Motivations, Positions, Approaches
Joel Gethin Lewis
AHO, Oslo, Friday September 6th, 2019
What I am going to talk about:
- Motivations - why do I do things?
- Positions - who am I?
- Approaches - how do I do things?
Motivations: why do I do things?
- Beauty
- Curiosity
- Openness
- Duty
- Death
Motivations: Beauty
Motivations: Curiosity One
Always wanted to see behind the curtain.
Motivations: Curiosity Two
Credit: XKCD.
Motivations: Openness
How can we stand on the shoulders of giants if they are secret? Portrait of Sir Isaac Newton, credit: Sir Godfrey Kneller (1689).
Motivations: Duty: Rich and Male
Rich: Top 0.26% / 15,358,481st richest person in the world. Source: Global Rich List
Male: I will earn between 18% and 34% more than a woman with the same qualifications and experience. Source: Gender Pay Gap
Motivations: Duty: White
Credit: Jane Elliott, see also: "How Discrimination Feels".
Motivations: Death One
We don't have much time, why not do something interesting? Source: Wait But Why.
Motivations: Death Two
George Mallory on climbing Everest:
"Because it's there".
Positions: who am I?
- Student
- Designer
- Teacher
- Artist
Position: Student: School
Remembering the story of Gauss being challenged to add the numbers 1-100. Maths was a way of being lazy like a fox. Explanation of method.
Position: Student: Undergraduate
There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those that understand binary and those that don't.
Realising there could be different numeral systems blew my mind.
Position: Student: Postgraduate One
Media Archaeology and reinventing old media systems for the digital age.
Position: Student: Postgraduate Two
What makes something good? What if objects had opinions?
Position: Student: Life Long Learning
Always learning! Always reading! Currently: Computer Vision and Deep Learning.
Position: Designer
Solving problems - asking people what they want!
Somantics: promoting self-awareness, confidence and independence.
Position: Teacher
As Michael Craig Martin says: supporting people. Portrait by Caroline True.
Story of teaching code to graphic designers at Central Saint Martins.
Position: Artist
Sharing how I see things. I've realised I'm a systems artist. I make systems for others to explore.
Cosmos: a random journey through the known universe. Walkouts, meditations and joy.
Approaches: how?
- Computational thinking
- The Force
- Be honest with yourself
- Realtime
- Open source
- Presentation skills
- Persistence
- Collaborate
- Honesty
- True names
- Making systems
Approach: Computational Thinking
Not just nerding! Great way of breaking down any problem, and incidentally the structure of the Universe. Image from Stephen Wolfram's blog.
Approach: The Force
Have reasons for things. They don't have to satisfy anyone else but yourself, but have reasons. Imperial tour given by someone in a Star Wars t-shirt. I found out Ridley Scott went to Royal College of Art.
Approach: be honest with yourself
Temet Nosce: Know Thyself. The most difficult thing of all. What is the thing you find yourself doing when you are supposed to be doing something else?
Approach: Realtime
Adding audio interactivity to Massive Attack stage shows. The moment when 3D pointed the microphone at the crowd! Realtime makes interaction possible.
Approach: Open Source
Many reasons: selling software seems to me to be ethically wrong. Sell support by all means. In addition, you must own the means of production otherwise you are at the mercy of other peoples greed, stupidity and ignorance.
Approach: Presentation skills
Learning how to present technical information without understanding it. No one wants to see a bad presentation. Three minute presentations on unknown subjects. At its most basic, effective communication.
Approach: Persistence
Just keep swimming! Don't give up. Be the last person standing.
Approach: Collaborate
Minimise psychic load - work with people that are better than you, be honest about your shortcomings.
Approach: Honesty
Too lazy to lie.
Approach: True names
Getting the correct name can enable a project to happen. Conversely knowing the true origin of a name can be inspirational. See: A piece of Art as big as India.
Approach: Making systems
Recently read Hyperobjects by Timothy Morton - the idea of the mesh and higher dimensional objects having an impact in lower dimensions.
Thanks! Questions? Workshop time!
Website:
www.joelgethinlewis.com
Slides:
presentations/AHOPresentationMotivations2019
Follow me!
@joelgethinlewis