Citation +
Citation +
Ideation Process
Ideation Process
Embedded Files
This page serves multiple functions- primarily citation but instead of utilizing an official format of citation, I wanted to experiment with adding more humanization and recognition to each source that follows OCAD University's Indigenous Learning outcomes. This way each creator is specifically highlighted in how their work critically contributed to the ARC project as well as sharing this knowledge in a more engaging way with students through describing the works.
Additionally this page also serves as a timeline of how the idea was slowly molded into its final form.
NFTs
NFTs
Speculative Design concepts first appeared elusive to me, so it only made sense to connect this project to something that was just as elusive in meaning: Non-Fungible-Tokens (NFTs). Afterall, there had to be more than just buying public images on the internet to “Own” them-
In which, Terry Nguyen, writer of NFTs, the digital bits of anything that sell for millions of dollars, effectively explained that that ownership in the case of most NFTS is owning the code of image on the blockchain as well it’s value based upon its speculation in the market.
Everest Pipkin in Here is the Article You can send to People When they say “But the Environmental Issues with Cryptoart will be solved soon right?” Illustrated two crucial points: #1 This NFT market is based on speculation is similar to that of the art gallery world, where art pieces are cyclically not sold for their meaning to the viewer but rather their speculated value based upon potential rarity and increase of value. #2 Pointed out that the NFT art market was worse, as its entire currency value is based on the enormous energy it takes in creating what “An intentional scarcity market of public images.”
The Commons and the Market
The Commons and the Market
In Defense of the Commons by reporters Mary Ann Manahan and Shalmali Guttal illustrates examples of common public goods becoming privatized, which essentially creates foreign artificial systems that cause real devastation to people who are deprived of food, water, their culture and rights because of what are essentially of western ideals.
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Speaking further on the privatization of the Internet, In Defense of the Poor Image, writer Hito Steyerl points out, that through low quality free images, culture is able to be shared and live on which is a stark contrast to the nature of NFTs, where the only form of sharing is through selling.
All this together reminded me of a passage from the Braiding Sweetgrass book, where arthur Robin Wall Kimmerer wrote that the money-in-exchange-for-goods economic system is “just a story,” that the market system is an artificial choice- once again tying in theme of a intentional scarcity market that runs on speculation of value and potential versus reality.
CryptoKittes
CryptoKittes
Despite reading all of this, I still wasn’t sure what to do with all this information until I watched
Why people are buying cartoon cats on the blockchain video- reporter Cleo Abram makes the point that Cryptokitties speculative value is based on appearance but the website can revoke the Cryptokitties images without consequence as the users are buying just the base code, also referred as its “genes”. The users cannot legally use these codes in any way but to buy, own and sell.
This was the light bulb moment for me- what if people were to do the same thing with extinct animals: Create a cryptocurrency where people are literally buying extinct animals species but not the right to resurrect them- only the legal right to buy,own, and sell the DNA sequence codes? Then I developed my initial thought: What if it wasn’t long extinct animals (for instance, dinosaurs) but instead present day animals that had perished by human led climate change? By going this direction, the project further incorporates the issues of the privatization of common goods and how the scarcity market monetizes extinction and stops societal progress by creating artificial obstacles for profit.
DNA and Coding
DNA and Coding
Going forward with this idea, I wanted the story to be more than just a digital representation of DNA animals on a blockchain as that could easily be achieved now, so I needed to know more about computer coding and DNA sequencing in general-
The Article American researchers unveil the world’s first liquid computer chip by Matthew Griffin informed that technology utilizing the benefits of biology was not only possible but happening already as a liquid computer chip was released as of 2019.
Even earlier in 2015 was Stanford University's Computer water-droplet based computer, explained by Manu Prakash.
Encouraged, I searched deeper into the similarities of DNA sequences and computer code- Foglets.com has had the same curiosity as I did about the similarities of computer coding and genetic coding in the article of Binary Code Vs. Genetic Code. Two key points of interest to me were that DNA coding works on four units (A, C, T or G) while binary computing works on two units, the article writer proposes “that each nucleotide of DNA can hold twice as much information as each digit of a binary program.” Another key point was that DNA coding has inherent abilities to protect information in reading and replication of DNA.
Now this is critical, part of the reason for the ecological harm the NFT market is creating is partially due to the arduous authentication process and protection of the NFT's informational coding. Since DNA has a protective component naturally, what if technology were able to utilize it as an ecological NFT blockchain? This adds another economic factor to the revival of animals as the questions becomes is it more ecological benevolent to the earth for the animal to be resurrected or to remain as the most environmentally friendly crypto-commodity market when to others such as Bitcoin.
Story Telling
Story Telling
Now that the idea was fleshed out, I was stuck: I felt that anything I came up with was either too safe or too ridiculous. It was times like these that the book Speculative is Everything by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby was a critical read that explained Speculative Design was supposed to be brave while also intriguing as did Design Is [Speculative] Futures Design Thinking - a new toolkit for preemptive design video by Phil Balagtas .Without these examples, I’d still probably be at the drawing board.
In Leyla Acaroglu: Paper beats plastic? How to rethink environmental folklore video, Acaroglu discusses that society creates “environmental folklore”, stories we tell ourselves about what is good for the planet through arbitrary ideas and convenience such as paperless currency is automatically ecologically better for the earth than paper currency. This created a strong basis for animal DNA NFT cloud the discussion of revival of modern animals.
CNN Market, Yahoo Finance and the Jim Cramer’s Mad Money provided ample material to work from for the News Segment Deliverable. Additionally, these websites and the OpenOcean NFT marketplace provided the language to work off of for the ARC website mock ups.
Lastly, I would like to credit a significant inspiration of The Yawhg video game by Damian Sommer and Emily Carroll which portrays how to tell a dystopian story on a human level that accurately describes how people act during incoming disasters.
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