Culture and Concepts
User Experience and Sophocles View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Thomas Girard
In design, there is a notion of a maker. Maybe that person is a ceramics artist, maybe a construction worker, maybe an electrician, maybe a product designer. These people make real physical things that come into the world. Design legend John Maeda talks about the shift away from these craft based makers into a world where people do this through writing, sound, and code, a shift away from the maker. However I don’t see this as a shift. I see writing, sound, and code as forms of making as well. Sure, they aren’t what we ordinarily see as making, because we are making transient things, abstract things, but they are things and they are coming into the world and they exist within us before existing in the world and this process, this transfer is something I call manifestation of ideas.
The Evolving Cultural Forms: The Shift in the Paradigm of Oral-pictorial Tradition and Folk Art of India View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ragini Ranjana, Mohammad Shahid
The oral stories narrated, along with the visuals (on scroll/walls), followed by a reception from the audience in the form of a bow or offering, lead to a set of practices connecting communities. Repetition of such practices within society engaging various communities based on shared belief leads to the formation of rituals. Rituals combining and coding these beliefs develop identity. With these identities, we find our belonging and flourish. India's rich and diverse practice of oral-pictorial tradition and folk art wrapped in mythological and devotional stories, practices, and rituals in their primitive forms share a divine and sacred status in society, developing an incredible source of intangible cultural heritage. It helps to present the vivid aspects of Indian culture to the globe. Over time, the identity represented through oral-pictorial tradition and folk art evolved, adopted many revivals and shifted various roles. From a profoundly traditional community practice used for communication/ mass communication, it became a viable source of income and visual identity for the country. Tracing the practice by mapping the timeline from the initial documented structure to the changing and adapting forms in survival, the study tries to understand the propagation of Indian oral- pictorial tradition and folk art from its primitive role and representation to the shifting paradigm. Based on the initiative of researchers and practitioners across the time frame, the paper overviews the changing synergy in community, story/subject deviation, and emerging identity for further propagation in these cultural forms.
Rethinking a Typical Kuwaiti House in the Post-Pandemic Age View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mohammed Alajmi
The Covid-19 pandemic has had a dramatic and continuous impact on the world. Lockdowns have become mandatory in most countries, and people suddenly feel imprisoned in their own houses. Many rethink their house spaces and design after spending long days and months in their homes with no other place to go. Although architecture is at the forefront of this issue, it proved that it is vital and significant in shaping the health and well-being of house residents. A well-designed house can help with the physical health of its residents and their mental health as well. This paper examines the problems and issues Kuwaiti families have encountered during the lockdown periods in their homes, showing the new needs that the pandemic implied in how architects should approach residential design in the post-pandemic era. Twenty-eight graduating students in my Working Drawings class in the Fall of 2021 were asked to participate in a class discussion about the main shortcomings of their houses that they experienced during the pandemic lockdowns. I gave them typical Kuwait house floor plans and asked them to identify the new needs for a better and more resilient Kuwaiti house. This study explains and expands the students’ responses to reach new design methods and solutions that would successfully meet the newfound needs of a typical Kuwaiti house. The outcomes demonstrate how a house can be adaptable and resilient to a global pandemic, adequately satisfying the family's new needs and maintaining their well-being.
