"Hope was a tchotchke sitting
on a high shelf along with
other fragile things...every time
a train went by, the house SHOOK
and things fell off the shelf.
each time this happened they
were replaced by cheaper
and cheaper things until
nothing was left but a
collection of cheap unbreakable
plastic junk"


IF we just keep putting the best things we got onto the high shelf, at the end of the time/space (it doesn't end), maybe they will be ok.

Laurie Anderson. Four Talks. Hirshhorn Museum.

We are located in “space”, but we act in “place” (Harrison and Dourish, 1996). An unfamiliar environment is an unknown “space”, people are located in it, but until they know its social and functional meanings, they are at a loss for how to act in the “place”. This is particularly challenging for blind and low-vision (BLV) individuals. How may a BLV person explore an unfamiliar environment? How may they transform the space to become their own place?
Our paper “I Want to Figure Things Out” prescribed an information process that enables BLV people to explore an unfamiliar environment and to have the agency to act in it. We reveal a spatial information hierarchy, in which BLV people first learn the shape information of the environment gaining the knowledge of the space, and second learn the layout information to ascribe the functional meaning of the place. Additionally, BLV people prefer to learn spatial information through social collaboration with others in the environment, integrating a social and subjective aspect into their exploration.
It is challenging for information to transform fluently between visual and non-visual modalities, between sighted and BLV individuals with diverse abilities during their social communication. In upcoming research, I investigate and develop information mediation and translation in situ during social encounters and support people of all abilities to interact and communicate in an environment-centered way.

Merging indoors and outdoors, online and offline.

Photography at Seattle Asian Art Museum

The new structure Vessel at Hudson Yards New York inspired me to reflect on the relationship between design, context, innovation, and social good. Although unusual, the design form taken by the architect Thomas Heatherwick is not unprecedented. It consists of a circular vertical closure within which a set of staircases for people to transverse from the top to the bottom and around the circumference of the central void. A similar design has been used for centuries, from ancient step wells in South Asia to Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum. However, the contexts are very different. Step wells, functionally serve the change of water levels between wet and dry seasons, and socially bring people together as communal places. The Guggenheim Museum slows down the viewer's pace to augment the experience of appreciating art. What does the Vessel do? It capitalizes on visitors to take millions of pictures of the Hudson Yards commodity, reproduce them endlessly as free advertising for real estate, commerce, and tourism. What do people do at the Vessel? Visit once, post on Instagram, and never come back—or worse, suicide. The Vessel sharply re-contextualizes an old design for innovation, yet its social impact is next to evil.

originally posted on my Instagram. photo credits see original post.