In a world that turns more digital with every breath, I have found a haven of celebration for all things physical.
In Dubai, somewhere on the outskirts of the city where the desert works hard to reclaim its lost terrain, a large pale pink warehouse of a mall stands proud: DragonMart, home of four thousand stalls and shops selling everything from screws by the kilo to wholesale toys, garden furniture to mountain bikes and strips of LED lights.
Walking through this mall is a very unique experience. Most of the shopkeepers are of Chinese descent of course, not much of a surprise for a destination that bears the name of a mythical creature from China's rich cultural past. Structured as a series of diamond shaped halls, the mall as seen from the sky forms the shape of a dragon, its halls staggered to mimic the flowing spine of the legendary creature. Which, in essence, means you get lost in it faster than a child in a thick dark forest.
And what a forest this is...
Most people in Dubai think of DragonMart as the island of cheap in a sea of dear. They dismiss its contents as nothing more than poorly put together asian hardware, full of lead paint and flimsy screws.
Not so.
DragonMart is Ali Baba's cave of wonders.
You can find anything there, and by that I mean, quite literally, anything. You could build an entire house using nothing but supplies from this amazing place. Quality is not the primary concern here, but the predictable nature of this lack of interest for the reliable leaves the customer comfortable to plan ahead. You don't come here to buy quality. You come here to buy what others are not selling.
Price is a key component of anyone's visit here. The place is structured to take your money at every turn, aggressively transparent in its mission to bleed you dry. It's like the IKEA marketplace on steroids. You walk in there wanting to buy a tube of glue and you walk out with a three seater sofa, a replica of the Eiffel tower barely smaller than the original and enough garden lights to kill every corner of darkness in Versailles. And you know you need to come back for the glue.
DragonMart is a slice of hobbyist heaven. You can purchase every kind of screw, bolt or rivet under the sun, and you'll pay by weight for simplicity's sake. You can acquire every conceivable screwdriver, drillbit or wire cutter, buy an impossible bike and the gear to go with it. It's like Black & Decker threw up in there, the birthplace of Radio Shack and Home Depot's deformed lovechild. The place is a mess, and this mess offers opportunities like nowhere else.
Most people don't realise how much they can do in there. We have come to accept that our primary interface with the world is a screen of some kind, touch based or not. We don't immediately think of the myriad of objects, things, that we can pick up and turn into something else. And each one of those things is in DragonMart.
The key to all this is that everything in there is dirt cheap. This lets you experiment. You can try your hand at some DIY with a fancy drill, a truckload of wood and a mighty spinning saw, all for the price of a DVD player and a smile (of which there are surprisingly few here. Smiles, not DVD players. Those are available by the kilo too). You can decide to piece together a lifesize sculpture of a deer made entirely of tealights and soap, all bought for the equivalent of a SuperSize meal. You can venture out and buy yourself all sorts of trials and errors. That also buys you experience, physical experience in the real world, with real things that you can touch, that have uneven coatings, gritty surfaces and imperfect finishing. I walked into a plumbing supply stall in there the other day and felt a wave of goosebumps wash over me as I took in the rows of brass connectors and chrome fittings available. And I haven't the first idea about plumbing, but I felt it anyway. The physical world was begging me to give it a try.
That's DragonMart.
Next time you find yourself staring at a set of cheap objects, think what you could do with that. Think how you could hack those cheap simple things into life experience. There's nothing like the present.
It might be cheap, but it's priceless.
Showing posts with label digital. Show all posts
Showing posts with label digital. Show all posts
Tuesday, 9 February 2016
Saturday, 20 September 2014
Using the five senses
It occurred to me that in a digital world, we never realise how few of the five senses we actually use.
Most of our online interaction with content revolves around the visual and auditory senses. In case you're wondering, that's only two out of five. We look at video, often without sound. We read a lot of text, not all of which makes a whole heap of sense, but we do read. We listen to music, jingles and soundtracks. And yes, I'll admit that we use tactile interfaces to do so, which could potentially count as involving touch. But what do we actually touch?
One thing we often forget is that digital content, whilst prolific, creative and captivating at the best of times, still remains a rendition of something otherwise real. Our tablets, phones, screens are but windows into another reality. And while we are staring at that window, we ourselves do not have a reality of our own to sample. Perhaps we ignore it, willingly, and perhaps we choose another, the rendition, instead of the real thing. But what is certain is that we are looking into someone else's reality. We are experiencing reality by proxy.
I believe this is why we are jaded about the content that we consume. It isn't really anything that we can touch, taste or smell. It is restricted by the size of the interface that we have at our disposal (who said size didn't matter?). It is filtered and censored by the creative choices made as that content was created. In other words, it isn't real.
Our reaction to the content is very much real. But since that reaction is dimmed by the emotional distance created by the window through which we experience it, our reaction is merely a shadow of what it could be if faced with the real thing.
Statistically, about 5% of content viewers are also content creators. This ratio applies to videogames, videos, essays and articles, as well as most forms of expressive production, though actual numbers may vary a little. What it means is that the creators are rare, and they control what we all see.
It may be worth taking some time to explore what other experiences we might sample with all five senses. In fact, I would argue that any experience that excludes one or more sense is not actually reality, but a filtered and diluted version of it. Taking a walk through a forest lets you smell the earth and the leaves, touch the moss on the bark of a tree, taste the moisture in the air under the canopy of intertwining branches. It blinds you with rays of sunlight pushing through the swaying arms of the wooden landscape that surrounds you. It calls to you through the countless songs of the brushing brambles, the crunching twigs underfoot and the hidden animals that you cannot name but can certainly hear. It is real. A video of the same walk can only hint at the experience. To quote Yoda, real that video is not.
Digital content interprets reality and delivers a version of it to us, edited and packaged. It can spark intelligent thoughts, compelling arguments and opinions. It can awaken dormant feelings that will change people, sometimes for the better. It can do all sort of wonderful and positive things. But it cannot, and should not, replace reality. It should only enhance it by showing us what we're not experiencing.
We live in a world that is only partly digital. The digital part opens our minds and our hearts to things we barely knew existed. If we become satisfied with only this digital experience, we will slowly sink into an existence where our senses are dulled through lack of experience. We can instead choose to navigate the digital shoals consciously, mapping our way to a better experience of reality. But we must be cautious not to lose sight of the real journey.
The world is vast and wonderful, dangerous and unpredictable. Our five senses are there to let us feel it in every possible sense and dimension, to ward off its dangers by being aware of them, to embrace its magic by making it our own. By all means, document your reality and share it online. Inspire others to follow you, and find people to be inspired by. Just keep in mind that reality is not a window. We must accept the possibility of failure, pain and wrong turns to go further than the digital frame. Just like Alice and the looking glass, it is beyond that window that very real things begin.
So next time you find yourself enjoying a particularly smart piece of digital content, consider embracing some reality of your own. This will be just as magical as smiling to someone, and seeing them smile back. It doesn't cost you and it enriches both of you.
Isn't that something?
Plug in, but know when to unplug. Only then will you awaken your five senses. And who knows, maybe more...
Most of our online interaction with content revolves around the visual and auditory senses. In case you're wondering, that's only two out of five. We look at video, often without sound. We read a lot of text, not all of which makes a whole heap of sense, but we do read. We listen to music, jingles and soundtracks. And yes, I'll admit that we use tactile interfaces to do so, which could potentially count as involving touch. But what do we actually touch?
One thing we often forget is that digital content, whilst prolific, creative and captivating at the best of times, still remains a rendition of something otherwise real. Our tablets, phones, screens are but windows into another reality. And while we are staring at that window, we ourselves do not have a reality of our own to sample. Perhaps we ignore it, willingly, and perhaps we choose another, the rendition, instead of the real thing. But what is certain is that we are looking into someone else's reality. We are experiencing reality by proxy.
I believe this is why we are jaded about the content that we consume. It isn't really anything that we can touch, taste or smell. It is restricted by the size of the interface that we have at our disposal (who said size didn't matter?). It is filtered and censored by the creative choices made as that content was created. In other words, it isn't real.
Our reaction to the content is very much real. But since that reaction is dimmed by the emotional distance created by the window through which we experience it, our reaction is merely a shadow of what it could be if faced with the real thing.
Statistically, about 5% of content viewers are also content creators. This ratio applies to videogames, videos, essays and articles, as well as most forms of expressive production, though actual numbers may vary a little. What it means is that the creators are rare, and they control what we all see.
It may be worth taking some time to explore what other experiences we might sample with all five senses. In fact, I would argue that any experience that excludes one or more sense is not actually reality, but a filtered and diluted version of it. Taking a walk through a forest lets you smell the earth and the leaves, touch the moss on the bark of a tree, taste the moisture in the air under the canopy of intertwining branches. It blinds you with rays of sunlight pushing through the swaying arms of the wooden landscape that surrounds you. It calls to you through the countless songs of the brushing brambles, the crunching twigs underfoot and the hidden animals that you cannot name but can certainly hear. It is real. A video of the same walk can only hint at the experience. To quote Yoda, real that video is not.
Digital content interprets reality and delivers a version of it to us, edited and packaged. It can spark intelligent thoughts, compelling arguments and opinions. It can awaken dormant feelings that will change people, sometimes for the better. It can do all sort of wonderful and positive things. But it cannot, and should not, replace reality. It should only enhance it by showing us what we're not experiencing.
We live in a world that is only partly digital. The digital part opens our minds and our hearts to things we barely knew existed. If we become satisfied with only this digital experience, we will slowly sink into an existence where our senses are dulled through lack of experience. We can instead choose to navigate the digital shoals consciously, mapping our way to a better experience of reality. But we must be cautious not to lose sight of the real journey.
The world is vast and wonderful, dangerous and unpredictable. Our five senses are there to let us feel it in every possible sense and dimension, to ward off its dangers by being aware of them, to embrace its magic by making it our own. By all means, document your reality and share it online. Inspire others to follow you, and find people to be inspired by. Just keep in mind that reality is not a window. We must accept the possibility of failure, pain and wrong turns to go further than the digital frame. Just like Alice and the looking glass, it is beyond that window that very real things begin.
So next time you find yourself enjoying a particularly smart piece of digital content, consider embracing some reality of your own. This will be just as magical as smiling to someone, and seeing them smile back. It doesn't cost you and it enriches both of you.
Isn't that something?
Plug in, but know when to unplug. Only then will you awaken your five senses. And who knows, maybe more...
Wednesday, 16 July 2014
Creation vs collage
We live in a world of assembly. Following the motto of 'Don't reinvent the wheel', we've taken the thought to new extremes. Why create from scratch when you can plug together bits and pieces that other people have made? It puts a new spin on plagiarism - where does it begin or end in a world of cut-and-paste? It even repositions copyright as a means to an end.
Physically, we're seeing car manufacturers pool factory resources to build different branded cars using the same basic parts. It's LEGO gone wild. Prefab houses are spreading rapidly as an affordable way to build new homes. Ikea's colour palette is designed so that any piece of furniture you buy can match any other set you already have. No need to think, just plug and play. Innovation is no longer within the elements, it's within the process. It's now about how well we can build, not what.
Digitally, we're seeing a proliferation of templates for every application under the sun. Need a little motion graphics for your title sequence? Template, cut in with some existing stock footage and you're home. Need some code for your new software package? Template, fill in the blanks and it's on. Recipes, posters, music scores, videogames, it's all canned and repurposed to suit your needs. And perhaps that's the point?
This approach changes everything, it forces us to first seek out what exists, to then figure out how to use it in combination with other things. It slows down the evolution process by breaking down the steps within innovation itself. Creation always begins by connecting thoughts that already exist in the creator's head. The key is that these thoughts were conceived by the creator in the first place, so it all remains part of the creative process. Now, however, we're just stitching together thoughts that others have had and we call the result our own.
Social media introduced the concept of 'sharing'. We now believe that 'sharing' content is equivalent to creating. We somehow feel that by spreading a piece of content around, we come to own part of it. 'Sharing', though intended as an outward gesture, has become egocentric. We share to own. And again, we take something that already exists, and we add a thin layer of personal veneer to then call it ours.
This creates a huge market for the few talented creators who can build from scratch, because everyone else wants and needs their work to make their own, like bricks in a wall. This explains the recent uproar of the last few years about the length and extent of copyright. A strong reason why people are asking for an end to copyright is because, in order to make their own ideas, they want more access to ideas others have had before. But who owns the copyright to the new ideas these people now spread out into the world?
Let's be clear, there are wonderful things that have emerged from these assemblies of ideas to derive new ones. After all, there are only 26 letters in our alphabet and yet we repackage them endlessly to produce new written work. There are only 10 digits, yet mathematics continues to surprise us. There are only seven basic music notes, yet symphonies continue to emerge. We can create this way, but it changes how we think. It would be wise to remember how to create from the ground up, lest we forget how to create in the first place.
We need to remember that the truly groundbreaking ideas, the ones that pull people through leaps of creative strides, are the ones that we build from scratch. Those ideas are the ones we come up with using intellect, intuition, trial-and-error, mistakes, ridicule, gut instinct, arrogance, daring and originality. Those ideas are the ones that make a difference.
So the next time you set out to create something, take a look at the building blocks you have, sure, but then take a step back. Look at the bigger picture, and see what's missing. Read between the lines, find the trees within the forest.
Then plant your own.
Nurture it, grow it and take pride in what it becomes. Because that tree is yours. It is unique and original. It is there for others to scale, to cling to and to embrace.
Original thought is the way to go.
Physically, we're seeing car manufacturers pool factory resources to build different branded cars using the same basic parts. It's LEGO gone wild. Prefab houses are spreading rapidly as an affordable way to build new homes. Ikea's colour palette is designed so that any piece of furniture you buy can match any other set you already have. No need to think, just plug and play. Innovation is no longer within the elements, it's within the process. It's now about how well we can build, not what.
Digitally, we're seeing a proliferation of templates for every application under the sun. Need a little motion graphics for your title sequence? Template, cut in with some existing stock footage and you're home. Need some code for your new software package? Template, fill in the blanks and it's on. Recipes, posters, music scores, videogames, it's all canned and repurposed to suit your needs. And perhaps that's the point?
This approach changes everything, it forces us to first seek out what exists, to then figure out how to use it in combination with other things. It slows down the evolution process by breaking down the steps within innovation itself. Creation always begins by connecting thoughts that already exist in the creator's head. The key is that these thoughts were conceived by the creator in the first place, so it all remains part of the creative process. Now, however, we're just stitching together thoughts that others have had and we call the result our own.
Social media introduced the concept of 'sharing'. We now believe that 'sharing' content is equivalent to creating. We somehow feel that by spreading a piece of content around, we come to own part of it. 'Sharing', though intended as an outward gesture, has become egocentric. We share to own. And again, we take something that already exists, and we add a thin layer of personal veneer to then call it ours.
This creates a huge market for the few talented creators who can build from scratch, because everyone else wants and needs their work to make their own, like bricks in a wall. This explains the recent uproar of the last few years about the length and extent of copyright. A strong reason why people are asking for an end to copyright is because, in order to make their own ideas, they want more access to ideas others have had before. But who owns the copyright to the new ideas these people now spread out into the world?
Let's be clear, there are wonderful things that have emerged from these assemblies of ideas to derive new ones. After all, there are only 26 letters in our alphabet and yet we repackage them endlessly to produce new written work. There are only 10 digits, yet mathematics continues to surprise us. There are only seven basic music notes, yet symphonies continue to emerge. We can create this way, but it changes how we think. It would be wise to remember how to create from the ground up, lest we forget how to create in the first place.
We need to remember that the truly groundbreaking ideas, the ones that pull people through leaps of creative strides, are the ones that we build from scratch. Those ideas are the ones we come up with using intellect, intuition, trial-and-error, mistakes, ridicule, gut instinct, arrogance, daring and originality. Those ideas are the ones that make a difference.
So the next time you set out to create something, take a look at the building blocks you have, sure, but then take a step back. Look at the bigger picture, and see what's missing. Read between the lines, find the trees within the forest.
Then plant your own.
Nurture it, grow it and take pride in what it becomes. Because that tree is yours. It is unique and original. It is there for others to scale, to cling to and to embrace.
Original thought is the way to go.
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