W2/3 — Redefine the Brief

After the tutorial with Tiff and Wan, as they have suggested us to speak with more people who are in the industry, we have planned to meet the This Aint Rock n Roll (TARR) in person. We have organised simple interview questions which focus on their point of view of blockchain technology usage, value and the environmental issues around it.

Conversation

In her point of view, blockchain technology was a game changer that can bring and build the existing community of Brixton much more stronger. As TARR’s plan was implementing Blockchain with Brixton Pound and circulate money only in the area with transparency, specifically for the small markets. Then from the conversation with Guy from TARR he had a strong argument related to environmental consequences of Blockchain. He argued that our claim is invalid by saying the technology is developing as we speak. He mentioned the journey of the development of the consensus mechanisms, Proof of Work (PoW), Proof of Stake (PoS) and Pure Proof of Stake (PPoS). And from this, he genuinely stated we do not have to consider the environmental issues anymore as it is improving a lot. From this conversation I wondered if he had considered the current state of the Bitcoin Market. I agreed with his points that the technology is evolving and progressing, trying to refine the faults from the previous state. Yet, Bitcoin and Ethereum are still ongoing using POW, and as long as people are still investing in cryptocurrencies and other markets, the environmental issues will still remain and will constantly thrive.

After the interview, I decided to look for more research papers in relation to environmental issues around other consensus mechanisms such as PoS and PPoS but I wasn’t able to find relevant papers that elaborates on it other than PoW. Then we thought if the project brief should be something more fairly achievable as we were chased by the time we have left. One of the ideas was to redesign the website of the cryptocurrency platform as the current website is fairly simple and all those complicated and entangled aspects of blockchain were disguised by the screen. The platforms only provide easier ways to purchase cryptocurrencies.

Tutorial with Eva

As we were struggling so much we spoke to Eva to get some advice and listen to her point of view of the project. She wondered if we could actually combine two opposing elements, the simplicity and complexity. From the feedback, I thought exploring the scale of simplicity and complexity inside the cryptocurrency platform would be interesting. For me this idea was more than investigating the diverse modes of navigation but a way to visually demonstrate the complexities of the disadvantages of the system. An experience that people could increase in terms of complexity and see the backside of the system, revealing the interconnected issues holistically.

Jonathan Harris

Fig 2,3 and 4. Whale Hunt Interactive Storytelling Website. Image(s) by Jonathan Harris.

We have looked at the example Eva gave us which is a storytelling website by Johnathan Harris. The Whale Hunt project is an experimental documentary that introduces interactive storytelling. He uses the meta-narrative of his whole journey of the whale hunt with diverse categories such as cast, concepts (blood, boat, food…), cadence (the excitement level at the time the photo was taken) and more. It was a way for him to illustrate the physical materials into his own algorithm. It was a massive story of data and quantitative elements of every involvement of the journey he collected. From this project, I wondered if we could potentially design a way to tell a story of blockchain revealing the underlying criticalities.

Who?

Before we continue we wanted to define our target audience as in current state, it was everyone who uses blockchain platform to exchange cryptocurrencies. We have created three different levels of potential target audiences in relation to the knowledge of blockchain technology.

People who are currently using and developing tools for Blockchain Technology.
- High level of understanding
People who are currently using and have some knowledge about the procedure.
- Who have been exchanging cryptocurrencies for at least more than 6 months.
People who are interested in trading and using, but with low levels of knowledge.
- Who have not been involved in the exchange platform yet, but who are willing to.

What struck me from the interview with Vanessa was all of the answers she had provided us were purely about the market prices of cryptocurrency. Moreover, she even liked the aspect of simplicity of the platform she uses as it provides clear and simple features to make a transaction.

Fig 5 and 6. Interview Questions and Answers. Image(s) by Sue and David.

Redefining Brief

Fig 7. Updated Brief. Image by Sue and David.

Feedback

Tiff and Al had concerns in terms of the achievability. They raised if we had all the access to the information to build this design and specifically if we had enough time to explore both simplicity and complexity. Then Al suggested us to specifically focus on one aspect of the complexity in detail which made complete sense. Additionally to find a language we would like to use to communicate the criticalities of the system. This made me think about what we want the audiences to get after they have finished the experience and why. This was also a similar feedback from John. “What does blockchain storytelling look like?” But, John raised if explaining blockchain is the right brief for the project and explaining the process loses the criticality of it. Also, there are already good explainers out there in the world. He pointed out in terms of strategy it is good but the way of applying it made the idea simplistic.

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Bibliography

http://thewhalehunt.org/statement.html