Kolabo Blog

Public Presentation

The public presentation yesterday evening was a success. We’ll post the projects online soon, including some more photographic impressions of the opening. With 100+ visitors that evening, it’s sad in a way that the exhibition only lasted those few hours and the space is now completely empty again. A big thank you to all of those who have contributed and collaborated, especially the participants of course!

360° Panorama of the Summer Lab

Last Wednesday we we’re visited by Roelof de Vries of 360fotos.nl, who specializes himself in high-end panorama photography. Have a look at this wonderful shot from Rob van Kranenburgs evaluation on wednesday night!

Secret City Tour passing by KOLABO

KOLABO is a member of the Rotterdam Collective at RAUM. Ro-Co is organizing lectures and film programs Get Real Club together with Roodkapje, Rot(t)terdam. this week Thursday night start at 7PM, 29th July we will be organizing a Summer Secret City Tour. This tour will be passing by our KOLABO Summer Lab at Codum as well. We will show the group about the location and the work we’ve been doing.

Hope to see you then!

Get Real Club
29th july 7 PM
Start at Roodkapje, Meent 119-133

The Rotterdam Collective takes you, with their Secret City Tour, to the best new and unknown places in Rotterdam.
This time we’ll take you to some new temporary workspaces in the centre where creative people get together and end it the prettiest secret garden of Rotterdam North. We start at 7 PM at Rot(t)terdam, Roodkapje. Make sure you wear your walking boots! After the tour we’ll get back to Roodkapje for some drinks!

The role of photography in social media

In 2008 I photographed so called traceurs, people that practice really physical sport or discipline of parkour. I really tried my best to make something special out of it. While focusing on their relationship with their practicing environment I came up with a series of pictures that made me quite proud at the moment. The proportions in the images really show how these running and jumping people were tiny compared to their strange urban environment.

After some thorough selecting and post-processing I showed them my final product. Their replies?  “Cool, I’m in 3 pictures.” To some people photography is a way to express themselves, an exploration of techniques or a quest in communication. To most people however, it is just a fancy way of saying: “Look, I was there!”

The last two weeks I have been busy at the Kolabo Summerlab where Omnipresent Social Technology is the subject. You can also call it ubiquitous computing, ubicomp or the internet of things. To me, it is the idea that we’ve been working on all this computing technology for years. We even dare to call the internet social. But so far, all this technology has been moving us away from other people. And now it is time to turn that all around. Ubiquitous computing is about putting the computer back where it should be, in service of man and supporting our social life in a non-intrusive way.

On Friday there is a small exhibition and some drinks to conclude the summerlab. Discussing all the other projects made me wonder. Where is photography in all this? Could I add something of a photographic nature to this exhibition?

Right now, when you look at so called social media like Facebook, photography forms the link between real life events and the way they are experienced and remembered digitally. If photography is nothing more than a “look, I was there” or “yes, this event really happened” to most, then it is a real challenge to use this medium to enhance the physical, and not just the digital experience. Some of the options I have so far:

Sticking to the essence and show them what it really is. Take pictures of people holding signs. “I am at the Kolabo Summerlab Exhibition.”

Flipping it all around. Let the background or the sign be the opposite of the truth. Place them on a virtual beach for example.

Take no pictures. Let the visitors find out for themselves how they are going to prove their attendance. This might even give the event a more exclusive or obscure feeling afterward for the people that missed it.

Inverse photography. Don’t take pictures but project pictures of other locations, events or things taking place on the social web at that moment.

So as you can see, it is quite a thing to tackle here. Essentially, photography and social media share a lot of characteristics. I’ve got some work to do here. Leave a comment if you have any helpful additions, links or suggestions.

-Erik Kroes

Guest Blog: Is there Milk in my fridge?

The interface: We need technological enhancements because the world is complex. But sometimes the complexities we encounter are a result of the technologies themselves. Good design augments human possibility and reduces complexity.

When we have problems interacting with technologies, it’s a direct result of our not having asked the right questions in the design process. To be effective, we must shift our focus from the techno-centric to the human-centric

- “Massive Change, Bruce Mau and the institute without boundaries, 2004, Phaidon press limited pg.99

I arrive at the fourth day of the Kolabo Summer Lab workshop. Just as I am sipping my welcome cup of coffee with Bruno, a young man walks in. He introduces himself as Rob, an interaction designer. He sits down, and thinking back to the difficult evening they had all just had the evening before, begins talking about George Orwell’s “1984”. Rob is thinking about the fear of his emotions and facing change, since he is already very comfortable with the way the tax system works for him in The Netherlands. During his confession the other participants of this workshop walk in one by one. I learn that they have had a confronting long talk the evening before with the person that gave them this challenge. His name is Rob van Kranenburg. He is the writer of “Internet der Dingen” or “The Internet of things” which was a mandatory read to all participants to this workshop. “Internet of Things” is a strange future scenario. In this scenario, the ideology which makes the internet so great right now, combined with RFID technology, is taken to the offline reality. It describes one day in the life of a family whose house, neighborhood and society is all full of sensors that wire and measure everything they do. This makes their lives simpler, more organized and connected. For example their fridges are wired to know if there is milk, what their neighbors have in their fridges, and what needs to be bought at the supermarket.

Whether I find this scenario a bit creepy or actually a really good idea, within the setting of this workshop this is a fact of the future. The reason why everyone is together during these two weeks, is to put heads together and start thinking how we can develop tools that can help us and everyone else embrace and be comfortable with this future.

After the first few days of brainstorming the group has chosen to talk about metadata, identity and process design; within the context of the 65+ population.

I find this to be a bit of an odd twist. For me, this Next Nature future belongs to the new generation who adapt automatically to it. To today’s children that is reality. There hasn’t been anything before. I grew up with paperback books and fixed telephones. But I also had a computer since I was 8. I saw my father’s (a linguist and journalist) first pager. Very soon after, his first mobile phone. My mother holds a Masters degree in genetics and population studies for more than a decade now. A projector beams television shows and movies on our wall and we have a fridge that makes and crushes ice with pressing of one button. We have radio player built in the shower. This is my reality.

When I think about the 65+ population, I think about my grandmother, who is in her 70-ies at the moment and has lived through a war or two. A decade ago, she would do the daily groceries at the market, a kilometer away from our house, walking. She would then come back home, and spend the rest of her day cooking for the whole family and reading books about plants, nature, health and nutrition. She enjoyed watching television, and having telephone conversations with her living friends and close family. With the coming of age, not being as fit, she stopped doing the groceries her self. She cooks a lot less often, and barely ever leaves the house (or her bed for that matter). She now has a mobile phone but she finds it too complicated to use. She only wants to know where the red and green buttons are and has only 5-6 telephone numbers on speed dial. We placed an old-fashioned TV in her room. We have a second shower in the house without radio. My grandmother is also not very excited about all the crushed ice, because she only drinks warm herbal tea.

Coincidentally, right now, next to me as I sip my medium latte in a hip fair trade coffee shop, sits somebody else’s grandmother, in her 70’s, sipping a latte as well, and reading a book on an e-reader. However, I can only assume about the experiences of other elderly.

This was also my first impression of the proposals of the 7 member team of the Kolabo Summer Lab. They seemed to have a lot of assumptions about “the elderly”. Assumptions about what they need, what they should need, and how we could make that possible for them. I have my doubts about these ways of speculating. There are two ways to find out. Either talk to these “elderly”, or begin thinking about ourselves.

What would I want when my hair is all gray, I am very slow and my body isn’t as fit as it used to be? I personally, have an old-fashioned bohemian dream of a crib in nature, with a big library, and a lot of time for cycling and yoga. This is perfectly possible without much technology. Which brought me to the following questions:

Is the question of the elderly in the Internet of Things scenario relevant? My own grandmother lives together with my parents, in a house full of modern technology. But her own life hasn’t become significantly better with today’s technology, compared to the past 15-20 years. Are we only trying to familiarize the elderly with all the technology available? Are they even interested? Do they need this? Do we need them to need it? Would we need it, when we are old? Is this a technological or social issue? How about the idea that this is a social issue due to technology?

What does remain timeless, is our respect for the elderly. Respect for their knowledge and wisdom. The stories they tell around the fireplace in winter. The stories my grandmother told me while sitting on her favorite kitchen chair. Her stories were my pre-school education. Those stories had a big impact on the shape of my character. I like to think I adapt to new technology very fast. I will keep adapting for a few good decades before I “retire” and enjoy my bohemian dream. Every person of my generation has a similar or different dream; with or without technology. The elderly have passed on their knowledge before the Internet Of Things. Have done so, just fine for a matter of fact. Admittedly, their lives are made more comfortable due to technology. But we, the young generations are at the forefront, directly anticipating the new technological developments. Rob, the interaction designer, is hesitant about grasping new change and at the same time is very excited about “what is coming” in the age of the internet. He, with his technical skills, can discover and build new interactive experiences. I, too, am very excited about “what is coming” and how this is going to change the ways we communicate. My grandmother, however, with her stories and her wisdom, reminds me of where I come from, of reality and of the now. It is her that reminds me how happy I am to be aging in this new era. I can hardly wait till I tell my grandchildren what my time looked like.

In conclusion, I would like to say a few things about the direct link between identity, metadata, process design and my grandmother. I don’t think her identity is radically affected in any way due to the technology around her. I don’t dare to assume the same about the lady in the coffee shop. I have a big mental database of my grandmother’s memories and lessons carved on my character. I wonder if a bunch of sensors around her would make her feel very comfortable. To make her life easier, I do the groceries for her instead. She can still walk up to the fridge, and check if I should get some milk as well.

Simona Kicurovska

Tip: The Art of Choosing (TED)

Lab Day 4: Reboot

Under the guidance of Arie van Baarle we redefined our ideas in a way that is open enough for all our experts to define their own personal interest and perspective:

Narrowing it down, all of our various angles were clearly about this dilemma:

How can we capture, disclose and use wisdom, experience and knowledge in order to give people social value and autonomy, staying connected to society. All of this in a ubiquitous, challenging and engaging way. 

If we regard Omnipresent Social Technology as a given, how will we (the generation that is now around 25 years old) see ways of letting this work for us, in a way that there is no more artificial difference between 65- and 65+ years old.

Some interesting issues within this research are:

- Should we make things easier for ourselves, as we are getting older? Or should we not instead make things harder, with a fair amount of problems to solve, pushing the limit of our abilities, engaging?

- What can we learn from other systems that go beyond mere pension plans? What do free-lancers use as a way to keep working beyond the age of 65? How do elderly in Okinawa remain valuable within their social ecosystem? Does Linkedin make a distinction in network value after the age of 65?

Today we are doing solo work on possible cases that address this open question. 

Lab Day 3: What we learned today

Turn the other cheek

After a day of individual ideas (see below), we got Arie van Baarle and Rob van Kranenburg in to review. We learned some great lessons as we basically got slapped around pretty hard. We really woke up to some crucial succes factors:

On our ideas

> Don’t create a technologically aided world that will only soothe old people into complete comfort. Find a way to keep them awake (=alive). Shake them up.

> Do not suppose to know things. Old people just do not like noisy grandchildren (as you may think), they like old movies.

On our process

> Do not try, in two weeks time, to make 7 talented experts in various fields into experts in the Internet Of Things. Let them be experts in their fields and let them be amazed by each other.

> Fuck personas! Do the extensive field research and ask real people. every day.

> Aks the right questions.

So I guess it’s back to the lab tomorrow, with a real sense of urgency and focus. The truth is that, in the end, we were all quite happy this happened. There’s no better way to advance in such a short time.

Eleusian Fields for the Elderly – Building an Atmosphere of Aging

Concentrating on the elderly in capitalist society, the meaning of aging takes a prominent stance. What does aging mean in the Western world  and in what way is it related to levels of health and happiness? If life expectancy rates are for 10% dictated by genes and for 90% by lifestyle, what factors of lifestyle could benefit an aging population facing retirement of the labor space and forthcoming identity transformations and increasing risks of mental disorders and chronic diseases?

T O  B E  O L D  I S  T O  B E  O U T  O F  O R D E R

The major emphasis on career excludes people passing the age of 65 from labor life, entering a new existential phase, characterized by different ways of meaning-giving. The rigid division of work and private life influences the way in which people perceive themselves and their place in society causing a transitional phase when retiring, retreating from the stage of  contributing actively to society. Together with the year of birth, the year of retirement is characterized by the highest death rate due to these heavy transformational forces and their effect on personality, identity and societal positioning. Feelings of disintegration, loneliness and exclusion come into existence for if people reach a certain age – the age of retirement - they are disabled to relate to anything else for their identity and reason d’etre mostly rely on their professional status. Being excluded from the labor stage brings in questions on how to place oneself in a society guided by labor life when not taking actively part in this world of working. Becoming older and older in the end completely dependent on the care of others and in many cases on old people’s homes, they vagueing away from society, having no function, do nothing and rapidly degenerate.

The treatment of older people is a fundamental force in how the eldery are aging. In comparison to the Western world, African society is fundamentally different. Throughout Africa, the principle of gerontocracy prevails, which assumes the elder, by virtue of his age, is vested with certain authority and certain power. A premises, because for them, wisdom is a reflection of experience presupposing the older the man in society, the larger his experience concerning problems embedded in that society, the greater his reflective abilities and therefore the greater his wisdom and problem-solving capacities.

W R I N K L E  W I S D O M

A major difference in comparison to Western society for in African society Man is always developing and learning until he or she passes away by living in a society that takes human beings on a journey from birth to death so that life has meaning to the end, not until the moment a particular age is reached. In this more flexible setting surrounded by nature, the largest amount of the eldery lives alone or in companion of their spouse. Not troubled by any form of solitary loneliness, they are surrounded by a community of mutual care and assistance, constantly visiting back and forth with children and grandchildren largely living in urban areas. Being highly self-sufficient they are taking fruits and vegetables from their own gardens making and baking homemade treats and healthy dishes generally consisting of raw fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, tofu, fish, meat and other protein-rich ingredients. Although living at the countryside of mountain areas they are strongly connected to previous village people and/or family members living elsewhere. Recreational activities as gardening, walking, tai chi, yoga and other physical movement existing out of daily practices makes them spiritual, psychological and physical vital. Except the African areas, the islands of the Italian island of Sardinia, The Japanese island Okinawa and The Pakistanian Hanza area belong to what could be perceived as the Eleusian Fields for the Eldery.

G R A C I N G  A G I N G

What contrasts these cultures of longevity to cultures of capitalism is the association of aging with sources of wisdom and authority versus the label of ‘out of order’ having no sense-making societal function.

 .. to be continued

- Eline

scenario sketch (proof of evidence?)

Many but not all current projection models for the world population are pointing to a future of elderly people. The current data is projecting an increase of the population of 65+ to be almost a quarter of the population 21.6% by the year 2016. By 2050 there will be an increase of 180% more people over of the age of 80 than today. This means that the we will need a social shift from our current model and integration of elderly people either back into a system (re-entry). Or the system needs to be implemented today so when we reach this the platform is in place. We are then designing our social security platform and society so there are safety nets in place in which our current model can not support.

We currently live in a society where we live on a system of a younger generation taking care of an older generation. What do we do when this is inverted? What does our society look like and how will it function? Can we create an evolving social system / network digital or analog that will evolve with us? What will an info-structure look like with in this new society, will it be based on a points system and monetary exchange, a hybrid of a barder system?

http://www.nas.edu/21st/society/

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/70541.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#Forecast

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/hans_rosling_asia_s_rise_how_and_when.html

Let’s have a cup of coffee [concept]

Grandma lives alone in her house. 24hours a day she might be feeling lonely that all she needs is a chat. The moment she fills warm coffee into this cup, the sensor will connect it to her contacts with also such a cup. The receiver can of course decide whether join or not. It might works as a group phone call, that calls up the families or friends that spread over the world to drink this cup of coffee in the same time and share an audio conversation.

Based on this we can develop an analysis program that require the grandma starts a conversation. Soon enough it will connect the cup to a selected cup owner that prefer the same topic. The conversation begins now with a warm cup of coffee and ends when the warms is gone.

METADATA MIXER for elderly [concept]

This is a metadata mixer. It connects the data that doesn’t connect or physically aren’t able to connect in the reality.

When people get older, they become more and more disabled. In one way or another, this mixer should be able to assistant them reach the data virtually almost as real.

For example, you can shop around virtually in the 1:1 scaled environment. You can meet up your family or friends who are not able to visit you physically. You can go to Disneyland with your grandchildren. And you can walk you dog in a park.