Applications | Observation is Critical |

Today in Applications, my group and I presented our reaction to last week’s speaker, Joy Mountford – an innovator and pioneer of design, HCI, interaction design, and user experience. In the hour and a half that she spoke, she dispensed a wealth of information that included her thoughts on design, her work in audio devices, her time at Apple & Yahoo, her hand in lauching Apple’s Quicktime, innovative products emerging way before the general public was ready to adopt them, as well as her interest in data visualization. With so many gems being dispersed by Joy, our group felt daunted by the task of presenting a 25 minute reaction piece to our 100+ peers at ITP. Truth be told, public speaking scares the living lights out of me, so the stress had already mounted after Joy closed out the final question of Q & A.

As the days marched on closer to showtime, we decided to focus on a phrase that she mentioned during her presentation:

Observation is Critical.

Now, if you really put your mind to the word ‘observation’, it is truly a loaded term. As our group quickly learned, each of us had our own working definition of what observation meant to us. Observation can be described in a scientific sense. Observation may lend itself to all designers. Observation may be seen as a tool utilized by an Artist in order to create paintings, prose, or any other artistic medium. Being that observation is such a broad term, our group decided to individually explore the concept of observation in our lives.

The video below is my own interpretation of the concept of observation. In it, I wished to explore the idea of observation being seen as an invasion of privacy if you are the one being observed. Also, observation being a tool to take stock of the internal (thoughts & feelings) rather than simply an interpretation of the external world.

Here is the setup of the video. Imagine if Waldo/Wally from the acclaimed series of observation books, Where’s Waldo?, decided that the ‘peering’ eyes of the public had become too much for him to bear, and he decided to go into hiding. When he went into hiding, he decided to change his identity via reconstructive surgery (read: he is now african-american) as well as change his name to ‘Kojo’. Crazy, I know. Imagine that the video below is Waldo/Kojo’s first public interview since he went into hiding 2 years ago. I know the premise is crazy but allow a suspension of disbelief wash over you for the next 3 and a half minutes. Excuse my noobish audio quality, acting, and film editing skills – the truth is in the message.