Preface So, can you tell me what snow is? “Of course”, you may yell it out as everyone else, “the white stuff”, and thinking “what a stupid ques?on” as everyone else. But can you be more specific about what is that white stuff? I guess you mean the white stuff stuck on the branches, piling on the roof, and covering the mountains. But what about the feather like things flying in the sky? And yes we experience snow as “the white stuff” that you can see with your eyes, but what about the cold chunky stuff you hold as a ball in your hands? Or the funny lose structure crushing under your footstep? The light ?ny liIle par?cles swiping across your face? Or the cold air breathed into your lungs through your nostrils? What about the subtle sound of snowflakes paKng on the window with a strong gust of wind? And the light rustling sound under your arms and legs when you make a “snow angel”. And the sudden muff of your hearing at the moment when your body fall into snow? And the clear and sharp explosion on your tongue ?p? I can argue that sensa?on is snow as well. All what has been listed above are our experiences of snow, and it is as true, or as untrue as to define snow as any single one of them as to define it as “the white stuff”. Yet talking about “what is snow”, we so oMen tend to go with “the white stuff”, and ignore the rest. People so oMen assume that they have known ebnough of a subject. However, we can always pursuit a deeper understanding, or an understanding from a different angle. Explora?on is an endless game. This is a book about explore territories we think we have already discovered and understand.
This book is going to analyse why explora?on maIers, what explora?on is, and demonstrate the methodology of explora?on. Rather than depic?ng the process and making the argument with words, nevertheless, it gets its point across by engaging you with series of exercises, with the retorical methods we use in wri?ng. You can use the book as a manual or guide book to explore and experience, and you are free to draw your own conclusions at the end of this experience. AMer all, I wish you can gain new understanding of things you have been familiar with. It would be great honour to the book if you gradually become more curious, and start to experience the world through new perspec?ves. So now, stand up and run around! The first step is to stop thinking you know it all, give up your confidence in your imagina?on, go outside and just experience. Yes, this is how you supposed to read this book.
We so oMen call what we expereince everyday the “rou?ne” and the “mundane”. But have you every took no?ce of the thinking and the process that are involved in these “mundane” experiences? And are they really less exci?ng as the word “mundane” implies? Here we are going to find out the answeres through the exercises.
Chapter I: Explore your everyday experience
Explora?on requires courage to step out of one’s comfort-‐zones, and to abandon percep?ons that people take for granted. Therefore, we start off with explore your very familiar everyday experience through a series of warming up exercises. It will give you a taste of explora?on, without claiming too much ?me from you or embarrass you too much.
Task 1: have a shower with eyes closed or lights off, in this process explore the senses engaged in this very mundane task
Task 2 Eat with your eyes closed, again, explore the mundane, and explore how our sense deal with informa?on
Task 3. cuddle with a friend or your pet with eyes closed: this is to explore your physical connec?on and interac?on with another being
Task 4 Talk to a friend with your eyes closed. Pay special aIen?on to how you conduct your verbal communica?on, and explore the intellectual connec?on you guys have there
Task 5. actually, just close your eyes while doing the mundane tasks whenever possible.
Who are you more familiar than with yourself? But do you know how your body works, how your mind works, how do you feel, how do you experience the world? Of course you do, but how well, and do you really feel and exist in the way you think you do? We will find out if through the following exercises. Chapter II: Explore yourself
T a s k 1 . E x p l o r e h o w s e n s i ? v e y o u r b o d y i s : W a l k o n g r a s s w i t h y o u r s h o e s o ff
T a s k 2 . Explore how does your body cope with the unknown: jump into the harbour at night, with n o c l o t h e s
Task 3. Explore how your body use itself as a tool: eat your food without
cutleries (wash your hands and don’t hurt yourself)
T a s k 4 Explore the sensuous image we choose for ourselves: go through your closet with your e y e s c l o s e d
Chapter III: Explore your city Hopefully by now, it is no longer very alien an idea for you to explore things that you think you are very familiar with or even take for granted. And now, it’s ?me for you to explore the world. To make this explora?on manageable and economical for you, I will set you on an explora?on into the city you’ve lived in for over 6 months rather than travel around the whole wide world. I would recommend you to experience the following task list, but of course you are welcome to invent your own new ways to explore and experience the city and draw your own conclusions. I provide my find-‐outs through these experience for
Explore the city-‐scape
• walk arou nd the city a t nigh the city is qu t ite, as if the city is fro zen in ?me, focus on the shapes and outlines of the buildings an d the landscape of the city • watch the city in the su nrise the city in th e max quietne ss and clarity, w ith only the natu re ( sky/sun/bir ds) and the city, with minim noise and confusion • walk arou nd the city in the sunset you no?ce s hadows created by t he landscape of the city. if your eyes fo llow highlighted b where y the sunlight, you no interes?ng d ?ce e tails • walk arou nd in the rain at night you no?ce th e light of the city, as t hey are amplified an d stretched in the wetness
• play hide-‐and-‐seek in the CBD you have detailed study on the city you make use of your knowledge of the city you avoid the familiar go for the less discovered
• walk around the city bare foot touch the city
• lie on the grass or a bench in the city, and look at the buildings and sky l o o k a t t h e c i t y l i t e r a l l y f r o m a different perspec?v e
Explore the people and city culture
• P r e t e n d t o b e a
t o u r i s t a n d a s k
f o r r o a d s f r o m
p e d e s t r i a n s
• T a l p k s e eo e p t o l h e t o a w d ht x i d es e o c r c t i i h b yt e e
d r i v e rs
• B u s k i n g o n t h e
b u s i e s t s t r e e t i n
t o w n s e e p e o p l e ’s
r e s p o n s e
s e e t h e
d e m o g r a p h y o f
t h e c i t y
y o u c a n t e l l
i f t h e
m a j o r i t y a r e
h a p p y o r n o t
y o u c a n h a v e a n
i n s i g h t i n t o
t h e s o c i a l
v a l u e s o f t h e
c i t y
• count dogs see if the city is do g f frie r ie n n d d ly ly , animal fr iendly , o r j u s t genera • count lly cars Car s a r e i n d ica?on o Cars a f soc r e a ls o indica?o ial values (such of t as n h o e f c e it c y o n omy stat mobility) us an d p u r c h ase abilit y
• Bus to a random suburb that you haven’t been to • Walk to a suburb that you normally bus to or drive to
A:erword The most precious lesson I draw from the course CCDN 231 (Experiment with Design Ideas) is the curiosity and passion for explora?on. This course for me was not only going through assignements, aIending lectures and tutorials, but the past 3 months I just lived through. The reseearch into subtlty, balance, resistance—the topics that I choose for this course, were always subconsiously with me while I was having conversa?ons with friends, reading, working as a waitress, tramping into the West Coast bushes, lying on the grass watching sunset in the Botanic Garden, wandering around Wellington city at 2 in the morning. The observing, thinking, experimen?ng and exploring we are reequested to do in this course took me through a very interes?ng journey of experiencing, which made me realise and start to appreciate things that we normally ignore. I am now s?ll living in the exact same world, but it seems so new and exci?ng to me now, almost as if I am experiencing the world in another dimen?ons. I am certain the new perspec?ves that I adopted from comple?ng my projects will always be an asset for me, not only as a designer, but simply as a person who loves life and the world. Therefore, if there is a message I want to share with the world, with my magic power of influence as a designer, it would be a call of “Go explore! Go out there, experience it!”
Inspired by the methodology of CCDN 231, the central argument that “It is benefi?al to explore the familiar” is aregued through a series of designed experiences, rather than simply verbal analysis. These experiences get the point across not only as consises examples of the specific type of explora?on I am arguing for, but also perform the typical retorical func?ons we use for argument such as analogy, comparison and contrast. Besides the excercises of explora?on in this book, the point of explora?on is re-‐iterated through out the book, from the layout to the progression of the chapters. This book is contained in the form of a map from the “The Age of Explora?on”, in side which you discover the journal into wonderous land by Captain Cook, the great explorer. Inside this book, all the contents are hidden behind the obvious, wai?ng for you to explore and discover. I hope you enjoy this experience of explora?on, and start to look at the world through new angles. Keep exploring! Shanshan Zhou 2011