Camp Quarantine

Thoughts from the reading Designs for the Pluriverse - Escobar Arturo.

Arturo is writing against nothing less than all of modernity, a “particular modelo civilizatorio, or civilizational model… an entire way of life and a whole style of world making.” To preserve the future we need a different way of life and way to relate to all of life. What is the relation between design and culture? What is the relationship between design and nature?
What would decolonial politics in design mean for a world where more and more ways of thinking, doing, and being across communities and cultures are being structured to be more similar via technology?

"We live in a world where everybody has to design and redesign their existence -"

Ex 2 The Act of Reading

Ex 2 The MIT Technology Review We’re Not Going Back to Normal

My "dog" Shana in the USA

Ex 4 Bridging the Distance

After we hung up from the house party call...
Kiwi was very confused, and I couldn't tell you who won that night.

I have definitely comprehended most of us don’t realise that life won’t go back to « normal » even after a few months the virus has gone. I think of my friends who plan on graduating in May and leaving back home at the end of May, shaking my head. I strongly believe it will still be a challenge, with any kind of transportation for a good chunk of time post covid-19. I remember thinking a couple week ago, when I finally understood how grave of an impact this virus would have on us, that there was no possible way for thing’s to go back to « normal ». First of all, what we know as « normal » probably is not the norm for others, and secondly when we use the word « normal » we really mean « what we’re used to ». Finally, Great Britain is on board with the fact that every country needs to “flatten the curve” and to do so they must impose social distancing to slow the spread of the virus so that the number of people sick at once decline. Social distancing can be a great time for some, however I think about the already alarming numbers of feminicides in France, about people stuck in abusive relationships, how can they escape now? Were they ever going to escape?
I find it amusing when people say « I have never lived through a pandemic before idk what to do! » When I think about it, no one has lived through a Pandemic and lived to tell the tale. The last pandemic what the Spanish Flu. What I find interesting, is the matter that us human’s are not prepared at all for these kind of situations, yet they have scarred us heavily in the past. If we focused on creating pandemic response units that could move quickly to identify and contain outbreaks before they start to spread, we would be saving ourselves so much time, and many lives. Humans need to start preparing, preventing, and performing in a different manner. For instance, these three p’s are a perfect example in Global Warming. We’ve known about it for at least 30 years, our level of preparation was a joke, and now as a responsive action, our world has performed a magic trick bringing us to a screeching halt, with a virus forcing us to stay home and cut ties. Unfortunately, the true cost will be borne by the poorest and weakest, and our economies. The world has changed numerous times, and now it is changing again. Sadly, with change comes some who lose more than most, and they have lost far too much already. We need to unite not as countries, but as a species.

This is Clau (Claudia) and Freddie. They are my best friends. I usually see them every day back at uni. It has become very hard and bizarre for us to not be able to physically see each other. However, one time they did run all the way past my appartment to wave hello and it was very heartwarming to see them with my own eyes and not on a screen, even for a brief moment. They are about to graduate over a zoom call in a couple weeks, they are thrilled....
We speak about every day, but personally for me, it's not the same over a screen. I decided to ask them how they were coping with covid and how their families were. Clau is from Costa Rica and Freddie is from London.
Here is his 4 minute rant on sir Boris.

Part 1 - Imagine a natural communication and circulation system:

- The moon and the ocean currents
- We make CO2 which plants can take in and give us O2
- Migratory Birds and their Flyways
- Bats, Sharks, Whales using echolocation
- Aspen Trees and their “one brain” root system
- Earth’s lithosphere creating earthquakes
- Earthquakes reulting in tsunamis
- Regenerate Animals (animals that can regrow a limb or body part)
- Global Warmingggg
- Marijuana results in influencing you, getting you “high”
- Erosion -> beaches, mountains, canyons

Part 2 - Bridging the Distance -
How are people interacting and meeting with each other during this social distancing?

- Bring back letters! I wish I sent letters more often, instead I usually send care packages or little objects that reminded me of people. However, now with lovely Rona taking over our social lives, I feel the need to send a physical letter to someone rather than always relying on technology. Don’t get me wrong, virtually connecting with people at the moment is simpler and the most effective way people stay connected. I definitely know more of my friends instagram handle than I do their addresses. Not thinking virtually, I have thought about trying to send my neighbours across the street an airplane letter. We have become more friendly with each other. We have the casual wave during our window smoke breaks, taking turns being the street dj, clapping together at 20hr for the nurses and people helping to fight covid, and grieving with them when they lose at their video games. The only thing is I do not know their names yet, and they always have their beautiful glass windows open. I have estimated that they are about 15 meters away from us, and with the right breeze I think it would be very manageable to send them a paper airplane letter introducing myself finally. I will keep everyone updated with my trials for a successful introduction.

- Meeting for an almost in-person meal. I saw my friend post an instagram live video about a week ago where she had a “picnic” with a few classmates. She lives in Indonesia, and contacted some friends to meet up in a local open space not too far from them. They each brought their own lunch, a little blanket, homemade masks, and of course disinfectant wipes. Staying a safe distance away from each other, they were able to finally physically see one another, speaking loudly, enjoying their lunch, without going against the covid regulations put in place. I thought this a great loophole, but I felt like this wasn’t possible for every country, it all depends on the covid regulations enforced in one's region. So, an obvious alternative in my eyes would be to have a virtual picnic. Sure one doesn't get to physically see their comrades, but they still get to interact with them. Picking a date and time to video chat with friends over lunch, or dinner. One can even create shared calendar events, where friends can all see the designated times and days picked to meet up. I am planning a lunch with some friends for this weekend! I will take pictures and add it to my wall for updates.

Other options to communicate:
- Digitally, Online communities, video chats,
or chat rooms
- Collaborations projects
- Physically, from their balconies, windows, or
from a safe distance.

Click photo to open article -

Chloé
Tournier-Decret

Part 3 - Invent a Performative Action

- Hosting a virtual game night! For example, a week ago I was reminiscing about the times my friends and I would all get together to have some drinks or make music, knit, paint, play games, go biking or just enjoy a glass with each other and laugh. We would subconsciously pull away from our realities and into our own worlds. I was thinking of activities to keep us entertained while video chatting. I actually decided to make an engaging interactive drinking board game. I used some extra A3 papers that I had for water colour and taped them together. I then sketched out all my lines and squares, and tried to come up with fun activities to distract us from our current social lives. I coloured everything in, which took a lot longer than planned, but what else did I have to do? I was pleased with the outcome. The real challenge was to find little items to be used as the player pons. The result is a very efficient way to get you and your friends to disconnect while being connected. We were drunk and laughing at a safe distance and in the comfort of our homes.

Ex 5 Going public or Underground

At the beginning of this exercise I came across a very interesting sight called The Activist Hive with information on activist actions and public space. Click the image to check it out!

For exercise 5, Taylor Jones and I have partnered up to tag team the rest of these assignments. I knew Taylor before this class and he holds a special place in my heart, so driven, so motivated and so amusing to speak with. We bounce ideas back and fourth non-stop and we decided to do the same for this exercise. Below you will see photos from our wite-board share space, displaying Taylor and I's thoughts, ideas, questions, and possible answers. Feel free to click on the images to direct you to the live wite-board pages.

In this white board we did our own version of "pros" and "cons" by trying to identify various Public and Underground actions using a venn diagram. We also tried to determine which "actions" classified as both public and underground.
We then made a list with some questions regarding the subjects and starred the most important ones. Some of these questions were difficult to answer in one direct manner, because some of it is very opinion based. I held some of these questions on my instagram and was surprised to see some of the outcomes of what outside people thought.

Farther to the left on the same white board, we branched out on a few kinds of "public". We kept conversing over whether if you have to pay for it is it public? This was one of the few questions I put up on my instagram story. The feedback I got from my instagram regarding this question was a strong 87% of people thought that if it had to be paid for it was not public. We then continued to break down "public space" into three categories;
Free, Hybrid, and Paid.

When it came to what was considered underground we understood the intention of the meaning, but found it challenging to know where they hid and where they were. With time however, we were able to establish a few underground actions and we noticed that underground actions seemed to be linked to the "dark", "sketchy," or "illegal" parts of the world. We also were able to understand an underground action can be hidden within a public action. All one needs to do is simply target an audience that will comprehend, say a symbol or a message, in a completely different way then the general public would.

Ex 5 Going public or Underground, Part 2

Exits and Entrances
Here I have put an overview image of an estimation of my one km restriction. The red star is where I live. Moving up from my home, following the orange paths, I can find my local Pharmacy. This orange path is the route I take to the blue dots, which represent local food markets where I buy my groceries. The next route I sometimes take is when I exercise, this would be the purple paths. I either go for a run or a bike ride down, around the Luxembourg Gardens, and all the way back up to the Seine and back down to my apartment. I don't stick to the path shown every time, but it is almost the same.
I live on the fourth floor, with windows that face the street. I have thought about using my window as a kind of "entrance" or "exit" of a message. However, I cam to realise that the only people who would notice or even see my message would be my neighbours across the street from me.
On my walks, I pondered what spots would be ideal as a communication channel? I noticed that many people would come to gather at the church of Saint Sulpice (left of the star). There was also the boulevard Saint Germain which still had a flow of people and commuters. Paris is known for some of its poster walls, where people and companies leave posters advertising a product or a message, and I felt as though that could be achieved in my neighbourhood.

Charles Leval, is a French artist whose work I have seen and recognised many times across Paris. I have always been inspired by his ambitions to inject humour into the streets of Paris by gluing animal and human-shaped pasteups onto walls. A lot of thought goes into location too as each piece usually interacts with its environment in one way or another. I wanted to see if I could somehow use humour as a distraction for humanity during this time of isolation.

“The street became a creative space I had to invade.” - Leval.

Ex 5 Going public or Underground, Part 2

Ex 5 Speakers Corner

As a result for my first experiment with the outside public, I decided to create my own injection of humour upon my neighbourhood of 1km. My message was simple, to smile. I wanted to formulate a peaceful and approachable poster with a simple interaction involved. Something that didn't ask too much of people, yet, but that hopefully would be worth their time. The posters read: "Have you smiled today?" "Take a joke and leave a smiley please!" Then at the bottom of the posters are seven jokes with the answers on the back, and a pen attached. The goal here was to first test how the public would even react to this flyer. Would they engage with it? I wondered if the COVID pandemic had really inflicted a reason of hesitation and doubt into the public. I decided to rip off one of the jokes to see if people would feel more comfortable participating in the action, since it had been made to seem as though someone else previously did. I then set out to the previous locations I had determined as my main "communication channels," from earlier in this exercise. I decided to post them up in the middle of the day to be seen by the few people who were out. I hoped that by seeing my suspicious activity, one would come back to see what I had left behind. With that said, I also decided not to leave any kind of signature or identification, aiming for the message to be seen as a universal voice that speaks to all.

I posted six flyers around my one kilometer radius. The one on the left here is positioned on a traffic pole at the bottom of my building, in view from my windows. I wanted to have one posted in view from my home so I could attempt to keep track and get live reactions from the public. When I was putting these up, I also had to keep in mind not to tape them onto any building or store if I did not have their permission, which I didn't since none of the shops were open. Some public walls were found and everything was taped, now it was time to wait.

I put together a video of some of the footage I was able to capture from the public. I noticed that most of the time people would be looking down or straight ahead, complete tunnel-vision. This is not knew knowledge, I have noticed this many times before and I have even realised myself being glued to my phone while being outside. However, during this pandemic I have grown to appreciate the outside more than I do or should. The emptiness brings out the hidden secrets in the streets that we sometimes don't see.

After having the posters up for 24 hours, I went out in the evening to go inspect my experiments. I had spend so much time by my window in hopes of seeing the action of interaction take place, but sadly I was never able to record it. I was at first feeling quiet disappointed and worried that the CoronaVirus had caused people to become wary of even the most least threatening situation.
Elation soon filled my core. People had engaged! Almost all of the posters had half or less jokes remaining, and all of them had a few drawings and or messages left behind, conquering the fear I was afraid of prior to these trials, touch.

Seeing how people were willing to not only take a moment to engage, but to also interact back with my poster was a signal that maybe another step could be taken in these experiments. How could I interact with the public and have the public add on to that interaction? I was told about the "take a joke give a joke," idea however, I did not want to repeat again the same tests. I wanted it to be more involved with touch, to keep challenging the hesitation and doubt that the CoronaVirus could well have possibly imposed on the public. How far with people go when it comes to touch? Would they pick something up off the ground? Would they walk away?

Collaborative Hybrid Publication-

Ex 6 Publish & Circulate

The second experiment was a branch off from the first one. I wanted to see how far I could push people to interact with my ghost. I came up with the concept of making a chalk drawing open for any add ons. With a cheap box of chalk, I made a big chalk drawing on a near by square. I hesitated as I left some chalk out in a bowl, hoping nobody would steal them. The goal was to see if the public would be willing to "get down and dirty," in such a time where hygiene is beyond important. It took a day or so, but by the second day I came back to the square and noticed flowers had been added to the top of the face I had drawn! Then came some clouds, and the next day some bees! I was truly elated to see how the public reacted and interacted. It was kept alive for a good three days until a thunderstorm hit on the fourth day and washed it all out. I quite enjoy the non-permanence of this experiment.