On Wednesday morning, Yu-seung and I attended Sean Donahue’s Art of Research class to do a run through of the workshop. We documented most of the workshop with video and took a few photos of the probe boxes.
Each probe box was equipped with:
_ a definition of a “cultural probe” on the exterior
_ directions with a specific requirement. (i.e. the group with the Polaroid camera had to integrate a written component into their probe, the group with the newspaper/paper had to integrate the “map” as a metaphor…)
_ a definition of “bi-racial” was provided
_ a blank probe (i.e. newspaper/plain butcher paper, cell phone, Polaroid camera)
a group of students presenting some of their ideas during critique
How’d It Go?
Overall, we felt the workshop went well for several reasons:
1) The participants were engaged with each other and had productive discussions
2) The workshop was completed in the amount of time we allotted. We even had more time for discussion, which was a good thing.
3) The short time given to create a cultural probe kept people from thinking too much, allowing people to concentrate on the overall goal.
4) People learned something new that they could apply to their own practices.
We talked between ourselves right after the workshop and here are some of our critiques and observations:
1) Have clearer visuals of cultural probes in the introduction
2) Prepare our own introduction. Premise the situation. Sean did a great job of introducing us, but we should be prepared for moments when we have to introduce ourselves.
3) Make more of an effort to integrate ourselves with the participants. Really push them to think harder, but always be positive.
4) It’s good to review and check-in with ourselves. We have to be on our toes when we critique and be able to provide quick feedback, suggestions and constructive criticisms.
5) Perhaps tighten up the question with more specifications to get them to move faster.
I think that a workshop like this would work well with a Part 2 follow-up or longer discussion about how cultural probes can be integrated into people’s practices.
For our final week, we will continue to analyze our work, post some video footage of the workshop run through and probably put together a synopsis of the workshop/ procedures, etc. that we can easily access and edit.
0 Responses to “How’d It Go?”