Reclaiming Experience

This title (from a chapter in 'Flow - The psychology of optimal experience' ) triggered my quest into what is being discussed widely in the design world, namely 'authenticity' or other related terms 'real', 'genuine' and 'true'.

My first experience with this subject started when my brother Paul went to art school to learn graphic design. By hanging out with him at the academy I learned that everything around us, the products we all use are all designed. And that looking at the world without prejudice (forgetting what you've learned, what things should be) space is created for new ideas, new meanings on what's already there.

It actually started much earlier. When I was a child, playing with piles of wood, collecting old televisions and creating new machines and complete factories from them in my fantasy. My fantasies were infinite, but more important creating and creativity were naturally. Reality and fantasy were totally merged.

I believe that every human being is in essence a creative being. It's what makes us different from animals. The power to create is our highest good. But society does not always stimulate creativity. In many ways it kills it. Socialization, or the transformation of a human organism into a person who functions successfully within a particular social system cannot be avoided. But it becomes scary when people identify so thoroughly with the social order that they no longer can imagine themselves breaking any of it's rules. This is the opposite of authenticity (Freud, Marx and many others).

"Reclaiming experience" is a great title. Today we are confronted with a lot of 'fake' (politics, advertising, banks), and it looks like we're living in period where people become aware/tired of it, but at the same time have difficulty to give meaning themselves. An authentic life is one lived with critical and independent sovereignty over one’s choices and values (Wikipedia). This is not possible without creativity. Because it concerns a person's relation with the world, it can not be arrived at by simply repeating a set of actions or taking up a set of positions.

Back to the subject of design, 'authentic, 'real', 'genuine' and 'true' is a design that truly improves the (human) quality of the users life/experience, or tells the authentic story of it's creator. One of our leading design principles at Viewbook is that we don't believe in 'templates'. Many competing services provide out-of-the-box designed templates, while we give our users a 'design tool' that forces a process of trial and error to come to a satisfying end result. We ask more from the user, but this process makes the user the creator of his own design, and thus the connection with his design will be much stronger, and hopefully more authentic.

Alain de Botton always finds good words when it comes to this subject. He describes what 'fake' and 'real' design be in this video.

Workaholic

Many speak about how much you need to work to become successful. Others invent new methods to get things done more efficiently.

I bootstrapped a business and worked really hard. I did work that is normally done by two, three or even four people.

A moment comes when you are confronted with reality. You can't keep cutting yourself off from the 'regular' world by only focusing on your venture. Here's something I found a while ago (in a Dutch book about entrepreneurship):

"To build a valuable business, you need to live your own values. To have a successful business, the company must be a vivid company. That's only possible if you live your life fully."

Disconnect and Reconnect

I recently watched Digital Nation an impressive documentary about how we (specifically young people) use digital media in our everyday lives and how it effects us, positive and negative. The video shows how children of today never lived in a time without digital media. We, born before the 90's, are actually 'digital immigrants', while the children of today are 'digital natives'.

Since I have a one year old daughter this subject really made me think. As digital media are unmistakeably present from an early age on in today's world, how do we deal with this at home? Do we want our children to sit behind the screen all day? No, of course not. But when and how to say no? After a severe discussion with my girlfriend (first thing she said was 'No screens in the living room!'), we more or less agreed on the following.

Checking what your friends say on Twitter, new messages on facebook, the latest videos on TED, scanning your RSS for interesting articles, it's great! But it's passive. You are only consuming. And maybe sharing some of your consumption again. It's volatile. The tempo is quick, the concentration is superficial. And maybe sometimes it's just distraction to kill the time.

We need moments in our lives where the tempo is slow. Where we experience another dynamic, something greater, more fulfilling. Like a nice walk in the forest or reading a great novel.

For our daughter this means that we will stimulate her to play in the sand, to create fantastic sandcastles, watch the animals in the park. Provide her with all the rough material to make her be creative in life. I hope that by learning and experiencing the 'slower' tempo, she will be capable to decide when to connect and disconnect.

The Peculiarity of Design

"The outcome of a specific design process, such as a car, a curriculum, or an organizational structure, is an ultimate particular. It is something unique. It is not the universal car, the universal organizational structure, or curriculum. We are creating a particular, which, when taken together with other particulars, makes up the whole of our experienced reality." - The Design Way.

In reaction to Thinking through Design Thinking.

An Acheulian hand axe

An Acheulian hand axe, over a million and a half years old. A metaphor for the fist thing made by man.

All art and technology began when early men chipped an oval stone flint with symmetrical precision to produce a point and extremely sharp edges. In a world where tools might have been the most important things made, their qualities were sometimes brought to a perfection far beyond the needs of practicality. Craft, symmetry and elegance speak of pride in creation, pleasure in contemplation, prestige in possession.

From: The Art of Looking Sideways

PhotoStory Exhibition party

Opening Viewbook PhotoStory Exhibition from Viewbook on Vimeo.

Last Day Dream

Last Day Dream [HD] from Chris Milk on Vimeo.

Viewbook Photostream Of TodaysArt08

We had a great time at TodaysArt08 in The Hague. 10 photographers shot around 40 acts ranging from music to dance to visual art. As soon as the performances finished we uploaded the images into a live photostream embedded into the website of todaysart.nl, bright.nl, boomerang.nl and others. Here's the full photostream:

Viewbook At TodaysArt

TAG004 @ TodaysArt08

Viewbook is visualizing TodaysArt at 26 and 27 September 2008. We provide Viewbook galleries to share online. On the event itself we create several photostreams on the homepage of todaysart.nl.

Collect Ideas with Evernote

Evernote is a digital Moleskine notebook. You can make notes, copy entire websites or just text and images. It even reads text inside your images. Evernote helps to write down your ideas, copy interesting or inspiring content and to organize it. For me it's also a great research tool: it helps me to make decisions like what technology should I choose, what direction should I go with this project, etcetera. It is also a great tool for design research in both solo and collaborative projects. You can make public notebooks, and share notes via e-mail. It even serves as a ToDo list.

Evernote is running on multiple platforms (desktop, on the web and iPhone) so you can make notes everywhere. It really is 'your external brain' as Evernote calls it themselves. I'm curious if I'm going to give up my Moleskine when I have my iPhone next week.

link: Evernote.com