Monday 8 March 2010
I feel a project coming on
Strolling down Northwold Road on a sunny Saturday morning I decided to look down, not up. Just about every two steps was some kind of manhole cover for the various different services—water. cable, phone, etc. The variety was quite astounding and I'm feeling a little project coming on to record the patterns, types and placement of these. I think I am creeping further along the spectrum... See more of them at my Flickr site.
Monday 1 March 2010
Hackney Freecycle: Stuff part II
After drowning in data for weeks on end, the design aspect of the work on the Hackney Freecycle group came relatively quickly. The group is phenomenally active—approximately 400 messages a week. I had six months worth—July to December—so clearly had to sample to get anywhere near something that was digestible in terms of analysis. I chose to sample one week per month, starting on the second Sunday of each month.
I ploughed through the data in order to transfer it from the original email messages into a Word doucment for each month. I then transferred these from Word to Excel files that listed the date, type of post, item, brand, area, poster's name and whether or not an item had been taken or received. From these I then conducted a quantitative analysis in relation to a range of elements, for example, types of posts, types of items, prevalent brands and the most active areas of Hackney. During each phase of the handling of the data I was getting to know it better, seeing more and more details, noticing more and more quirky posts, strange coincidences, seasonal fluctuations and repetitive themes—moving more from a quantitative analysis to qualitative. This felt, in some ways, a similar process to that of the 'Stuff' book, though instead of building up relationships with contributors in person and getting to know their stories, I was developing a relationship with the data. I was getting to the point where I knew the data well and could therefore begin to comment on it both visually in terms of the design, and also in terms of generating the content and structure that would form the 'conceptual container' for the piece of work.
This process aligns with Seidel's (1998) qualitative data analysis process of 'Noticing, collecting and thinking' that I read and then wrote about in a very early methodology chapter about 18 months ago. It's worth reflecting on again here I think, as now I am at a point where the theory and practice are working in a much more symbiotic way—18 months ago there was no practice, there was just reading and writing. Anyway, I chose Seidel's method as I felt it reflects and complements the design process, in that it is not linear, but 'iterative, progressive, recursive and holographic.' Each of these characteristics is present in the design process—it is often drawn as a cycle or a spiral like form that enables the design practice to progress through many iterations, it offers recursive flexibility to revisit previous ideas in the light of new discoveries, and each step of the process cannot be taken in isolation.
The fact that Seidel describes the process as recursive (one part can call you back to a previous part) and holographic (each step in the process contains the entire process) gives a sense that it enables a holistic practice, one that will unite theory and practice. It also has a 'physicality' about its terms of reference—noticing, collecting, thinking—they are all 'active' words that align well with the notion of practice. These definitions also perhaps link, in turn, to Tuan and Massey's definitions of place that form a basis for this overall inquiry. Tuan's definition focuses on place as a container of memories, a palimpsest-like landscape, layered with partly visible inscriptions, and recursive in the way that a particular building or street can call you back to a previous time as you pass it. Massey sees place as being continually made and remade, a process that could be thought of as holographic.
Seidel's method works in the following way. Noticing works on two levels; firstly it relates to the actual fieldwork—producing a record of the things one has noticed; secondly, it relates to the coding of data. These codes are, in simplistic terms, a way of highlighting elements of interest, or patters within the content. They can then function as heuristic tools that enable further, deeper investigation and analysis of the content. Collecting refers to the sorting of the information that has been recorded and coded. The final step in the process, thinking, is the examination of the materials. This process, if looked at from a design perspective, could be seen as a form of editing. The goals are making sense out of the collection, identifying patterns and relationships in the materials and to make discoveries about the subject of your research.
What is interesting here, is that there weren't actually that many iterations in relation to the actual design. The iterations came very much in relation to the content. Through the analysis I noticed more and more things, that enabled me to develop not only a clearer idea of content and structure, but also a clearer picture of how I felt the Freecycle group operated. As I said before it is a hugely active group, with usually 60 messages a day. It exists solely in virtual space and because of this relentless amount of emails continually replacing the last one received, each one felt quite fleeting or ephemeral. To this end I felt another book would be appropriate in order to give a 'permanence' to the data in a format that offered a temporal aspect. I was able to make these judgements quickly as I was embedded in the data and it had become embedded in me. Subconsciously, the design was working itself out as I worked the content out.
The subtitle, 'This much I think I now now,' is deliberately something of an oxymoron type affair—I think & I know. A nudge in the direction of the fact that any analysis or re-presentation of everyday life and place always has something of a subjective element to it. The 'now' is a bit of a nod to the fact that things are always ongoing, so what I have shown is but a moment in time.
The book uses Univers throughout and adopts a fairly stripped back, content led approach, allowing the wording of the posts and my qualitative deductions to take centre stage. The minimal, dare I say it, Modernist 'style' seemed appropriate for an organisation that is focused on reducing consumerism and unnecessary waste. A seasonal trail of posts adds a little colour to pages and shows the idea of time passing—tents wanted in July and August, heaters and Christmas decorations in November and December.
Ultimately I will print this out on A4 recycled paper. I have designed it so it is an A5 french fold with no bleeds, so again it is as minimal as it can be in terms of its environmental impact. I did post a wanted ad on Freecycle for used paper but as of yet have not received anything. I shall make various versions, some will be made of redundant print outs of itself, some from A4 recycled paper found from various places—currently I have just acquired a random stack of sheets from the CSM research student space. If you are reading this and have some one side used A4, send it to me! I am also thinking of developing an 'art' series that is printed on the reverse of cropped down A2 letterpress posters of the statement pages.
What follows next will be a design project about Newsagents windows. The third part of the stuff trilogy. The three form a view from macro to micro of the stuff that is accumulated and circulated within Hackney.
I ploughed through the data in order to transfer it from the original email messages into a Word doucment for each month. I then transferred these from Word to Excel files that listed the date, type of post, item, brand, area, poster's name and whether or not an item had been taken or received. From these I then conducted a quantitative analysis in relation to a range of elements, for example, types of posts, types of items, prevalent brands and the most active areas of Hackney. During each phase of the handling of the data I was getting to know it better, seeing more and more details, noticing more and more quirky posts, strange coincidences, seasonal fluctuations and repetitive themes—moving more from a quantitative analysis to qualitative. This felt, in some ways, a similar process to that of the 'Stuff' book, though instead of building up relationships with contributors in person and getting to know their stories, I was developing a relationship with the data. I was getting to the point where I knew the data well and could therefore begin to comment on it both visually in terms of the design, and also in terms of generating the content and structure that would form the 'conceptual container' for the piece of work.
This process aligns with Seidel's (1998) qualitative data analysis process of 'Noticing, collecting and thinking' that I read and then wrote about in a very early methodology chapter about 18 months ago. It's worth reflecting on again here I think, as now I am at a point where the theory and practice are working in a much more symbiotic way—18 months ago there was no practice, there was just reading and writing. Anyway, I chose Seidel's method as I felt it reflects and complements the design process, in that it is not linear, but 'iterative, progressive, recursive and holographic.' Each of these characteristics is present in the design process—it is often drawn as a cycle or a spiral like form that enables the design practice to progress through many iterations, it offers recursive flexibility to revisit previous ideas in the light of new discoveries, and each step of the process cannot be taken in isolation.
The fact that Seidel describes the process as recursive (one part can call you back to a previous part) and holographic (each step in the process contains the entire process) gives a sense that it enables a holistic practice, one that will unite theory and practice. It also has a 'physicality' about its terms of reference—noticing, collecting, thinking—they are all 'active' words that align well with the notion of practice. These definitions also perhaps link, in turn, to Tuan and Massey's definitions of place that form a basis for this overall inquiry. Tuan's definition focuses on place as a container of memories, a palimpsest-like landscape, layered with partly visible inscriptions, and recursive in the way that a particular building or street can call you back to a previous time as you pass it. Massey sees place as being continually made and remade, a process that could be thought of as holographic.
Seidel's method works in the following way. Noticing works on two levels; firstly it relates to the actual fieldwork—producing a record of the things one has noticed; secondly, it relates to the coding of data. These codes are, in simplistic terms, a way of highlighting elements of interest, or patters within the content. They can then function as heuristic tools that enable further, deeper investigation and analysis of the content. Collecting refers to the sorting of the information that has been recorded and coded. The final step in the process, thinking, is the examination of the materials. This process, if looked at from a design perspective, could be seen as a form of editing. The goals are making sense out of the collection, identifying patterns and relationships in the materials and to make discoveries about the subject of your research.
What is interesting here, is that there weren't actually that many iterations in relation to the actual design. The iterations came very much in relation to the content. Through the analysis I noticed more and more things, that enabled me to develop not only a clearer idea of content and structure, but also a clearer picture of how I felt the Freecycle group operated. As I said before it is a hugely active group, with usually 60 messages a day. It exists solely in virtual space and because of this relentless amount of emails continually replacing the last one received, each one felt quite fleeting or ephemeral. To this end I felt another book would be appropriate in order to give a 'permanence' to the data in a format that offered a temporal aspect. I was able to make these judgements quickly as I was embedded in the data and it had become embedded in me. Subconsciously, the design was working itself out as I worked the content out.
The subtitle, 'This much I think I now now,' is deliberately something of an oxymoron type affair—I think & I know. A nudge in the direction of the fact that any analysis or re-presentation of everyday life and place always has something of a subjective element to it. The 'now' is a bit of a nod to the fact that things are always ongoing, so what I have shown is but a moment in time.
The book uses Univers throughout and adopts a fairly stripped back, content led approach, allowing the wording of the posts and my qualitative deductions to take centre stage. The minimal, dare I say it, Modernist 'style' seemed appropriate for an organisation that is focused on reducing consumerism and unnecessary waste. A seasonal trail of posts adds a little colour to pages and shows the idea of time passing—tents wanted in July and August, heaters and Christmas decorations in November and December.
Ultimately I will print this out on A4 recycled paper. I have designed it so it is an A5 french fold with no bleeds, so again it is as minimal as it can be in terms of its environmental impact. I did post a wanted ad on Freecycle for used paper but as of yet have not received anything. I shall make various versions, some will be made of redundant print outs of itself, some from A4 recycled paper found from various places—currently I have just acquired a random stack of sheets from the CSM research student space. If you are reading this and have some one side used A4, send it to me! I am also thinking of developing an 'art' series that is printed on the reverse of cropped down A2 letterpress posters of the statement pages.
What follows next will be a design project about Newsagents windows. The third part of the stuff trilogy. The three form a view from macro to micro of the stuff that is accumulated and circulated within Hackney.
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