new duties lie. Different minds hold opposed ideas and we are passing through a period of crisis. It is not then surprising that we do not feel the pressure of moral rules as those in the past. They cannot appear to us in their old majesty since they are practically non-existent. (Durkheim 1906) p 88 Chapter 6 Friendly society.

In the library

2006-03-22T23:28:00.000+11:00

This is the first book I read as I borrowed out six books to have a proper flick/read through. Though this book mentioned below was a bit boring and then I couldn't find too much that was relevant to what I wanted to say and what I did find I don't agree with to much. But thought I’d post it up anyway as I’m trying to keep it all together.

Friends of Friends Networks Manipulators and Coalitions, Boissevain Jeremy, Oxford basil Blackwell, 1974

‘Ever person is naturally at the centre of his own personal network. But the objective position of a person in a given group or field of activity seen as a network of social relation, influences his chances of being able to manipulate people and information. The more central his position, the better able he is to bring about communication.’

Chapter 4 Environment and social network Biological factors P69

A summery of what’s said… Attractive females in society have less close female friends as other females feel threatened; therefore tend to have more male friends within their closer social group.

Using Liam’s fancy ‘advanced search’

2006-03-17T22:20:00.000+11:00

http://www.totse.com/en/politics/political_spew/theencroachmen173722.html
‘Failure to comply - and to be seen to be conforming - leads to dire consequences.’

‘Consequently, today, both one's business and one's family are open books to the authorities, the media, community groups, non-governmental organizations, and assorted busybodies.’

‘The invasion of privacy provokes an upwelling of shame and indignation and feelings of indignity, violation, helplessness, a diminished sense of self-worth, and the triggering of a host of primitive defense mechanisms. Intrusion upon one's private sphere is, as Edward J. Bloustein observes, traumatic.’

‘As privacy fades - so do intimacy, personal safety, and self-esteem (mental health) and with them social cohesion. The ills of anomic modernity - alienation, violence, and crime, to mention but three - are, therefore, directly attributable to diminishing privacy. This is the irony: that privacy is increasingly breached in the name of added security (counter-terrorism or crime busting). We seem to be undermining our societies in order to make them safer.’

http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/a_clusters.htm#Seeking%20confirmation,%20avoiding%20discomfort%20self
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: acting how we are treated
Self-Monitoring Behavior: we are affected by how others see us
Description
Some people are sensitive to how other see them, whilst others are not.
People who are high self-monitors constantly watch other people, what they do and how they respond to the behavior of others. Such people are hence very self-conscious and like to 'look good' and will hence usually adapt well to differing social situations.
On the other hand, low self-monitors are generally oblivious to how other see them and hence march to their own different drum.

Social Desirability Bias: we follow social rules when we are watched
Social Influence: How we are strongly influenced by others
Spiral of Silence Theory: we keep quiet if we are in the minority (and vice versa).
Description
People will be unwilling to publicly express their opinion if they believe they are in the minority. They will also be more vocal if they believe they are a part of the majority.
This works because we fear social rejection.
Public opinion is the "attitudes or behaviors one must express in public if one is not to isolate oneself, in areas of controversy or change; public opinions are those attitudes one can express without running the danger of isolating oneself."

Minority Influence: groups tolerate minorities, who should stick together
For minorities to be taken seriously, they must be very tight knit, expressing the same viewpoint over a period of time. If they do not do this, they will be ignored as a bunch of individual eccentrics.
Minorities can leverage and express the views of external, but influential groups, such as when a single person of a given racial background can threaten anti-racial adverse publicity.
All it takes for a minority group to be formed is two people. When one person finds the support of another, their confidence doubles

Not helpful at all.
http://www.healthyplace.com/Communities/Anxiety/family_impact.asp
• Mental anxiety
• Mental breakdown
Social Norm on alcohol at a college campus
• pluralistic ignorance
• social norm
http://faculty-gsb.stanford.edu/millerd/docs/1993jpsp.htm

It’s back!

2006-03-17T21:06:00.000+11:00

Yep today I had that exciting feeling of motivation stirring up my mind then ideas forming, this could be due to the fact that I didn’t have CAD today but for Liam sake we’ll pretend it was studies. I went to Stephans lecture today about the Dutch Design School it’s only be running for 5 years now. Because of it being so new all the buildings where new and really interesting.

I found it interesting to find out about the self evaluation thing they did which included reflection, areas where they need to grow in, evaluation by a professional and evidence of learning. There course was 3 years with 2 extra for masters. They did all their projects in teams for the first two years as well and the areas of study where geared up for Dutch design company’s like Phillips, so the content was slightly different but some of the outcome which we were shown where pretty impressive.

Studies proposal Networks, rhizomes and communities

2006-03-16T23:41:00.000+11:00

Initial inquiry of investigation: The influence of the human ego, while trying to avoid social judgment and categorization but ultimately failing… but by how much

Questions: are we more likely to oversell or undersell ourselves in society?
How much are our personalities affected by morals?
What are the lasting egos- The ones which rise quickly squashing others along the way or the quiet developing others?
The mental breakdown of people – being overwhelmed by the majorities of society’s views and slowly caving in, or abusing oneself mentally

The main places where my information could be collected are by observation, questioners, reading library books, online material and visual material. My observations can be captured by photographs, flim or maybe even sounds. These observations can be as simple to see if there is one person dominating conversations, or within the suggested mannerism of tone of what is portrayed. I will also see people’s reactions to certain situations of discomfort where they are taken outside the comfort range. As it will be hard to see when people push themselves I will take note of class discussions and participation as many people view this with concern as they want to avoid judgement.

How people reacted to the limelight- simple phrases as where you’re going and how it said like when people excuse themselves from a group to go to the bathroom. Some still see it as rude others just see it as a natural thing. The paranoid feeling that you’re walking down a busy city street and that everybody is watching and noticing you. Is this a good thing flattering, feeling comfortable, or one of torture and embarrassment? Do we avoid this situation by the blending and conforming into the majority or embrace that we are different rebel out make sure that we are noticed. Or a variety and merging of the two just slightly different but only so a few will notice.

I have been back!

2006-03-16T23:26:00.000+11:00

Yes I have been back to the library and managed to borrow books all by myself, an interesting sounding one called Objects of desire. There was another one called design research which I plan to have a glance through and return.

It does not look so good.

2006-03-16T01:08:00.000+11:00

Well I can’t get the thing to loft now I constructed it properly have no idea how to use solidworks have no idea what I am doing at all, I can’t fix it and I can’t change it without restarting for the 7th time…Talking about time it’s running out fast and it’s most probable I’ll turn up tomorrow with nothing to show at the presentations. Well the morning is still early I suppose...Back to it then.

I could cry…

2006-03-15T23:59:00.000+11:00

Evil solidworks I have spent the last two hours trying to fix why my mouse wouldn’t loft only to discover the reason it wouldn’t was because I didn’t hold control down and select the curves. So at my dumb stupid self, it was like a two second problem. There I was drawing out new sketches looks like I won’t be heading to bed to soon…

Apathy- relating to studies

2006-03-10T20:12:00.000+11:00

Well apparently Liam was showing my blog around in the first year studies lecture… It was weird today as people where asked to nominate themselves for the SSCC, and since Soumitri had already asked me in an email if I’d do it I was first to volunteer, so I think I looked very enthusiastic. Well I am in Liam’s group for studies which is titled Apathy I am looking forward to working in smaller groups this semester, so hopefully there be a bit more discussion. In case you’re wondering about it here is an abstract on apathy from wiki about it…

what wikipedia says on apathy...

Some dot points from discussions
• Not caring (lack of caring)– not thinking
• Ignorance
• Not taking opportunity
• ‘bugger it’
• Apathetic action
• Nothingness
• Cruising along
• Not calculated
• AVIODACE OF COMPLEXITY
• Your happy life being questioned
• Ignorance is bliss
• Bubble life
• Political

So what areas of study am I interested in or know nothing much of that could expand upon for the semester?
• Fear
• emotion
• Learning and ways of learning (for society)
• breaking down the area of a ‘comfort zone’ is it possible, to what extent
• embracement (even to the extent of where we as individuals try to predict the reaction of a social response to our action, judging yourself the way you think others judge you)

After creating this list I decided to google apathy, and found this site to make you feel all guilty about being apathetic. It’s a film about all the children being affected by AIDS.

http://www.apathyislethal.org/viewpsa.html

Some Quotes on Apathy… But is Apathy all that bad? I mean if we cared and were enthusiastic, motivated and wanted complexity all the time then we would all be insane and would be running on high energy all the time. Could you imaging having studies all the time every day and be motivated to continually, working away…

HELEN KELLER: “Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all -- the apathy of human beings.”

ROBERT M. HUTCHINS: “The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.”

Progress

2006-03-09T20:14:00.000+11:00

So it’s been done, my first real book from the library is finished, it’s kind of weird though how much of the book is true and somehow still seems to say what is on peoples minds. I did like the ending about education of designers and not being to specialised as that’s something which I want to personally avoid, no CAD monkey for me, I think I’d bore myself to insanity.

I think I’ll wait until the four groups are made before I pick an area… Ideas are swirling around in my head so have written them in my little note book for now. I have no idea what these 12 experiences and encounters are, do I do things then read up and see if there’s slightly relevant things? All confusing but I want to put a bit more effort into this semesters studies research as I know that’s an area I am severely lacking in, and I don’t want to end up reading only one book before typing up the essay.

Yes so basically I want to work on all my weaknesses, look into more diverse places and try and get out of my comfort zone a bit. Hopefully it all goes a bit better this semester it’s good to have a few motivated 3rd years on board so hopefully they can help motivate us, help push us and get us thinking in discussions. I have no idea how studies will turn out I am glad of a few more weeks before nominating an elected grade as I have no idea where I stand and how far I am willing to push myself.

And so the semester starts.

2006-03-08T22:39:00.000+11:00

I was thinking about studies and what I maybe could study for the semester, I’d put them down before I forgot them… things that could be interesting minority and underground groups, not sure if it will fit as I am surprisingly finding the beginning of studies a bit confusing. The semester is meant to be about rhizome and networks, or something like that should really read the hand out...Wonder where it's gone. I'll add more ideas tomorrow as I don't want to post it all up to find out if there relevant at all.

Been reading Design for the real world Human Ecology and social Change by Victor Papanek and now am the majority of the way though it, am up to chapter 10 so yes I actually do read the books I borrow. Though bits of the book are a little depressing and it’s weird to read about the world three years before I was born…not all that much has really changed, except for computers and technology, but all the issues discussed are still around.

I have done it!

2006-02-27T19:36:00.000+11:00

So I have done it’s only take a whole year but I managed (with a lot of help from Raph and Andrew) to actually walk out of the library with a borrowed book in hand. So this is an extremely good start to the year. I got a nice coffee table book with pictures and decided to read Design For the Real World since it was mentioned so much last year.

Studies reflection essay

2005-11-30T23:51:00.000+11:00

At the start of the semester much time was wasted due to my procrastination, and my inability to just pick an area as I felt I had to know a lot about it first. There was also my whole misunderstanding about the purpose of studies as well and what the essay required never became clear until much time had been wasted. I originally from first semester thought studies was only about different ways of researching, and that in someway had to be interwoven with the design.

After about week 7 this idea had completely changed and I saw a much wider scope for studies and how it relates into design, but this was far too late to try and salvage my essay. Many things at the start where only half understood and I saw much of the research gathering as irrelevant and more of a joke. I wanted everything said to be somehow related to the outcome and saw some classes as pointless and trivial, as things got know where and discussions always got ‘off topic’ which I saw as time wasting.

SWOT

Strengths: I contributed a lot to the class discussions, and presented a lecture not to mention I attended all classes and lectures. Within the discussions I also took risk just trying to figure out what things would mean even though I was mostly off target. I also listened to what other students had to say and willing participated within the activates in class. While reviewing other students essays made sure to write both positive comments and areas which could be improved upon. I also got other students who I trust to get a second opinion.

I also willingly rewrote my essay even though I got my elected grade to see what could have been approved upon, and fix some things that came up within the review. However doing this now I see as a total waste of time as I haven’t received a single comment about it, but maybe it was still beneficial writing again just to show myself that maybe multiple copies can improve and strengthen my work. I also put in a lot of effort to my exhibition piece which received no marks, put felt I could put the contents of my essay into another format to communicate to others visually.

Weaknesses: It did take me a long time to develop my appreciation for studies, this could be due to I had an image of what studies was in my head and couldn’t see many of the class activities as relevant, and I didn’t like conversations to wander. I also had a major problem where in my research I didn’t branch out at all instead I stuck within my comfort zone of what I already knew worked, and can see now that everything that I wrote in the end became a bit to opinionated as I tried to fill in the wholes.

I also had the biggest weakness of not borrowing books from the library and focusing on using the internet and a few books that the lectures said might be helpful. Knowing that if I want to be able to get a better mark in the future I must overcome this problem and be able to look in more diverse places.

At the start of the semester I also had little patience to other class mates which meant I would tune out. I also at times become angry in my frustration at the time wasting in class, as when each person in that lesson was meant to share their learning so far and often everyone didn’t including me so I felt I was wasting time yet again and it would mean another week before I could receive feedback. Having said all that within a self realisation I know that I could probably just go up to one of the lectures outside of class.

The large group at first was to overwhelming for me at the start of the semester, and I would sit back only speaking when referred to and then what I said was often to please others so I omitted a lot of my own thoughts. I would only feel comfortable in smaller groups which often left me kind of feeling like an outcast, because I didn’t want to take the risk to speak until much later.

My essay also lacked at lot of formal essay style writing and an appropriate bibliography. I didn’t bother to try and fully understand what the essay should contain, and what the essay required us to do and what level of work for each mark until at a stage where I knew the DI that I wanted was unachievable and with about 1 or 2 weeks left downgrade it to a CR. Which I at the time I felt that this is what I wanted to take my focus elsewhere. But really I just didn’t want to apply myself and feared to write an essay under what I said I could achieve. I also realised that I wasted to much time to collect quality research, and didn’t have continual commitment to my work.

(On a group note a huge weakness was understanding the marking system and just how harsh to be on each other. On the whole I think people where just too nice as they appreciated the effort people had gone to, we need to disengage ourselves from the people and not mark on effort or what someone was trying to say but what is shown to us in the moment. Example essays should be handed out with each different mark, with comment of where collecting, contextualising etc occur so thre is a base guideline to work from.)

Opportunities: There where many opportunities to bring forward anything interesting that I had found to share with others, and to participate in discussions. Looking back now I also see that we as student had some control of where to take the learning, as we could bring in ideas or relevant things. What we said was also valued and I found that with Liam’s encouragement I could finally start to think on my own make decisions and lead. We where giving the opportunity to broaden our minds and open our eyes to the society that we live in, to look for differences and to see there are many relevant fields to design such as art which we can learn from and to walk further than just traditional research methods and to start asking our own questions, for then we can find our own answers and make our own choices.

Throughout the semester there where a variety of different approaches to things some being physical, some relying on our senses, verbal and visual. Creating lino prints and doing quick presentation which link different areas where all challenging though it felt these where all beyond what we though studies was leaving some of us feeling uncomfortable and robbed of learning opportunities.

Through many problems such as low attendance and disorganised lectures as students we where given the chance of improvement, seeing that in a way we could contribute our learning and to analyse what was lacking in studies and where people been scared away or truly had better things to do also allowed us to see that we each learn in different ways and engage in different was.

We where also given handouts from varying books and material so we could see just how wide studies can be and to help us find our own questions. These handouts also came from each different lecture so we could read what inspires them to think, and put ourselves in a different mindset.

The self marking of essays by peers allowed us to see what we are being marked on and the reality it doesn’t matter what you have done to get to that stage, but what you have right now is all that matters. We also go to read what other people had studied and pull apart what it’s values were and where the criteria is being addressed and how often and the stages.

Threats: There is a threat that the amount of people being motivated could be to low, and I’ll start to lose interest or can’t look to my peers for another view. This could also mean that if activities are organised or problems arise there will be such a lack of interest it will be over looked and then we will not be contributing to our own learning.

There is also a chance of people divided so strongly into the pro studies people who go after studies full steam and leaving behind a lot of people, who see studies as something else and disinteresting leaving the community divided. There would also be a lack of communication between the people who know and understand and those that don’t.

I also find that the differing opinions between the lectures can sometimes be a strain as within the first weeks seemed to be a class for them to discuss which also could turn people off studies class. There is also the major threat of seeing other students as competition this means there is often too much focus on ones self and things can’t be shared openly.

Sometimes my lack of confidence within myself doesn’t allow me to take risks which has in a way lead to a long learning process about studies. It has also lead to very poor research from me, and I still haven’t borrowed a single thing from the library which threatens every semester of studies that I have and might lead to a huge problem of finding diverse material covering a few viewpoints. I also wanted to do a questionnaire sheet to gather information but totally chickened out because I didn’t want to talk to other people and be judged.

The first thing I wish to do for studies next semester is learn the library system and borrow a few books simply to read through. Having completed all of first year with out borrowing a book has left me a bit behind, there is also the threat of me postponing it further and then the difficulty of when I really need something will not have the ability to find it. I also found that I procrastinated way to long leaving myself short of the deadline and wasting much valuable time.

The need to consume

2005-11-11T15:28:00.000+11:00

It’s so weird went shopping with my brother for his 21st birthday present, I don’t know if it’s just him or all guys but they see shopping so different to us girls. We are so satisfied with a good shop, walking around for the whole day from store to store. Then later deciding not to get anything until it’s on sale or that there’s a chance there be something heaps better. I can so go shopping each day, though luckily for me I only really go shopping with others because other wise being in the city everyday would become a nightmare (also my poor sense of direction helps other wise I would have no money.)

But my brother (or guys) shopping is so different going strait to what there looking for no time wasting and not browsing for things that they don’t need immediately. I am on the lookout for a new bag for uni which is really bad as I already have like twenty something bags, but now this obsession with bags is rubbing off on my brother’s girl friend which I went bag shopping with. The excitement of finding new quirky bags and jewelry, somehow we just keep on fueling each other to consume. It’s like a never ending need that is never satisfied it’s so evil, this desire for more and when we question if it’s a need or want it always falls under want. I mean there’s no possible time that I’ll need twenty something hand bags but I do have that many.

But hey it’s sure easier to shop for girls than guys; there are so many more shops and stuff to pick from. But I hardly buy things for myself (unless if there on sale or really want it!) I think that’s why at the start of semester when we would pick if we where dissenters, pro corporation or fence sitters why I didn’t pick dissenters, as I know that I would fail miserably as I have this consumerism need to have more. Then I always have to rid my wardrobe of half the junk that I collected because I don’t want it anymore including bags and such things. It’s kind of weird to see yourself as bee so shallow and materialistic. But it’s true it’s also hard to control there more you stop and don’t consume you just need to buy heaps of new stuff as you haven’t had anything new in a while. It’s sometimes a true addiction but to continue in this society we need more, shopping sometimes becomes a routinely entertaining cycle and you can find yourself going out so often especially this time of the year as Christmas approaches.

That's all for studies

2005-10-27T23:14:00.000+10:00

So that all of them, not really that many in the end for a class of 80 people but when you aren’t getting marked on it not many people where that keen. Thought it was fun making it. Oh and there was my lovely flash on clothing to go along with it but if you wanted to see it should have gone to the exhibition!

Studies exhibition – Brandon

2005-10-27T23:10:00.000+10:00

Studies exhibition – Ben

2005-10-27T23:07:00.000+10:00

Studies exhibition – Kim

2005-10-27T23:06:00.000+10:00

Studies exhibition – Kelly

2005-10-27T23:03:00.000+10:00

The frames which I have been ranting about

2005-10-27T23:00:00.000+10:00

I hope that you like them. Meg said that the felt person one reminded her of the felt people she used to dress up as a kid.

Studies exhibition – Lachlan

2005-10-27T22:58:00.000+10:00

Studies exhibition - Raph

2005-10-27T22:57:00.000+10:00

A very long post of Raph's blog

Studies exhibition - Julian

2005-10-27T22:54:00.000+10:00

Studies exhibition - Braden

2005-10-27T22:48:00.000+10:00

This idea of Braden's was really cool, he had a table and on it where a variety of chocolates. If you wanted one then you would trade something by placing it on the table. Then others can trade with that object also and keep on going. It didn't quite work out as some people traded things of much lesser value.

The exhibition for studies - Ryan

2005-10-27T22:43:00.000+10:00

The question

2005-10-25T16:37:00.000+10:00

Over the weekend I have found myself going back to the same old question one which for me was probably asked on the first day of uni after Simon congratulated me on getting in, ‘What am I doing here?’ Though since then I have asked it many times for different reasons and as I travelled along through the semester I seemed to find more and stronger answers. There is that whole answer about being a designer and creating things to be used by people in the future and all that, but now that the semester is truly finished I find I am back to the same spot.

I only have a vague idea of where I want to end up, and I am hoping that I won’t turn all money hungry or unidealistic. There was a patch there within first semester that I felt really uncreative and unmotivated I think that would be the worst thing to lose inspiration and my own motivation. I can feel it slowly slipping away already as I switch into my non study mode where I just earn money, for the next year of uni. I would hate to just end up in a place for money and then fall into the monotonous loophole where you say it’s only for a while but then end up stuck doing the same thing over and over again. I need variety only then do I feel as though I am heading somewhere.

But I think it’s easier for the time being to say where I don’t want to go. I don’t want to do CAD everyday and become this really great CAD operator. I don’t want to redesign endless product after product. And I don’t want to get some crappy job out side the design area like a sectary.

But within the semester at times different answers would jump out like I am part of this community I belong here. Or I am different and see different things, or have different ideas, or maybe it’s because I am creative, or somewhere ahead in future years will have a great thinking mind. It’s easy to pin point moments within class why I am there but on a whole big scale meaning of life question it’s strange. But it’s not as though I feel like leaving far from it, or are considering different areas it more so a question of where I’ll end up. It obvious why I am uni, learning a Bachelor of design (Industrial Design), but is there a place beyond for me. It’s hard to say because sometimes I feel as though I am only living within my head, like there’s this different part of me.

champagne breakfast?

2005-10-08T13:22:00.000+10:00

Ok so have half finished my exhibition piece, hopefully it will make sense or partial sense but I think that the idea is we will all interpret them in different ways, so then it wont matter. I am not sure on how many people will attend as flash is due the next day and some people sounded reluctant to make something for no mark at all. I am not sure about the pancake idea, or this champagne breakfast lets just say I’ll eat before I go. But it is a nice way to end up studies, a bit of fun and a chance of creativity in producing something which can reflect your essay’s ideas.

the exhibition

2005-10-04T22:25:00.000+10:00

I am looking forward to the studies exhibition it will be good to see everybody work. I still have so much to do for mine it’s finding the time which is hard. Hopefully nobody brings in vegetables, like that lecture today. I hope it’s good at least it will be better than last semesters that one was so boring but a corridor one will be more fun especially with drink.

Studies

2005-09-22T23:26:00.000+10:00

So I have done my lecture on Tuesday, it went well I think. It so strange now second years ask me how it went, a lot of people seem to know about it. I think that because it is on the design dissent blog. Studies is turning out to be a lot more than I thought and I can understand why Brittany loves it. It’s a rare subject when you can actually get help in researching anything at all which interests you. Hopefully I can take all that I have learnt this semester into next years studies and expand on it, though I have this strong feeling that I will forget a lot of it, I must not let my brain have to much of a holiday. I think that’s the thing I fear the most forgetting what I have learnt this year. Maybe I need to make a challenge, so my brain is still thinking.

This is my new essay it's less dense and has less words

2005-09-13T21:08:00.000+10:00

Clothing is a reflection of ones identity

It seems logical to judge people on what they wear; it is something we all teach ourselves to do for there is a right way to dress and a wrong way to dress. We are also expressing our identity to others in the clothes and fashion that we choose to wear. Though we think we can analyse a person through appearance, exactly what part of the identity is communicated?

As individuals we think that we can express our identity through various fashions and that there is a common unity of what it all means. We are always seeking approval of our clothes form others or just comments to know what others think. It seems that it’s very much a self taught thing we pick up on people’s reactions and interpretations and then build a system to interpret others.

Our identity is a complex thing, so my focus is on is primarily focused on the inner self and personality. It seems to me that our inner identity is often told as a lie to others. We choose to leave our core identity letting it remain hidden, the full story is never revealed. It seems that we all act out a person, a character in which we preform to others what we think they see as important we rarely dress for ourselves.

‘The world makes the actor…the nature of social life is such that we are compelled to develop an ability to act: it can also mean that acting is not a skill to be taught but emerges from the richness of life’. P 160

Children are taught to lie; it is not a natural ability it is something learnt. We must ask ourselves why, but in the adult world it is obvious, there is too much power in truth. So we act, we say I am sorry that your pet bird died when really we are happy that’s it dead because its screeching wont wake you up early in the morning.

Sometimes it seems that our clothes could almost be like costumes assisting a performance. The business suit expresses knowledge position and success, only those who can claim they have these virtues can wear one. It shows our place in society, we also can’t merge clothing from one category to the next expensive brands can’t go with cheap clothing the act won’t be convincing enough.

As a society we created this act, we all want to remain an individual yet we all must conform to the same system. We don’t want to be cast as an outsider as we are not taken seriously, or deemed unsocial. As each day passes with this repetitive act a strange

“We wrongly assume ‘that, clothing, furniture, and possessions of all kinds are, or out to be, a form of self expression.’” P 152

When I look into our identity it almost seems that we are losing our individuality. This is largely due to products been mass manufactured, if we created an item like a craft one, which takes ours of skill and work then more of ourselves can be revealed But these craft items are only available to those in society who can afford a one-of-a kind luxury. This is the same within the fashion industry with those outfits of most significant been expensive, and crafted by the designer with the only intention to be displayed on a catwalk.

“Much of the value of being fashionable rests upon the successful eliciting of the other’s envy and admiration: by being fashionable the individual seeks to be more than the other.” P145

Human nature seems to dictate our success is based on triumphs over others. If we look impressive powerful and knowledgeable who is to say we are not, as a society based upon image and appearance we are controlled by them. So then we can create ourselves to make us more important person in society.

Within our complex identity we are questioned is our personality all predetermined though genes or is it something we learn as a child? The theory that human nature which is moulded into us by our genetic structure has a strong influence on our identity it’s mainly shown within our emotions. It is also proven that some things are learnt as children; we develop habits and comfort zones, a sense of security reached by our reactions to situations we then feel safe and are reluctant to change.

As we increase our use of appearance as a guide to self discovery we find that we are collectively judging whole groups of people at a time and not one individual. Is it possible to show our whole identity in piece of clothing, it sounds imposible but we all try to analyse people in a single moment by what we persive them to be in apperance.
We change clothes every day so are we communicating something different all the time?
It’s almost as if each day our clothing just shows one moment of our life, like a slide show, it is then replaced and the previous is only temperly remembered.

We think that clothing can reflect our individuality, as we deliberately create an image of how we wish to look. Careful planing is taken we have to think before we choose items of clothing, what will it suggests to others, what is communicated. We are self-conscious beings; society has created us this way. We must be accepted by others first to feel self acceptance.

“Maintaining the homo clauses means that our understanding of personal identity is mythic and like other myths of the day, as Barthes has shown us, it functions to impede our interest in more detailed analysis.” P160.

As we investigate our identity we often try and express it as best as we can, we all seek for individualism. In doing so we become self-conscious and analytical losing a part of us we can no longer fully speak the truth of ones self. But within myths often there are a certain truths which give way to an underlining meaning. As we begin to analyse our identities we shall always find that there is never a solid truth.
“Fashion has become a major source of personal identification: in effect, this has meant that we have learned to value the image of how we appear to be, how we are styled.” P146

We only seem to find outer beauty in modern society it may sound pretty shallow but we can help our appearance along by wearing the right clothing or the right accessory. It’s important to flatter our body shape accentuating it qualities and hiding its faults. We value beautiful people such as models and put them upon a pedestal, we place their face every where, we desire to become like them giving them social value.

This view of valuing the image has been mainly a western culture, and helps fuel consumption. Fashion is ruled by the present this constant need for new, replacement of old. Our sense of the past and future doesn’t matter; we look to the present fashion now seeing only that which remains in front of us. Companies pay thousands of dollars to those who claim they can predict future fashions but that is impossible, sure we can predict the next season but we can’t say the in seven years it will be like this. Society still dictates the direction of consumption, what is deemed fashionable.

It is society as a whole who determine the current clothing trends. The clothing designed for fashion shows is not intended for the whole of society they are creations, masterpieces not for mass production and general consumption. There needs to be a practicality sense for day wear, evening wear needs to be extravagant and formal, there is no practicality issue we need to be noticed stand out and be eye catching. Society also has an influence over our individuality; we conform to society’s expectations of the role that is being portrayed.

Putting our characters in perspective it would seem that we find knowledge about ourselves and human characteristics, within a visual outlook. In our day to day life our identity seems to play a huge role, developing a dependable personality which can be interpreted and our roles and intentions can become clear to others. Maybe it’s easier for our minds to help put an outfit to those intentions, helping make communication clearer, creating less room for error.

“(Fashion) gives to the individual the satisfaction of not standing alone in his actions. Whenever we imitate, we transfer not only the demand for creative ability, but also the responsibility for the action from ourselves to another. Thus the individual is freed from the worry of choosing and appears simply as a creature of the group, as a vessel of the social contents.” P144

Belonging to a group is as some see it a hindrance to our individuality, but this is what we must do as there is less anxiety. Society values groups as this is where our culture is created. Grouping together makes the system work, there are less catagories needed and placing people is easier. Once we enter a group it is easier to maintain our postion and character. Once we feel a sence of belonging we loose some of the anxiety, that self-consciousness, and let our gard down just a bit and reveal that something more. But this doen’t happen instantly and takes time this only comes later on, past the intial meeting.

Our indentity is so closely intertwined with apperance, as this is the way modern society wishes to juged people. Most of our apperence is shown through clothing as this is a commenality because we all wear them. Our succeses and morels seemed to be based within the very fabric in which they are made. We only need single glace and a minute of analising to discover if this person is anything like you, sharing the same values or intrests.

This system has long since developed in to a communication which is understood and learnt by all we are all in the system, yet we never question if our identity is truly represented. After all we are the only one who truly knows ourself, we don’t often question others on what thay think of ourselves for we don’t want any myths to be broken.
We can also share different personality views on what is good and bad, who we are and who we want to be, and if we change ourselves to become in someone elses eyes a better person we are not being our true selves. Clothing has become a widly used tool to reflect ones identity used by modern society in wester cultures. But if this tool is used by all then it is a fair assesment to say that it is validated and can be correct, but it seems to work best on the surface identity.

Quotes used in the essay taken from Joanne Finkelstein The Fashioned Self published in 1991 by Polity Press.

It was good that I went to studies today

2005-09-13T19:54:00.000+10:00

So after today I changed my mind about studies and what Simone said. It seems that now a week has passed and everything is not as personal. It makes sense to gather other peoples thoughts and responses to an essay to effectively seem if what I am trying to communicate is been understood or at least partly, and that she was pushing us to do the best essay, not just inst content but its effect to communicate to anyone is main message and ideas. So I shall do mine again. Is strange how time can alter our perceptions. It hear some of the comments again had a good effect, anything can always be changed and improved on so now is my chance its not about the mark I have already got that its about the learning.

Studies handout

2005-09-11T20:05:00.000+10:00

A quote from the handout about Studies, 'Design studies is about ideas, thinking and Questioning. It s about finding a voice…’ So why then I ask why did Simone comment on on my essay being too opinionated?

Something big is starting

2005-09-10T16:57:00.000+10:00

So what to do about studies? A lot has emerged since my post about studies last week and you only have to look at Raph’s blog to see something big is about to happen and I am all for it. http://endsig.blogspot.com/

We need to feel more engaged with what we do in studies. It needs to be more rewarding; it needs to have a drastic change. There is enough anger around and a feeling that we are wasting our time, so we need to come together as a group and rebel say we wont put up with it, say all the problems, get them out into the open. Let them explode let us dramatize these problems and lets us have a solution to put forward to change studies.

Haley's studies

Research

Product outcome – fish wall hanging

Material Play with paper

By Product

Wastes which could be interesting:

Interesting ideas

Ideas

By Product Elective

Sustainablity Festival fed square (Bioimagination Posters)

Final Touches

The story

Details

Reflection of using Drawing as a communication tool:

Interesting Books used as resources:

Principals of permaculture

Permaculture the counter culture:

Urban orchard and orgainic food

My ideas on Permaculture

Sustainability studies proposal:

sustainability

Social Anxiety Disorder

A reflection of studies – just thought it would be nice to see if I kept my word from last semester.

Social judgement: the effect on our behaviour.

All weekend

Number 13 for Brittany!

12 experiences and encounters

Reflection of studies and the learning along the way:

mapping

Butterfly

need to edit down 3000 words

last weeks stuff that was saved at uni

An experience best left unsaid and forgotten

Experience 12 or whatever just a few bits and pieces really

mapping out stuff

the map

Be inspired!

Another personal experience

My exhibition

Another experience –nerds

Social judgement - understanding who we are and our place:

Paranoia and fear:

The bodiless Identity:

pulling out and piecing together quotes

Ideas and outcomes for week 9…an instillation?

hanging flowers and leaves

another book

The scary old man

Experiences to date: will expand later.

More on control and self esteem

More quotes from Politics of attachment

A mind boggling amount of quote from a whole book I read

Summery up to date! (everything said so far in a way you can understand)

Summery of experiences up to date

The jeans

An experience or encounter.

another book down

Yep more stuff from books

A lot to think about

stuff

In a rhizome way

Just reminisce on a good studies exhibition...

more questions

Insane, this is just totally insane my head is sore my body is sore and my mind is sore.

Studies so far

just words...

The politics of attachment

In the library

Using Liam’s fancy ‘advanced search’

It’s back!

Studies proposal Networks, rhizomes and communities

I have been back!

More Questions

It does not look so good.

I could cry…

Apathy- relating to studies

Progress

And so the semester starts.

I have done it!

Studies reflection essay