read & respond | Hertzian Tales: Ch. 1

When reading this article, my mind was immediately drawn to smartphones. There is so much technology in this small device and its casing is quite simple. Any changes to it are minute and the public has large reactions to even these. The smartphone has lost all art in my opinion--it is just meant to be aesthetically appealing--there is nothing that pushes boundaries. The device is just as the article says--a way to use and understand the "incomprehensible technologies" (20).

Smartphones are all in the same shape and very similar is style. They have essentially become icons because of how recognizable they are. The design choices, as I said before, are minimal and sleek. Which, works in our consumer market, but to take these devices to their full potential, should we experiment with more unique and interesting ideas? Can you image someone walking around with a circular smartphone? It would be weird, but it could catch on and become the new normal.

Radio in a Bag by Daniel Weil is a questioning of our modern packaging. We buy all of the electronics and use them everyday, but rarely do we know what is happening on the inside. Most of our phones are difficult to open, so we never see the inside. It's a curious thing that has been taken for granted because of its deep integration in our lives. Just taking this class is opening my eyes to how much of my world is run by technology and how everything is technology and art--at the same time.

I feel that at some point, the commercial industry stole technology from art. Devices were designed in a logical, efficient manner; not that this is bad or wrong, just it has become the precedence for all electronics. When, in actuality, this false divide between art and electronics needs to be taken down. Artists need to come in a start pushing boundaries and taking risks in product design. We shouldn't be playing it safe--we need to make movements and questioning and staying curious. Technology needs to come back into the art realm, and technological art needs to be created just for art's sake. On that same note, there does need to keep a balance of the functionality and art aestheticism, at least for consumer products.

If you look in the past at cameras, you see varying designs and unique choices. The product has functionality but also looked nice. You could differentiate one camera type from another. Now you can hardly tell the difference between an iPhone and Samsung Galaxy until you see the OS.

 
Overall, design is often looked over by consumers of technology, and designers keep it on the simple side. I think we need to expand more in dynamic design of our electronics.