This section describes the successes, discoveries and shortcomings of this thesis work as well as several directions for future work and possible areas of improvements.
Discoveries:
This thesis research offers a system of evaluation, where the designer is the filter. It uses the combination of two distinct fields as a generative way to design to create both poetic and analytical reflections of a community. While the outcome does not offer a cohesive identity (is there any such thing?), it does offer a slice of life and a view into a community that perhaps isn’t seen as easily on the surface. In the case of Graphic Reconstructions of Kreuzberg, Berlin, it reveals ethnic backgrounds, trends in purchases, travel patterns based on transaction, nightlife locations, and a globalized and “businessfied” culture.
Transcribing: Engaging Directly with the Information – Initially, finding a way into the information contained in the artifacts proved to be difficult. Because the artifacts were from Germany, a significant amount of the text was in German. Since I don’t speak German, I wasn’t able to engage in the meaning of the text, and therefore was only able to focus on the more visual aspects of the ephemera initially. The decision to type up all of the text, and have it translated, was the key to being able to truly engage with this material. The act of typing the phrases, quantities purchased, legal text, band names, times, and addresses began to focus my attention on the meaning of text and to separate it from its visual package.
Missing Aspects: Room for Imagination – Not all aspects of the community are revealed through its artifacts. The more ephemeral type of activities, like buying fruit at the flea markets, or going to a club don’t result in receipts, just food, or a stamp on a hand that is washed away the next morning. But these missing components opened up room for imagination about what the existing information might mean.
Shortcomings:
A Comparison Needed – This thesis research only offers one example of an interpretation of a community from its material culture. It begs for another comparison in time and/or place to examine just how different a picture would be revealed, and to also examine the effectiveness of this method in truly exposing unique aspects of a culture contained within its ephemera.
Management of Information – The three-week collection of ephemera generated a large quantity of artifacts and thus information. Managing the immense amount of information that comes from the collected ephemera was difficult and time-consuming. While the decision to transcribe and translate all the content provided a break-through in the interpretation of information, it required the tedious task of typing in all the content by hand. Future implementation of this method could benefit from the recording and management of the collected artifacts.
Future Directions
Comparative Studies: Open Source the Space – The methodology is flexible enough that the parameters for collection, categorization and analysis can be modified to fit different communities. For instance, what if we examined a community in Los Angeles? The collection process of material culture might take place by looking at what is left in people’s cars? Publishing the research method online will make it possible for others to use it and collaborate. Engaging other people to contribute to and build on this research method, and offering workshops with other designers and students will create new results and outcomes. What will a community look like in a year from now and ten years from now? What will a community’s identity look like when the same material and time period is interpreted by different designers?
New Way of Building Identity and Branding – This methodology offers an alternative to the existing methods of branding that exist currently. Marty Neumeier, from The Brand Gap: “Living brands are a collaborative performance. They are a pattern of behavior that grows out of character.” The Design Archeology methodology could be used to understand a company’s customers or target audience. It could offer a new way of examining how they live, who they are, and a new way of visualizing that identity.
Conclusion
Throughout the process of developing the methodology, and then using it to create a new form of graphic identity, there were good ideas that had to be discarded and new goals to achieve. The initial goals of the methodology were too all encompassing. My initial focus was too broad, and I had hoped that the final case study would lead to a big conclusion about the community. However, what I realized from engaging in this process, was that focusing on the smaller, more intimate patterns of behaviors, could provide more insight about the identity of a community, than arriving at a larger, more general kind of statement.
As a research methodology that deals with identity, community and its material culture, I think the result was successful. However, the aspects that I explored in the thesis project are just an example of the bigger picture. I dealt with a specific set of constraints, and a focus on language so that I could move forward with applying the methodology and create a series of investigations for the final outcome. Using inversion as a tool was only one of the many ways the information could have been examined. For the future there are many other ways this research can be enhanced which include collaborative projects, comparative studies, workshops, or open source discussion on the ideas and methods discussed here.
“It’s the ephemera of the forgotten…that tells the greatest tales.” – Sufjan Stevens
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