Highlighted Scenario:

In 2040, physical appearance is highly valuable while technological advancements are being turned away, making ‘back to nature’ lifestyle heavily promoted. The border between socio-economy class is somehow clearly visible where the richer ones are capable to accomplish more advanced, natural safe care which enables them to afford balanced organic diet, live in a clean environment, and advanced technologies that facilitate them to get their jobs done easier.

On the other hand, the poorer classes are fully aware on the difference. They found themselves struggling to adjust with the lifestyle. Alternatively, they try to utilize biological augmentation as a possible self-enhancement alternative. However, biological augmentation itself still surrounded by controversies where some group of people seen it as unethical and against the religion. This lead some private company as an opportunity to create an alternative solution by promoting consumerism.

Basically, the idea behind this object is to promote consumers (the poorer classes) to experience different lifestyle that is similar with the higher classes, which encouraging them to feel equal and promoting materialistic lifestyle. Mentioned lifestyle is including social behavior, fashion sense, exercise routine, and eating habit.

 

Capability:

The badge is actually a mini smart camera with transmission capability that fully functional to recognize its surrounding’s social status and to gather the behavior and lifestyle habit. It has automatic detection feature which allow users to obtain a sensation of living the riches’ lifestyle through visual and feeling. Within the camera form, it enables user to gather data within user’s range of view. Its transmission capability extend data gathering by connected to any electronic devices that transmit data such as: CCTV, radio, and internet.

To make use of the product, the only thing that users need to do is register their lifestyle preference and current lifestyle. The detection feature will capture any person within its range that has the most similar lifestyle with user’s preference. This product also has a capability to record target’s behavior and its surrounding area. The recorded data will be used as an augmentation reality where user is enabled to live as the riches.

As the goal of this product is to promote consumerism, this product target encouraged users to feel the luxury of having higher level lifestyle. By giving them the experiences, they will also be persuaded to be more materialistic as a form of self-love.

 

How it works:

This product mainly relies on the badge camera part, however it also supplemented with an augmented reality goggles that enables users to live in a scenario where they are the riches. This goggles manipulates user’s sensory and nervous system, which generates different image and feeling inside their head. The badge is acting as the camera recorder that collects data and gesture while the glasses become an augmentation reality that enables users to experience living in higher social class. Both objects are connected to each other wirelessly and can be easily turned on or off at will.

When the goggles is activated, users will visualise themselves living as the targeted richer subject. They are living in their desired world where everything they do will look, taste, and feel like what they want.

 

Here are some images to show clarify the functionality of both prototype objects:

 

Direction we are heading:

From this scenario and this possible object, the future heavily revolves around technology and people starts to become more self-focused and goal orientated where people are willing to do anything to achieve their goal. The society will become materialistic as they value luxury. People will become more individualistic as they find themselves struggle to achieve self-love. However on the other hand, love will feel the same, but just the way it perceived and received will have slight difference.

The background behind my possible idea is to create a condition where private companies are having tight competition to sell their products as the alternative solution towards the beauty standard grouping. In this scenario, advertisement hold a huge significant role where it persuades people to consume their product, no matter how useless the product is.

During the class activity, I came up with a few different ideas for the speculative futuristic prototype objects:

From those lists, I feel that the fashion recognition would be appropriate as a response to the assessment brief and my previous blog researches.

The fashion recognition takes form as a mini-camera badge where it fully functional to recognize existed fashion. It has automatic detection feature which allow users to obtain pictures of their favorite clothes even when they not even see it.

To make use of the product, the only thing that users need to do is register their fashion preference. The detection feature will capture any clothing that match the registered preference as long it exists within the product’s range of view. This product also has a capability to connect user’s eyes and enabling them to visualise their interested fashion style, supplementing them with the product’s brand, release date, and price. These captured pictures will be saved inside an inserted USB drive and could also be previewed virtually in pinterest board format. Each picture will generate direct link to the actual clothing brand or company and enable users to easily online purchase it.

The object is also supported with an augmentation reality where users are capable to visualise themselves wearing, walking around, and creating a scenario where they are utilizing their preferred clothing line. This capability is designed to encourage people to be even more consumerism.

However, as the concept developed, I found some issues regarding the object’s functionality. I somehow feel the function is not futuristic enough as its capability can easily be replaced by existed technologies; smartphones and internet. Beside that, the ‘forced’ advertisement I tried to implemented does not really make sense and suitable for the scenario. I also got feedback stating that the idea does not really make sense since it basically forcing consumers, who are basically from lower classes to purchase some clothing that not even necessary for them.

Due to this, this idea is later scrapped but this scenario concept idea will be developed even further and more futuristic for my final prototype object.

I have been friend with Inez for more than two years and I would say that I know her pretty well. She has been dealing with love related issues, especially around friends and her family which led her to be more mature and spoken out some of her amazing perspective.

One thing that I really like about her opinion is ‘love has been felt the same and it cannot be changed’. I completely agree that the way we receive love is different for each individual but the way our heart feel it will be the same, in general. I also agree with her saying that love has gotten better treatment nowadays, especially for the LGBTQ community. Moreover, I also feel people has put more respect for self-love, like woman empowering, color-based equality, etc., the stigma about woman has to stay at home while the man needs to work outside to pay the bill has been broken as some roles has been reversed just because they are capable to choose what they like and what they want.

This interview has also opened a new perspective for me. I used to believe that technology will always make human life better, even though some of them have negative effects. However, her opinion about how technology create a distance between human relationship is pretty realistic as we ourselves has been dealing with that issue. Technology is something that keep getting advanced these days, by this, I believe the human-to-human relationship will also face some new problems. I am completely agree with her that in 2040, no matter how advanced the technology, it will affect how people interact, but it will not change how people love each other as a human being.

From this interview, I am starting to imaging a future where people are pressured to fulfill society’s demand as requirement to have a ‘normal’ life­ (in my scenario, the beauty standard), which lead them to struggle to achieve self-love. People will be too focused to fit in and desperate to find an achievable alternative solution. From the statement ‘technology will always get more advanced’ made me speculate that there will be some people who trying to obtain profit from this desperate cond­­­ition. Some people will pretend to create a solution while it actually it just worsens the situation. Referring to my second main blog post, people will still accept that solutions because its human nature as an act of love to fight for their desire.

Through their Design Critique reading, Dunne and Raby managed to explore and deeply explain what kind of design that estimated to be valuable and interest both market and customers. We have recently become interested in the idea of critical shopping (Dunne & Raby 2013). This mean people will seek for an alternative design where every single of their needs could be simply achievable in the possible simplest way. Moreover, advertising will become the main influencer of our choices.

Also, in my scenario, I feel some people will become materialistic to fulfill their emptiness due to lack of self-love. This will create a condition where people are obsessed and fully desired to be equal and accepted in the society. Through this condition, people will become clueless about what they want and desperately need technology that would fill their emptiness. From this on, I would like to imagine my prototype as a ‘solution’ that actually create a new problem.

References:

Dunne, Anthony & Raby, Fiona, 2013, ‘Design as Critique,’ in Speculate Anything, Cambridge, MIT Press, pp. 33-46.

 

 

 

For this interview, I am trying to get into a perspective of someone that is close to my age group. With this choice, I believe it would help me to more visualise some familiar technologies that relevant to the scenario and based on an existed technology. I end up interviewing my peer, who is a second-year animation student, Inez. Here is my interview with her and her perspective towards love, technology, and the future of both.

Q: Hello! Thank you for being part of this interview. You are busy with uni projects, right?

A: Nah, that’s alright! Let’s start!

Q: Sure, let’s start with the basic question. What do you think love is?

A: Love is something that is not a tangible thing that experienced by people. It could be a desire, passion, or a relationship between two people depending how they living their life. Love could come in a lot of different ways.

Q: You mentioned something about two people. Do you think love is possible to occur if there is only one person?

A: It is possible, but it will be different.

Q: What do you mean by that?

A: Um, you know love because you have been feeling it since the beginning of time and everything, but in relationship you expect someone to feel, to do something, But, it feels like a game where you don’t know what (he) gonna feel or do. It is a two ways of perspective feeling. But if we talk about self-love, you are doing it, receiving something from yourself. You are the one that know what you want and all you expect is yourself, do you get what I mean?

Q: Ah yeah. So, are you trying to say that self-love is different from relationship between two people?

A: Yeah definitely! Love is always different. Even friendship is love but it is different right? It just different amount, different feeling of love that you receive from either yourself or other.

Q: Um, so what do you think self-love is? Do you think that you have given enough love for yourself?

A: I think everyone will give enough amount of love for themselves. Until something happens.

Q: What do you mean by that?

A: It is actually based on my experience, but it is formed by your entire environment, the way you deal with things, people who surround you. But as far as I know people love themselves until something happens, something traumatizes them affecting their way. Like they had something that making them to start doubting themselves, like the person they are right now is not perfect. But yeah, loving yourself is what 2018 about. It is about accepting yourself even if you are transsexual, gay, queer, or whatever that is.

Q: Alright, but these days, some people are choosing to focus on themselves. Some people choose to have a good career, following their dream and passion. Do you think that it is part of self-love?

A: Like what?

Q: Some people choose to not get married to achieve something that they wanted to do. Like Jennifer Aniston chooses to not have any child because she wants to be a huge star and having her own family will affect her career because she stated that she won’t be able to balance her life. Do you agree with that?

A: Here’s the thing about self-love, when you love yourself too for too much, you feel that you don’t need somebody else or you feel enough already because you already found out what you are as an identity. So it’s kinda like saying that identity as love. People have different personality, people have different ways of thinking. If they think they can achieve, getting what they want just by having themselves is okay. But the thing is that they just want to find the idea of what life is. If they think that love is something that they can give to themselves and they don’t need people or things or relationship is okay, but most of the time people have things that distract themselves. Some people don’t really have human-to-human relationship, maybe more like human-to-thing.

Q: Human-to-thing?

A: It is like human to dream, human to passion. Like they know what they like, they know what they want to do, they don’t need human to tell them. They just feel ‘this is what this is’.

Q: That’s a good answer. But they thing about love nowadays is there also thing called love to inanimate objects. I’m not sure how to explain that, but I am trying to say objects that escalate your status like money etc. Its more like materialistic kind of thing. Do you agree with that way of thinking? Is it part of self-love?

A: It is a part of love. It just doesn’t have lust. The thing about love is that you want to experience sexual stuffs. But when you don’t think about those sexual stuffs, it’s still loves but it’s a different thing. Like for example you love your mom but you don’t think her in any of those way. The same way exists for those materials, objects stuffs. It is like you treasure them a lot as something that has been part of your life and it takes process to achieve them. You keep them as a precious thing. So, I think it is self-love because you have desire to own it, to make it as a part of your life.

Q: That’s an amazing answer! So, about this subject. We are talking about future. What do you think love will be in future? What will change about love?

A: A lot of things will happen. Love itself has improved already these days like people is okay with gay, bi(sexual), there also been a lot of LGBTQ movement going on. So I don’t think love can be improved more than that just because right now it feels enough for everything.

Q: How about technology? Will there be technology that invented to improve those stuffs?

A: What are those stuffs?

Q: The LGBTQ movement stuffs. Something that can be used to support the movement.

A: I don’t get why there need to be technology to improve love. I mean I get it that It makes thing easier. But you lost the human touch relationship because of that. You could think “Ah, I could connect with people because I have phone” but you don’t actually connect with them because you don’t really know what they feel. But in the past, when you like a girl, like you have to send a message to her. You have to go to the post office then wait for a week and such. The feeling of love that you get was actually bigger than you feel nowadays. Like for example, Tinder. It is basically you text people. It just that you don’t get the same amount of love than in the past. So if you are saying that you want to make a technology to improve relationship between human, it will feel okay during that time just because we are so used to have these modern technologies. But again, personally if you compare to how it was in the past, it is simpler. Love felt more real than now.

Q: Do you think we are heading toward that direction? (technology becomes an obstacle between human relationship and having negative effect towards love).

A: We are! We are going into technological kind of direction. Um, I think if they are trying to create another technology, they maybe create something that enables you to not be physically there anymore. It could be just like a VR, you don’t have to actually meet the person to get into relationship. I don’t know if that is a good thing,

Q: So basically you are saying if technology is getting more advance, people will be distanced. But do you think people will still use those technologies?

A: Yeah!

Q: Even if they don’t connect with people?

A: Because I live in the time where there wasn’t any advanced technology. I live in a time where I didn’t have phone that I can message people all the time. But like kids nowadays are about technologies, they watch ipad as tv and stuffs. It just a normal thing for them. That is why some old people used to say ‘back in my time, we don’t have this, this, and this’, I think the bigger the technologies are, it won’t guarantee that things will be better.

Q; Okay. Connected to my future scenario, my group develop a scenario where beauty standard becomes a socio currency. This scenario refers to a condition where resources are getting harder to be obtained, which only achievable by the riches where the poor are trying to fit in while achieving that beauty standard, but limited due to the economic issue. Do you think that it will be our possible future?

A: If it a self-love? Why there should be any beauty standard? If they really love themselves, they will not think about beauty standard anymore. It will be more about accepting yourself, your identity as who you are. Accepting whatever you look. So where is the self-love if they still focusing on the look.

Q: So, do you think love is not getting improved in this scenario?

A: I don’t get why you keep saying love need to be improved. Love is not technology. It cannot be improved because it is not something that human create. Feeling love is something that you feel for yourself. The way you love people and the way I love people is different. For example, ‘I can receive this big amount of love while you are receiving smaller amount of love but you still think it is love because it’s the biggest love you ever received from people”. What I am trying to say is, love is about what you feel. It cannot be improved because it just happens the way it is.

Q: So, what do you expect from love in the future that are technology related?

A: I don’t think there is none. Technology will still be there because we are so used to it, and living without one will be so weird. I think what to be expect is how people limit themselves from technology. Back to the materialistic thing, it feels like people value their phone more than people surround them. So, if you are making a scenario where there needed technology to support or improve human love, out future is doomed. But if that happens, the only needed technology is the ones that could make human-to-human relationship to work. It might be ironic, but it might be a technology versus technology.

Q: Based on your answer, I am more thinking about the worst-case scenario. What is the worse one that related to technology?

A: It would be like I said. You might have a first date, but its not human-to-human. It will be you love things, more than you love actual human. And you value the things rather than your human relationship. Its like you love the technology but you thought you love human, but it actually a technology that making up that image and you don’t even actually know that person as a human.

Q: Alright that’s it! You have given a lot of wonderful answers. Thank you so much for your time!

A: Oh that’s it? You are welcome! Its been a pleasure to help!

Love changes norm, love makes people do things that sometimes cofront ethical morality (Magid 2017). Technology has been advanced. even though it seems impossible to achieve in real life, some efforts toward resurrecting the dead has been done through technology. A study called biotechnology that studies biology related area such as organism, genetic manipulation, hormones, etc. and developing them through technology has been called to have opportunity to achieve the resurrection process. Biotech itself has been developed even further and worthy enough to be called advanced in some countries such as United States, Denmark, France, Japan, and Korea. There has not been any report that explicitly announcing any further related research nor its successfulness, but some people speculated some researches has been quietly done to avoid government intervention and due its ambiguous morale nature.

Even though it has reached yet in real life, resurrection has been depicted a lot through different form of the media. One of the earliest known depictions of this case is the Frankenstein novel, published back in 1818 by Mary Shelley. In this century, resurrection is still a popular plot point and sometimes crucial in non-fictional stories such as: The Walking Dead, Naruto, Warm Buddies, Flatliners, etc. Through those depictions, almost all resurrected characters are the ones who possess great power or authority and controlled to gain a stronger power.

As mentioned on my previous blog post, some of these resurrecting plans are based on unconditional love. A Black Mirror episode called ‘Be Right Back’ successfully depicts how resurrection based technology works. The episode depicts a technology where a synthetic human is created where it take form of a deceased person and it starts to act like that person through accessed personal and social media data. This episode also successfully depicts strong inner morale conflict within the main character where she went depressed from the sudden loss and desperately need her partner’s emotional support. It all seems fine at first but as time goes on, she comes for a realization where the synthetic human is not her deceased partner. No matter what happens, her partner has dead and the synthetic human will not replace him no matter how closely their physical appearance and behavior is. The episode itself prompts viewers to rethink about the conclusion regarding the choice.

I would say that Black Mirror’s depiction is pretty realistic where it capable to visualize an unachieved scientific progress through achievable modern 21^st century technology. If resurrection comes into reality one day, I would argue that morale ethic would be the main issue. Country with strong religion background such as Arab, Indonesia, and India would definitely against the idea while some others would argue that bringing the dead back to life is an evident of human agape love. Through class activity and further research, I realized that if the deceased keep coming back, more social issues such as overpopulation, resources availability, and poverty will also be arise as well. As for now, I still believe that our future would be a utopian technology that keeps changing with different possibility (Sicoe 2013). But as stated before, I would also say that due to government restriction, some illegal research has might be done and in matter of time it would be achieved. One day when it comes, both new opportunity and problem will also appear along with it.

So, is love an acceptable reason to break a value of morality?

 

References:

Magid, M. (2017), Moral alchemy: How love changes norms, Moral Learning, vol. 167, pp.135-150.

Be right back 2013, television program, Black Mirror, Netflix, United Kingdom,  viewed 1 August 2018, <https://www.netflix.com/au/title/70264888&gt;.

Sicoe, V. 2018, ‘Utopia and Dystopia – The Many Faces of The Future’, weblog, 15 April, viewed 28 April 2018, < http://www.howdesign.com/web-design-resources-technology/12-basic-principles-animation-motion-design/>.

 

 

 

In Bible’s New Testament, the term love is separated into 4 different forms; eros (sexual love), phileo (friendship love), storge (family love), and agape (unconditional love).

Agape love is described as a parental, mature, sacrificial kind of love (Storey 2012). Someone who possessed this type of love will put their beloved one above everything, even if they have to sacrifice pride or even their own life. As written on the bible, this kind of sacrifice has done by Jesus the Son of God who died on crucifixion, redeeming sins of human. This example is still being used in a lot of modern churches teaching as the explanation of agape love. The usage of mentioned example however, creates a misunderstanding where the term refers only to love relationship between God to human, not vice versa.

John Henry Thayer, an American biblical scholar states that human also possessed this form of love in relation and exceeding philia and storge love. He argued that both philia and storge are sometimes feel forced as both are felt as a duty or fear of losing (Rudder 2010). They will reach their final form, which is agape when people are no longer bounded by the term family, friend, lover, parent, etc. but as a human being who are helped just because they needed to. All it needed to achieve this form is being care and willing to put others first.

As technology getting more advances, the view towards agape love is also slightly altered. Some people such as David Warren, the inventor of black box flight data recorder (FDR) who lost his father at age of 9 on a plane crash presents his agape love by created the mentioned object. His invention was not aiming for profit, but rather due to his concern towards airplane’s safety standard. All he wanted to do was to prevent others to feel the pain he felt from losing his loved one.

In more controversial cases, some people trying to prove their agape love by creating a new life or even resurrected the dead ones. Nowadays, various fertility controls such as: The Great Egg Freeze, In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF), Surrogacy Program, etc. are still debatable scientific topic over the decade (BBC World Service 2018). For those who are unable to conceive, those programs are blessing as some people still believe that having kids are a proof of love for the loved ones. However, others argued that those programs are morally and ethically wrong since they are created unnaturally.

On the different side, resurrecting the dead ones is still seen as a taboo subject. People argued that bringing back those who already finished their mortal business should have moved into the next life form and should not come back. However, there are some people who would do anything to see, to talk, to interact with their loved ones once again even if they have to commit something that are ethically wrong as a proof of their agape love.

So, was is considered as a right from of agape love?

 

References:

Storey, N. 2012, ‘Four Kinds of Love; Eros, Agape, Phileo & Storge’, blog post, weblog, WordPress, viewed 30 July 2018,<https://fromerostoagape.wordpress.com/2012/08/09/eros-romantic-love-and-agape-unconditional-love/&gt;.

Rudder, D. 2010, ‘Black box inventor David Warren: a tribute’, blog post, weblog, MAAS Museum, viewed 31 July 2018, <https://maas.museum/inside-the-collection/2010/07/23/black-box-inventor-david-warren-a-tribute/&gt;.

BBC World Service 2018, ‘The great egg freeze’, The Documentary, audio podcast, iPlayer Radio, United Kingdom, 31 March, viewed 26 July 2018, <https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csxfj0&gt;.