I am building a mesh network inspired by networks and swarm behaviours. When we think about swarms, we typically visualize flocking behaviours of birds and insects. They move as individual autonomous entities, but work and act together to accomplish common goals.

There are many mathematical models to simulate this phenomenon, producing complex group behaviours and patterns with simple sets of prescribed rules to individual agents:

1. Separation

During the week, Sebastian and I met through the Zoom meeting to work on the collaboration. We have the same theme for reducing plastic wastes but include two different subtopics. For Sebastian, he will focus on "Reshaping beauty" by creating the make-up product like a concealer without harmful chemical substances. My presentation will be focused on designing the package of the concealer without using the plastic. 

After the "stay home" policy from the coronavirus I have been just home for a little over two month now. And because I am stuck at home I have been cooking a lot. I've been so used to just either buying food from school or packaged food at grocery stores that I didn't even realize that I haven't actually cooked for myself in a very long time.

The progress I have made towards my final project has been consolidating and specifying my ideas. I realized during my research that I was straying further and further from my main interest, design, and I wanted to refocus on how design can reduce the cognitive load of being sustainable. The most pertinent idea behind this project is to use nanotechnology to become more sustainable while being able to work a nine to five job. 

For my final project, I would like to work on the plan that I introduced for the midterm. As a reminder, I was focusing on the seriousness of plastic wastes and a way to use those recycled materials. There are various methods to utilize plastic wastes, such as water bottles or containers, in which they could turn into totally new products.

After looking back at my blogs for the past eight weeks I saw that there were many times where I either did further research about a topic that was given during class or did a research about an artist that focused on one of our topics. I talked about an bioartist using yeast to create vanishing photographs, I talked about rice and how rice plays such a big role in my Korean culture, how pencils are made, the connection between air pollution and covid 19 death rates, affects on how coronavirus has helped the environment, climate and diet, and crispr gene editing.

For my final project, I'll be expanding on my midterm, which was a design proposal for a Bokashi-style composting bin meant for small spaces and families on a consumer level. For my final project, I'd like to expand on the ideas of compost, waste, and community organization both in a practical and speculative way. 

  Flipping back through all of my old blogs, I found a pattern that was fairly predictable, and greatly explains why I chose the topic I did for my midterm project. Overall, looking at blogs from the class as a whole, there was a large focus on taking the topic of that week and finding artists that would create based around that topic (typically a speculative design).

I started my blog with posting about sourdoughs made form ancient Egyptian yeast cultures. This one was followed by some writing about salt, artificial intelligence and ritual magic. Further along I touched on air quality in an artistic sense and on how to appreciate clouds. I also took a look from the distance onto planet Earth and the human made satellites that are tracking and documenting Earth’s wellbeing. (Let’s stay in space) I mentioned art in space – to be seen with the naked eye. From there I explored how slime mould can hep to map dark matter.

Going over my past blogs, I realized I seemed to focus on understanding the topic and mechanisms embedded into each process. This learning process as well as how learning has changed due to the pandemic are ideas that interest me. Now that everything is online, our notions and way of engaging in this content are very up to us. It is up to us how much to work, in my opinion, because as you are by yourself, you are your only drive in a way. It is hard to hear encouragements over a video or camera and take them to heart. 

       More so than my previous entries, I’m approaching this post as an exercise in neurosis.

Here are some of the resources that were talked about last class and today! (CRISPR+) 

• CRISPR-VR: Explore Sickle Cell and Genome Editing