phoebenguyenDESMA9

     On May 18th, I attended the Design Media Arts Exhibition and was able to chat with Wiley Wiggins, whose project combined his genealogy research with video game programming. He bridged the “real”, physical world by building a stand that acted as the control console for the game. The console had a 100 year old doorknob given to him at a family function. To reflect the doorknob console, the game consisted of various levels of a building with various doors of different colors.  Image of one of the many colored doors seen in Wiggins’ video game Each door represented a different family member of his, and as you use the console to navigate through the maze of doors, you dive deeper into his family lineage. After entering each door, you find a given color such as “Sagegreen Room” along with a cenotaph code that aligns with the pages of a book Wiggins had on display. This codebook has hundreds of pages; a page dedicated to each family member of his. Each page had facts h...

  I found it interesting seeing the evolution of the human understanding of space and the world around us over time. The module opened with Carl Sagan’s concept of understanding how small humans are in the large world of galaxies. He was the first person who brought about new ways of questioning what “space” entailed (Vesna 1:02). Specifically, the Powers of Ten Video really put into perspective how small we are. When the video underwent about 3 cycles of zooming out, I already started having a difficult time seeing the couple having a picnic (and we didn’t even reach the clouds yet!) (Eames Office 1:15).  Eames Office. “Aerial Image of a Couple Having a Picnic on a Lawn from 1000 Meters Away.” Powers of Ten , 1977, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0. Accessed 1 June 2023.  We then begin to see the intersection of fields of academia as we begin to broaden our understanding of space. For instance, nanotech was used to work towards making “space elevators” out ...