Ecobuild lectures, 1.03.11

1.  THE AGE OF UNREASON: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CLIMATE CHANGE.

SUSAN GREENFIELD.

Susan Greenfield was talking mainly about neurology and i found some of the points she made could be really prevalent if applied to design, even although she was specking in a different area. Some particularly interesting points;

- Human greatest strength over other animals is their ability to learn.

- Growth of the brain (through cell connections) is driven by experience, this means that the world will have a personalised significance to you. This is something interesting to consider in many ways when related to design, for instance even if you are trying through design to represent something specific other people may not view it in that way - there are different levels at which people identify with design. It sort of raises the question of weather or not design should (in some cases) lead you to view things in a particular way. For instance if this is applied to my work - I have in many cases worked with the idea of trying to manipulate how people view things. I think this idea of people taking a different experience from something is a theme that is quite prevalent in my work, but I haven't before made the strong link to the brains' function here.

- Real Visions are what appeal to people - she used Martin Luther Kings speech "I have a dream...' to represent this point. She suggested that If you want to appeal to people and really capture their interest that you should encourage them to imagine real life through painting a positive picture rather than just telling them whats good and bad (she likened this approach to modern british politics). This is also something which obviously I will be trying to do with y portfolio, but on a deeper level I never really though of painting a clear picture as 'jumping into reality', I always imagined that if something was clear you could just understand it. I didn't really think about the process of understanding, this just proves why it is vital for a piece of work to paint a picture (of your proposal). Susan Greenfield wen ton to say that when you can imagine something clearly like a dream it allows deep reflection - which in turn means that the audience is more likely to engage with your work i guess.

I found this talk fascinating, I have never really been all that interested in psychology but I think this is now something that i'm going to follow up.


2. WHOSE COMMUNITY IS IT ANYWAY?
CHRIS BROWN, ANNA MINTON, IAN SINCLAIR, INDY JOHAR.


Indy Johar has the view that citizens should be allowed to invest in Local Areas.


Ian Sinclair was talking about he problems coming from root, in that when communities were built they were hermatic and didn't engage with the current residents or areas.