Humans are spatial creatures Humans are spatial creatures. We experience most of life in relation to space. We sit in a circle with our family. We drive down the left side of the road in Ireland and try to stay in our lane. We ride scooters down a path along the water. We sculpt a human body out of stone. We follow signs to our train. We walk, through arches, or on crosswalks beside bike lanes, or to follow our brother across a bridge. We position our camera to frame the shot while our friend leans out over a balcony. We sense ourselves in space in relation to all of the other objects in our environment. And this is powerful knowledge that we've left out of lots of software. In fact, while most obvious in 3D, this thinking does work outside of just three-dimensional software. Almost any software can use spatial concepts to become easier to understand. John Palmer, Spatial Interfaces body
The tacit wisdom of the body It is evident that the architecture of traditional cultures is also essentially connected with the tacit wisdom of the body, instead of being visually and conceptually dominated. Construction in traditional cultures is guided by the body in the same way that a bird shapes its nest by movements of its body. Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses Architecture Without Architects bodytraditionhistory
A simple pleasure that comes from just using it People have a sense of warmth and coolness, a thermal sense like sight or smell, although it is not normally counted in the traditional list of our five senses. As with all our other senses, there seems to be a simple pleasure that comes from just using it, letting it provide us with bits of information about the world around, using it to explore and learn, or just to notice. There is a basic difference, however, between our thermal sense and all of our other senses. When our thermal sensors tell us an object is cold, that object is already making us colder. If, on the other hand, I look at a red object it won't make me grow redder, nor will touching a bump object make me bumpy. Lisa Heschong, Thermal Delight in Architecture sensesbody
Half-winged, half-imprisoned The contrast between man’s ideological capacity to move at random through material and metaphysical spaces and his physical limitations, is the origin of all human tragedy. It is this contrast between power and prostration that implies the duality of human existence. Half winged—half imprisoned, this is man! Paul Klee, Pedagogical Sketchbook ideasbody
(an architectural stem cell that might transform itself into any organ for living) Michael Sorkin, 20 Minutes in Manhattan euphonybodyarchitecturespace
We have turned our faces towards the future During the modern era, we have even changed our bodily position in relation to the flow of time; the Greeks understood that the future came from behind their backs and the past receded away in front of their eyes, but we have turned our faces towards the future, and the past is disappearing behind our backs. Robert McCarter & Juhani Pallasmaa, Understanding Architecture timebody
In our bodies We tend to think of our memory as a cerebral capacity, but the act of memorizing engages our entire body. Remembering is not solely a mental even; it is also an act of embodiment and bodily projection. Memories are not only hidden in the electrochemical processes of the brain; they are also stored in our skeletons, muscles, senses, and skin. Robert McCarter & Juhani Pallasmaa, Understanding Architecture memorybody
The same material as the sun I have to apologize. I was born with a disfigurement where my head is made of the same material as the sun. It makes it impossible for you to look directly at me. It has always been this way. Shane Carruth, Upstream Color bodysurrealism
A Brief Rant An Essay by Bret Victor worrydream.com Like, just a post complaining that screens should be better designtechnologywwwinteractionbody
The body image A Quote The body image is informed fundamentally from haptic and orienting experiences early in life. Our visual images are developed later on, and depend for their meaning on primal experiences that were acquired haptically. Metaphors We Live ByGods of the WordThe Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses bodymeaning
Every Tool Shapes the Task A Speech by Ursula M. Franklin Imagine the world like a cakePower makes knowledge sufficientTo do some more pushups on the internetAdding up to hair-brainedWho the problems are+2 More You can almost tell which software they were designed inA minimum size to fish
Imagine the world like a cake Imagine the world like a cake. Imagine that you slice it into the customary slices by vertical cuts. Each slice of that cake should signify for us, a constituency. Each is geographically located as one segment of the larger cake. Each slice is more influenced by its immediate neighbors than by what might be in the cake quite far away. What technology has done in the world increasingly is to put horizontal cuts in that cake. You don't only talk up and down. Now you can talk across barriers. technology
Power makes knowledge sufficient Whether it is civil rights' violations in many countries, whether it is the increasing numbers of unemployed people in our own country, whether it is the homeless we see on our way to work, it isn't as though we don't know. But there is that horrible realization that, while the knowledge of facts may be a necessary condition for action, and we talk about democracy in civic action, it is unfortunately not a sufficient one. While knowledge may be a necessary condition, it may in fact be a less necessary condition that the one that makes that a sufficient condition, and that is access to power. power
To do some more pushups on the internet There may be a lot of things that have to be studied, but there is also what I call "occupational therapy for the opposition" that says, send them off to do some more pushups on the internet. You need to be mindful that it is possible to use information, and the need for information, as a delay for the call for action. informationethicswwwjustice
Adding up to hair-brained I have for myself come to the point where I say that people or groups or governments make the decisions that make sense to them, even if they look totally hair-brained to me. My task then is to figure out the constellation of forces, the pushes and pulls, that in fact do add up to that hair-brained decision-making. Then we can go into the next iteration and say, "What can we do about the balance of the push and the pull that seems to result in totally non-constructive decisions?" decisionsrationality
Who the problems are Recently my attention was drawn to a quote from Peter Drucker who said, "If there isn't dissent, we would not know where the problems are." I said to my husband, "Look, if there isn't dissent, we wouldn't know who the problems are." I think one has to keep that in mind. Peter F. Drucker argument
Your new electronic microscope Learn what is in this Internet. But then keep your head clear and go back to your goals. What in fact, in the best of all worlds, do you want to do? Do any of the activities with your new electronic microscope bring you closer to that? Candide goalswww
Cyberspace as a global dump If we think that cyberspace is a public space, then let's think of the oceans. They used to be as much of a world resource as anybody could think of but didn't belong to anybody. So everybody put their garbage into them. The potential of cyberspace as a global dump is quite substantial. naturetrash