Week 1 Discussion topic : Advancement in innovation & technology does not benefit mankind in spiritual development , however it does increase the level of material comfort and serve as a common goal for all societies(minimum 100word comment from each student).
Week 2 Discussion topic : Discuss Kurweil’s idea of ‘Technological Singularity’ (100word).
Week 3 Group project and discussion : Start on the page design for your shared wikispaces. Discuss the issues arising from your online collaboration after the ’skin’ of the wikispace has been ‘redesigned’.
Week 4 Workshop : Start a collaborative webpage design for your assignments using Wordpress. Guidance will be given.
Week 5 Discussion topic : Identify 2 of your favourite transmaterials, one from ‘Ultraperformance’ and another from ‘Multidimensional’ category. Imagine how you would like to use these innovative materials in your design (100word).
Week 6 Discussion topic : Register with Material Explorer here. Go to the home section and enter the 26-06-2006 collection. Browse through the collection and comment on 2 transmaterials (100word).
Entries (RSS)
May 31st, 2006 at 6:15 am
This is Kent Neo your lecturer & tutor for the next 13 weeks. Please post your comments to discussion topic 1 for week 1 before the next lecture. Also, please leave your name, mobile and email for my records purposes.
June 6th, 2006 at 4:51 am
Andy Chua
9640 5514 (SMS ONLY)
9855 9049
email: andyc008@singnet.com.sg
MSN: erwei008@hotmail.com
Christine Wonoseputro
98115910 ( mobile )
150 south bridge road
Fook Hay Building # 20
Singapore
email : christie@peter.petra.ac.id
June 6th, 2006 at 4:54 am
Joey Chong
82889506
e-mail j_o_e_ychong@yahoo.co.uk
June 6th, 2006 at 4:57 am
Hello everybody!
It is nice to communicate in this blog! Here is Juliana and Daniel speaking!!!!
Well…In our oppinion…We do think we can combine both development….material and spiritual can support one another and benefit men in many ways!
How does it sound?
Bye!
June 6th, 2006 at 4:59 am
Leena Deshpande
Mobille-82111832
Phone-67908390
leenadeshpande_1@yahoo.com
June 7th, 2006 at 10:33 pm
Daniel Chia
Mobile: 91084143
design722001@yahoo.com.sg
June 8th, 2006 at 11:09 pm
Dear teacher and friend,
Hi… I’m really interesting on this things.
I’m never done before. I hope that This forum would be interested to all of us.
Dear teacher and class,
I have already submitted the opinion or any comments about next week topic. Have you all received it?
Regards,
Christine.
June 9th, 2006 at 10:07 am
well, both areas of advancement does really benefit us human kind…especially me… it’s effects had already been showed and had seen results, but may i ask does these advancements in both innovations and technologies will bring to us a negative effect? I don’t know, I mean, will we forget our basic means of daily life? ie. brushing our teeth, having our shower or even bed-time? hm…i hope i’m on the right track… any lads want to correct what i just said?
June 9th, 2006 at 11:01 pm
Thanks to Andy and Christine for your contributions. Christine, could you still write a short note here on your views on the relation between ’spirituality’ and ‘material well-being’ brought about by I & T ? For the rest of you, if you have read any articles online relating to this week’s topic, please include the links. These weekly comments will be assessed together with your 1500 word assigment.
June 10th, 2006 at 11:10 am
hmmm… i am hesitating here, on this week’s discussion!!!
reason being…
we ALL, i mean most of us clearly enjoys the amount of comfort in the advancement in innovation & technology has brought to us… without IT we will not be able to SMS, e-mail or even dial a curry over the phone and of course we will still be travelling by foot!! but back to our basic NEEDS (ie food & water) and WANTS (could be anything upon surviving ie the most “IN” mobile phone etc.) we must all agree that there is a thin line between everyones’ needs and wants and our WANTS grows…
for example… working adults hire a maid sometimes to tidy and clean up their homes!! will robots take over the role of a maid eventually or it already has? in that case, maybe 5 years later, no one hires a maid no more… instead ‘we’ hire a robot? wat will all the ‘maids’ do? will we end up something like ‘I, ROBOTS’?
anyway, that is jus my personally point of view and hopefully i am on the right track too…
June 10th, 2006 at 11:38 am
hi christine,
where did u submit ur opinion at?
June 11th, 2006 at 4:41 am
agree with joey, saw this show on CNA entitled “That’s IT”, saw all these interesting technologies, they are indeed invented at a great time and right place, these brought to us many convenience and time saving as well. I’m sure that these inventions does have it’s pros and cons. i mean, ask yourself, how many of us can survive without a mobile phone? for me, if i left my phone at my bed-side table for a day, i would feel that i had lost something in life…ha! see that mean we depend too much on technologies and modern innovations. no doubt, all these creations does help us speed up our work and make our life easier….
i remember when i was still serving my 3 years contract for my NS, we came up with interesting softwares to map our intelligence resourses and we used 3D softwares to mould buildings for peace-time and operations purpose. every thing is so convenient, all at the touch of the button. i constantly rely on IT when i was posted to City Hall as a Deputy Site Commander for my unit….i used web cams for virtual conference everyday and i used webcams to monitor the site while constructions and other operations are on-going…it saves me lots of time…in the comfort of my office of-course…
but sometimes…we do need to go back to the basic…don’t you lads agree? come on guys…more say more….haha….kent please bring me back to the right track if i stray…thanks mate
June 12th, 2006 at 3:48 am
Here is a link to an optimistic view on I & T,
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970323.html
Joey, wants can never be satisfied, that’s human nature. If, people become
totally devoid of wants, we don’t need designers and hence I won’t be writing to you now (oxymoron). Our job is to satisfy wants, both ours and others. We live in an age of machines. From nanobots to mammoth cranes that help build our skyline. My only concern is on the byproducts of manufactured goods. Are we polluting our environment with factory by-products? Are we depleting our natural resources in a hectic race of production and consumption? Should we, as designers, be aware of the kind of products that might have harmful effects on the environment?
The integrity of many society’s social fabric is weakening. This may not be attributed to I & T, but rather on materialism and on a economic system that rewards people who are affluent. Who determine’s wealth, the people who has the most firearms perhaps. Technology affirms power. Viewed in this light, I & T may be dangerous as nations may be developing technology for the sake of arms race.
June 12th, 2006 at 9:36 am
I do agree with the quote. Advance technology, be it computer, tv, etc. does update us on what is happening around the world today. Human are also constantly trying to learn and achieve to keep up and adapt with the new technology.
June 12th, 2006 at 9:57 am
To further add on…. it does affect mankind spiritually…. dated back to the 60s to the present century…. there seems to be a drastic change in the environment and technology…. The younger generation are constantly keeping up with the technology…. however, the older generation seems to have fallen behind…..
Kent, as what you have mentioned about the products that have caused harmful to the environment, am I right to say that if there is an invention, there is also a way to cure or sustain with the technology. However, what I need to emphasize is to hope technology is put into good use, for a good cause, by educating people around the world.
June 12th, 2006 at 10:51 am
however, daniel…pardon me if i’m wrong…the i & t advancement has been used in certain ways that has caused harm to many. ie, 911. terrorists had used the advancement of the softwares for their own “goodwill” for their own “spititual” benefits but it causes great grief and harm to many. and yes…advancements to our i & t has brought us many great reliefs especially when we had the SARs outbreak few years back…innovations like the thermal cams…does help us a lot…don’t you agree? cutting down on manpower…and stuffs like that…this creates a whole new meaning…in the i & t language…
and yes, kent, i agree to a certain extent, that…our byproducts causes some harm to our living environment. kent is it because of our “greed” for the need of the advancements in technologies that man kind are “truly out in force” to destroyed and killed acres or even Ha of land to feed our “hunger for technologies” but kent, i still feel that this race for i & t still has an attribute to many factors in our needs like what joey has mentioned….but kent can i ask you something…is there a way that we can slow down the advancement for this i & t race and we revert back to the basic? can we? and why should we do that? and if we ever did succeed…what would be the outcome?
June 12th, 2006 at 12:11 pm
*blur* hehe
wish all of u have a good nite n ready for this “major” debate tomorrow!!!
hehehe
but i do agree with wat daniel mentioned abt “however, the older generation seems to have fallen behind… …” but i guess its jus part of “revolution”… some elderly do show lots of interests in i & t but there are some who still confine themselves to wat they are used to!!! ie still using the casette player and perhaps not using a mobile phone… i mean using a mp3 player and a mobile phone isnt compulsory but these are the products with the advancement in i & t out in the market for us…
basically, the advancement in i & t will keep on developing even if we “like” it or not and for those who do not keep up with the advancement might be left behind…
having said that the advancement in i & t brought us lots of benefits especially in the medical world… aiding patients with new medical instrucments etc. as compared to decades before (flu can be the no. 1 killer) maybe as wat kent has suggest looking into kind of products which will not harm the environment as much…
- reFINE n rePAIR n reTHINK n reDESIGN -
hope i m making sense here…
good nite
June 13th, 2006 at 12:18 pm
Dear Christine,
Would you like to transfer your posts related to this forum over here? As you can see, I am trying to ‘grow’ information here. I’ve provided the bones, you guys have to fill in the flesh and blood around the structure. Your information is growing at the wrong place at the moment!
By the way, since you are so intrigued by the notion of virtual spaces at the moment, there is is very good online e-book entitled ‘The City of Bits’ by William Mitchell, follow this link - http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-books/City_of_Bits/
I met Bill Mitchell in Adelaide in fall of 2004, he is a professor in computational architecture in MIT at this present moment. He used to be the Dean of Architecture in MIT.
I think you should stick to your childen’s space research, our school might not have the necessary resources to support research in the area of virtual spaces (may need software that is non-existent in this school).
June 16th, 2006 at 1:31 am
Dear friends and teacher,
I see that our discussion will be more interesting.
Probably my next comment will be jump to the 2nd week session.
Teacher, thank you for the references that you’ve given to me.
Regards,
Christine
June 16th, 2006 at 2:16 am
Hi, It’s me again. … You know that last day topics is quite interesting for me. I believe that everything in this world, which is called innovation is always related to technological things.
I think that technology has make it possible .
In this session, I will skip everything.
Sorry Kent, that I probably speak out of content of this week discussion topic.
About innovation and technology, I’m agree with you Joey, as what I have said in class discussion forum that, it really depends on how people themselves getting react with technological-things.In some parts of our life technology has make everything “impossible” become “possible”.
What people need is to be “aware” about it, not to make it out of control.
The greater impact of technology has made this world smaller. We can reach Singapore-Hongkong in hours, we can contact someone overseas in seconds, not even hours.
It makes time,distance,and space in a tiny-scope.
As what Andy said, Hope that technology make a good impact to our daily life, not to make it worse. So, I think that it should be a control of technological usage.
About Technological Singularity, I remember that I watch and read about Hawking’s lecture session in newspaper and last Sunday session in television. He said that to prevent the mankind, we should seek for other living places and spaces, such as outer space.
It means Hawking predicts that in a very short term will the human being be extinct because of technology ?
He said that smarter colony or prabably martians will came to settle down to this earth ?
Isn’t it scary ? It meams like joey said that there will be no more “human-maids”, no more lecturer ( it means we don’t need you Kent, you will be substitute by clever-ROBOteacher, which can and know everything ).
People become jobless because they have no-job to do. It will make life meaningless??
How about your opinion?
June 16th, 2006 at 8:34 am
Hi Christine…
I have that book Kent mentioned…
City of Bits
Good book…
If you wanna borrow it, i dun mind bringing it to class for u…
Jus let me know…
June 17th, 2006 at 6:17 am
Dear Christine,
You are quite right about the elimination of ‘teachers’ like myself in the near/distant future. If you remember the classic scene in Superman where he was educated by memories and images stored in crystals. Instead of crystals, we have silicon chips that are storing and processing information at an exponential speed. However, information at the moment is exploding to a chaotic peak, how do we manage such databytes? I think the terms ‘lecturer’ or ‘designers’
have become archaic. Instead, they should be redefined as ‘information managers’ and ‘environmental doctors’. Information managers not only assess info, they also need a trained eye and discretionary judgement of all sources of information. They become digital scribes. As for Environmental doctors, they should not only reccommend aesthetically pleasing designs, they should also prescribe pyschologically beneficial, healthy and environmentally friendly designs.
On the point of the meaning of life, if you are a ‘Trekkie’, its not about having a job or having something to do, its about making better living conditions for all life forms in the galaxy. At this juncture, however, and sadly in many Asian countries, the first and foremost task is to eradicate poverty. Poverty, ironically, and not affluence, is the greatest threat to a sustainable earth.
A reminder, please check on week 8 on the latest credits breakdown for assignment 1.
Also, you are all invited to a special visit to the ‘New Majestic Hotel’ and ‘Hotel 1929′ on the 26 June 2006 arranged by me. These are the latest avant garde boutique hotels in Singapore.
June 20th, 2006 at 1:20 pm
Hi.. every body.. I know its too late but.. was having too many problems to handle at a time..
I think Human mind by its nature is innovative and is progressive.
Man has become self centered as he is involved (busy) with too many machines (computer, mobile, mp3 player, T.V etc.).which may not be a good thing, but at the same time I can speak with my mother for hours together on internet.. with out it I would not have survived here….for that matter would not have found NAFA…! Innovation and technology is for the betterment of human beings but can be very dangerous if it is misused .eg. Nuclear weapons. I say technology is a boon to mankind if used in the right direction.
June 26th, 2006 at 8:55 am
This is what I understand by Technological singularity….
Now days Machines are available which are more efficient and accurate than man, this as a big threat to humanity.
The energy and knowledge release in this era is much more than our imagination.
Singularity can be explained as Technology is going to gain such height in the near future that it is out of our imagination.
The thoughts are about the future of a technologically intensive society and more so about the effect it would possibly have on humans.
The speed at which computing power of the chips and the connections of
internet are increasing, there could possibly a super intelligence which could reside in the internet, which could have its own motives, moods and emotions.
A fear that humans will be slaves of artificial Intelligence.
kurzwiel calls it “Singularity” due to the merger of the human brain and machine intelligence will create something extraordinary. Singularity can be also explained as moment when distinction between machine and human intelligence disappears. The line is thin between physical and virtual reality.
Leena Deshpande
June 27th, 2006 at 1:39 am
my piece of ‘expired’ discussion…
futurist kurzweil’s ‘technological singularity’?
no one knows the future… the future can only be predicted* predictions of what’s likely to happen in the future… either its gonna change to the better or to the worst or stay unchanged, which is very unlikely as changes occurs in our daily lifes…
technology will continue its way forward whether we can accept it or not…
there are always good and bad things about something… lets look at something positive!! as kurzweil’s technology singularity suggests the creations of artificial intelligence taking over human intelligence and that the word singularity suggests dangerous, undersirable… i assume this prediction* is true… this can change our perception of education… as eventually, the world’s demand for ‘maids’, ‘cleaners’ or even ‘teachers’ go down, we can ‘upgrade’ ourselves to do something the world demands for…
* i use the word predict because i believe that no one can ’see’ our future… u can predict the future, u can forsee how the future is likely to be but u can never give accuracy to our future…
but then again, does it mean we all wil be sitting indoor, infront of our pc/laptops or answering calls in the future?
July 1st, 2006 at 8:12 am
yoz everyone…
finally recieved my password to activate wordpress…
the email address i used for that is j_o_e_ychong@yahoo.co.uk
tried exploring with the presentation etc. so fun but yet so confusing!!!
was trying to insert widgets but cant find it… haha kent, u might have to guide me again!!!
am trying to create a blog for my portfolio… hehe
FUN!!!
well, hope all of u had a great weekend and see you all on MONDAY (remember it will be a long day)
ciao
July 1st, 2006 at 8:16 am
oh forgot to ask…
Hi,
me again!!!
was reading through ‘transmaterial’… Kent, our assignment is to pick a material and research into it, right? wat if i have other interest in other materials from other books? i mean wat if… can i research into them instead?
i have a book called Material World - Innovative Structures and Finishes for Interiors… is that relevent?
July 1st, 2006 at 5:39 pm
Christine Says:
June 9th, 2006 at 12:01 am
1. The Past
Human use the technology only concerning to make life is being simple. Probably they don’t realize that the use of technology cause damage of environmental elements. They only took energy to make life easier and to push the maximum ouputs of daily life activities.
Talking about architecture and space, technology cause people build and make a lot of things that it was imposibble to be done before.From cave and then buitresses to column,beams, and pilars, dome and arc in Rome previously, Gothic church,etc.
2. Present
Human realized that the using of technology can make better life, but in the other side it also cause damage of energy resouces. Because the technology has make life easier, it has made people depend on it, but in the other side human also faced with the degradation of life quality, such as sickness and negative behaviour ( as what I have said in last week session ).
It also change the way of how people think.
People realize that technology sometime could be dangerous and harmfull to their life.
In architecture, technology developing has make change in the quality of space. Learning from our daily life, we don’t have to spent a lot of time in some place, such as our class.
Architecture and space become abstracts. It’s can be stated in virtual , not only in physical.
3. Future
Human seeking the alternative of energy resource. I think they will back to nature energy resource. Nowadays, people can use solar energy in any of aspects in daily life. Australia use solar energy to run their public busses. Japan produce vehicles using water as their source of energy to run the automobiles. And many other things.
I think people will seek energy resource back to the nature, which cannot be vanished and not being danger to human themselves. Human will seek energy resource that could be recycle and provide better quality in human life.
How about space and architecture? Are people will go back to nature scents?Or make it virtually, because the nature has been “sold out”, so they make the imitation of nature?
Or, how to make space in architecture from water? Or ice? Or..anything else ?
Like ice hotel in Finland and or ice building from Harbin, China? Or back to the cave?
I think there won’t be absolute theory to explain about it,will there? Like Einstein has said, everything is “relative”.
So, Let us discuss
July 1st, 2006 at 5:46 pm
Technological SIngularity… hmm, getting more intersedting discussion topic.
Just an experience I want to share.
I’m agree with you joey everything in the future is still in prediction. SO our big question is could machine or computer defetaed human ? Because I ask some people that nowadays computer styill cannot defeat man in certain ways. Yesterday my husband peinted his cars through a repair station that using digital computer yo make the proper paint. But he said that nowadays computer still cannot defeated human eyes . He quite disaapointed through the computer paint result. It can be similar to the original paint.
July 2nd, 2006 at 9:57 pm
Joey, could you bring along ‘Material world’ for us to take a look before I decide whether it can be used in the assignment? Thanks.
July 4th, 2006 at 3:43 am
ops…
sorry, didnt see the post… will bring it in!!! its an interesting book but published in the 2003 so it might be a little ‘outdated’…
anyway, my fren told me about a blogger…
take a look >>> http://xiaxue.blogspot.com/
she is from singapore and her stage name is Xia Xue… its interesting to know how many people actually logs onto her blog to read her life and watever she publishes on it… she is also known as the photoshop beauty!!! some companies pay her to write a blog about them… example, dashing diva does her nails for free!!!
funny that someone can earn money from being a blogger…
have fun exploring her blog…
July 4th, 2006 at 4:24 am
hello, everybody!
I am sorry for getting at this point of the discussion! As you all know, I had quite big journey over one molar teeth! Anyway…this actually can open my point of view over Technology and its singularity for many things….I wish I could have done all the dentist work over more technological sources: It won`t be much mistakes. Thus, this experience can tell that technology and its singular efficiency can really helps humanity in a lot of manners…We can really use whatever helps us in daily life to live better…The things we think the technology can not replace manshand, we do not give up: can you hug or kiss your computer? whatever technology is created over this…It will always be a replacement of human divinity! Thus…the discussion is not what is more important:humans or computer. Who seatle this batle? what for if you can have both parts complementing the creation!
Love and cheers !!!
July 4th, 2006 at 11:59 am
Juliana,sorry about your ‘molar incident’, but it suddenly gave me an inspiration…..can you not design a ‘molar’ chair using transmaterials? (as a little sweet revenge on the pain it has given you!) Feel free to browse through the links that we have covered so far, so that you know how far our minds have travelled in the virtual world. As for today’s coverage on ‘Ultraperformance’ & ‘Multidimensional’, I have specifically selected those materials that are suitable for interior use. Due to the limited time we have, I could not go into details of each material. If you are interested in any of the materials that I have skimmed through this afternoon, please navigate through the product’s website when you have the time. Apologies for the movie clips that got stuck, I’ll show it again at another time.
Please do check on this week’s 100-word discussion topic above. The 3D Viz course will be a joint class between the BA & MA. It will be held in 5-14 on Wed 2.30pm and probably commencing in 2 weeks’ time (they are installing the software at the moment).
As for next week’s field trip, I have suggested a trip to Mod Living to look at materials used in high-end designer furniture. If you have other suggestions, do let me know!
July 5th, 2006 at 6:51 am
Hi Kent
Joey and I passed by MOD Living last evening. We suggest that we make a trip down in the evening, as the entire space transform into a different ambience during the evening and MOD has a roof top garden, which would really provide that romantic ambience for your class.
Air Division over at MW, had high end designer furn’s designed using hig end materials, as well.
The recently open TOY MUSEUM by Soo Kian, explores the beauty of design language to its fullest, seems interesting for the BA undergrads.
Cheers
July 6th, 2006 at 5:33 am
The tentative program for next week’s BA/MA field trip will be as follows:
2.30pm All to gather at 5-05
3.00pm Arrive at Park Mall, visit of Air Division Showroom
5.00pm Arrive at Modliving
7.00pm Dinner at an agreeable venue, mingling between Staff, BA & MA students
July 7th, 2006 at 4:18 am
hi everyone,
something to share… bought a book the other day on wed design >>> WEB DESIGN: PORTFOLIOS by TASCHEN
July 22nd, 2006 at 7:10 am
follow on wat i wrote above…
here are a few links to beautiful portfolios…
http://www.allenvenables.com
http://www.johnross.co.uk
http://www.kdlab.net
and of course lots more… this book only cost S$15!!! good catch
the way they lay their pages are really consistent, simple and efficient…
was walking through kinokoniya the other day and guess what? MATERIAL WORLD 2 suddenly appeared infront of my face!!! hahaha… bought it of course
will bring it in on tuesday tho its a bit late… very new, published 2006 another good catch 
btw, the transmaterial wordpress is still down…
July 22nd, 2006 at 7:18 am
kent,
apart from wordpress, are there any other … … blog pages which are more interactive? like flash kind of thing?