Daily Archives: September 16, 2011
7×7: Messages in a Bottle
Assignment: Complete one project a day for seven days. This started off as a very challenging task, but as I started incorporate my new lifestyle and adjusting to New York into it, the process was much more natural. Being far from home, a lot of people want to know what I am doing here. Since Hawaii is surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, I decided work with the idea of sending home a “message in a bottle.” Everyday, I intended to try something new, make a new observation, or do something that I could visually contain in this bottle to send home and show others. To see where I went and what I collected, view my 7×7 Presentation.
As I documented each day physically through collecting artifacts of my daily adventures, I also wrote. These pages can be found in the back of the box containing all of the bottles. Here you can find my personal daily reflections.
After complete the project series, I learned a lot about myself. Sometimes I don’t actively focus on my feelings and reactions to experiences I have. The day moves by so quickly, and being busy allows me to forget that I everyday there is something to be learned. Read more about my thought process in my project write-up.
I enjoyed this exploration because I can look at back everyday of this past week and know exactly how I felt and what I did that day, just by the few visual momentos I collected in the bottles. I think this idea could be taken further digitally. Maybe it is not reasonable to collect 365 bottles for everyday of the year, but through taking pictures and documenting thoughts, I could do the same thing and have an on-going online website. This would be a challenge I would like to see myself continue!
Snail Mail Kit: Connecting Friends, the Old-Fashioned Way!
Assignment: Re-Design a Social Network
Concept: Today, we are being introduced to new ways of connecting with friends using technologies and a majority of internet-based networks. Although this is great at keeping in touch, we are losing “touch” of what it was like to receive a hand-written, personal letter. There is nothing more personal and sentimental than receiving a letter from someone and knowing that it traveled some type of distance to physically get to you.
Although my initial thought was to create a simplified bulletin board post social network, I slowly realized in my process that what I was creating was moving in a different direction from what I believed in. This is where “Snail Mail” really started to develop. “Snail Mail” creates a social network the “old-fashioned” way.
How it Works: The key components of “Snail Mail” was to first send a letter to three friends. When you do this you also send two additional note cards and postage so that person has the opportunity to send their own mail to another friend. This is where the “network” is created. Whether the person decides to send mail back to you, or to two new friends, it opens up communication through letters. It is a conversation starter, a trail maker, and a friend connector.
Here is my complete Snail Mail Presentation with pictures and my thought process.