Organise the Complexity — W4
Designers | Alex Newson • David Han • Sue Heeyeon An • Tatiana Bohsali
External Partner | This Ain’t Rock’n’ Roll
Brief | Design a way to materialise blockchain
Going Deeper
As we were implementing a lot of elements from the terra0 and Plantoid project, I wanted to have a clearer understanding of how the forest owns itself and what aspects of blockchain technology it uses to do so. From reading the white paper of terra0, I discovered the key aspect was Smart Contract. It uses two main different contracts, one focuses on trading forest lands with project initiators using terra0 tokens. The other contract has different layers of complexity to connect diverse technologies such as Oracle and OpenCV. Mainly to protect and maintain the balance by determining the supply and demand, also regulating the parameters using Wood Token (cubic meters of wood that can be sold). Yet, as it eventually owns itself and starts reproducing I wonder what the boundaries would be. From deeper analysis it made us more clear which technologies from Plantoid and terra0 we need to use for the store, specifically different layers of smart contracts (fig 4).
Fig 1. How does Terra0 work?. Image by Sue.
Fig 2 and 3. Analysis of Terra0 and Plantoid. Image(s) by Sue, Tatiana and David.
Fig 4. Technologies extracted from terra0 and Platoid. Image by group.
Due to the complexity, I suggested organising and structuring our concept into a diagram by referencing ‘Anatomy of an AI system’. From the first diagram a lot of questions emerged around it and helped us to have a clearer view of what we are missing (fig 5). Through several discussions we made the renting system more concrete.
Afterwards we divided our idea into two diagrams showing the macro and micro aspect of the store (fig 6). The key concept of Micro interaction was the shop using a timer to regulate the borrowing / lending system with a consensus mechanism called Proof of Use (PoU) which we have come up with. It indicates the amount of time people have used the object, this was a way to measure the usefulness and value of the item. While structuring out the design, I have noticed we have covered diverse aspects of the structure, but most importantly we haven’t thought deeply about the interactions around the store.
Fig 5. Structuring idea through diagram. Image by Sue.
Fig 6 and 7. Macro and Micro aspect of the Store. Image by Sue and Tatiana.
Let’s Prototype!
As we jumped into building low fidelity prototype we finally started to picture the interaction between the store and people, how people would access the store. We considered scanning a QR code with their phone would be a quick and simple way to access the store, displayed on each unit of the locker either to make a deposit or to borrow a wanted item (fig 10). However, for me, as the entire interaction happens only on the application, it was still obscuring the blockchain technology under the screen. In this way, people still would not be able to notice or feel they are using blockchain technology.
Fig 8. Prototyping Movable Shop. Photo by David
Fig 9. Low Fidelity Movable Shop. Photo by Sue
Fig 10. Low Fidelity Application. Design by David. Image by Sue.
Feedback / Reflection
The partners, Charlie and Clive really appreciated our concept of the store owning itself and adapting peoples’ ideas and values based on different communities. Yet, the question followed, “How can we prevent the store being misused and weaponised?” Also, asked us to reconsider the privacy issues that an installed camera can bring. Furthermore, we needed to rescope how to communicate the store differs from a vending machine, owning itself and how to develop the interactions between store and people. I thought we have answered essential questions this week but from the feedbacks I noticed the key aspect of the value was still missing.
Fig 11. Mid-Point Review. Photo by Sebastian Ervi
Fig 12 and 13. Mid-Point Review. Photo by Sebastian Ervi and John Fass
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Bibliography
Crawford, K and Joler, V. (2018) Anatomy of an AI System. Available at: https://anatomyof.ai/ (Accessed: 16 May 2021).
Seidler, P, Kolling, P and Hampshire, M. (2016) terra0: Can an augmented forest own and utilise itself? Place of publication: Berlin University of the Arts, Germany. Available at: https://terra0.org/assets/pdf/terra0_white_paper_2016.pdf (Accessed: 17 May 2021).