Today’s lecture was delivered by Hazel White director of the Master of Design Programme and a jewellery researcher. She focuses on the meaning and function of jewellery. Most of her research concentrates on wearable technology. She made a very good point at the beginning of the lecture about the difference between analogue and digital object. She has shown a picture of a pray counter and it was obvious how to use it even we never used it before. The knot means we done a whole circle. On the next picture there was a digital pray counter. Two little plastic objects one with a couple of buttons on it. We probably couldn’t use it unless we spent some time reading the directions for use. So basically something’s lost in terms of meaning with the digital one.
She was working on several different projects how to use digital technology in the field of jewellery. To be honest I didn’t find them wearable and useful but they were very interesting and I could totally imagine any of them in a museum. Maybe it’s just me afraid being too dependent on computers but for me there’s no need to have a projection of my ring on a computer screen. But later on during the lecture she showed us one of her latest projects and I realised how important it is in design to do the journey to get somewhere. It was a nicely made old fashion wooden box with little knitted pincushions in it and with a wee screen inside. I found it a perfect design because it was the latest technology displayed in a way which was homey and it made it easy to use for anybody. Her original idea was to make a jewellery to remember a Shetland home. She is originally from Shetland Island but obviously she couldn’t work there. So she has to live far away from her home and her family. And she’s not the only one who had to leave because of lack of jobs. So she went back and started her research. Shetland is a particular community mainly lived by older people. They really enjoy knitting because it creates a social space where they can talk to each other freely. They usually use two colours to make the pattern which is almost like a computer code. She also went to care homes and realized although people have the latest technology around them they don’t know how to use it so they don’t use it. She put all these information together and came up with a brilliant idea.
Her wooden box has an iPhone inside but you can see only the screen of it. Each pincushion has different pattern and they belong to different people. When you put a cushion into the box it starts displaying the person’s latest photographs from the internet. So even if you give it to a child or a granny they obviously can use it. So it solved the problem of the lost information between analogue and digital technology.
I found this lecture particularly interesting because it wasn’t about how to get rich quickly but about how to help other people with your knowledge. Or if you don’t have the skill to do something you came up with you can always ask for other people’s help. She mentioned a couple other projects she’s working on with her master students. I found them very inspirational. For example to design a software for mute people and they can design their unique voice. Previously they all had the same voice in the classroom. If someone designing the smell of Starbucks’s it would be obvious to design different voices for mute people but nobody else did. So I learnt a lot how to use our skills and the latest technologies to help people, improve their environment and their quality of life.