It's A Wrap! Unit 2 Research Report
How can digital preservation and curation be used as a tool to enhance visual literacy among academics and practitioners in urban areas?
In this project I would like to help graphic design students and practitioners enhancing their visual literacy[1] skills by building a platform inside the digital realm, using some aspects and methods derived from the newly developed digital preservation and curation field.[2]
The background of this project started out as a casual conversation I had with several Indonesian colleagues working in the creative industry, especially graphic designers.[3] I discovered that despite graphic design is among top four subsectors in the creative industries with the highest growth[4], its creative workers are still faced with welfare issues, such as mental health, stigmas that are surrounding them, and economical problems for being underpaid.[5] I came up with a really simple question, which become the basis of my project: “How can we prove that graphic design industry has its significance to the society in Indonesia?”
From this point, I decided to examine the specific topics of mental health and stigmas, only to found it not being relevant to apply in the context of Indonesia for now since the topic itself is still considered a taboo to be discussed in the public realm. Other ethical issue that I tried to tackle from this is for making generalization on certain group of people, which can be fatal if not being proved by reliable evidences and data.
I changed my direction from trying to change the psychological mind-set that people had surrounding graphic designers into in what way graphic designers can improve themselves. I altered the subject of my project in a way that the audiences (graphic designers) can be empowered without making assumptions on certain group of people and trying to change something embedded in society for a long time, because certainly it will take even longer time to do such thing.
There are heaps of methodology that I found during the course of the research, but I decided to choose from Matt Cooke’s Design Methodologies: A Systematic Approach to Design, due to its relevance and applicability to my project, in addition to its implementation of reflective practice to help with the iterations.[6]
For the next step of my project, I headed to Jakarta, Indonesia, to conduct several action research and interventions, mostly regarding the “why” of this project. I came across some points that I reckon as the “big change” which is useful for iterating my question and also intervention:
My early intervention which was in the intervention showcase, Indonesian Kitsch Culture, received mixed reaction amongst my target audiences at that time, the youths.[7] I was faced with a new obstacle on how broad the term “youth” is and I have to specify it even more. This lead to my decision to specify the target audiences into “academics and practitioners in the graphic design field”.
One of my intervention[8] involved interactions with graphic design students and tutors in Jakarta, resulting with the conclusion of the need of visual aid to help students practicing their visual literacy skills. In addition, the main purpose of the platform itself is not only to enhance, but also building a strong inter-community of both academics and practitioners.
I came up with digital preservation and curation as a tool based on the fact that graphic design academics and practitioners are currently lacking of platform and communities where they can access and study visuals. Some physical archival spaces were made in effort of this, but were slow in growth due to some aspects such as humidity and mobility for people to access them.
Contacting experts help me redefining some aspects inside my question. One of it being MinaLima, the graphic designer duo behind the film industry suggested me to use the keyword ephemera to gather visuals aspect used for my intervention. The other important experts that I contacted are Hanny Kardinata, a writer who compile graphic design historically and my old professor that taught me how to analyse visuals based on semiotical theory of de Saussure[9]
The current intervention I am working on right now is the iterative version of Indonesian Kitsch Culture that will be available in two different mediums which are desktop and mobile. I also set up a group consisting of both collaborators (consisting of curators and writers) and target audiences (graphic design academics and practitioners) that constantly giving me feedbacks regarding of every progress that I made. The platform itself is on the making with the help of inVision Studio, a prototyping application that allows me to design in both desktop and mobile version of the platform. For the next step of my journey, I would like to test the platform to the target audiences by having them respond to the selected curatorial title and synthesize it based on their knowledge they got from the platform.
The biggest problem I have right now is how to be realistic on the progress I’ll made for the project in the duration of the rest of the MA course. This could be a challenge for myself to keep organised on the scheduling and pay attention on every details that I would like to make for the rest of the project. Perhaps if the project will succeed, it would be the new frontier for both graphic design industries and education and would be sustainable for the next few years to come.
Footnotes
[1] Visual literacy involves the ability to understand, produce, and use culturally significant images, objects, and visible actions.
[2] SeeConstantopoulos, P., & Dallas C. (2008).
[3] One of the earliest intervention that I attempted was to initiate a dialogue within graphic designers circle to share their problems they faced in their working space. It resulted with the conclusion that graphic designers in Jakarta, Indonesia are facing under-appreciation and overlooking.
[4] A study conducted by BEKRAF (Badan Ekonomi Kreatif Indonesia) in 2017 shows that graphic design has the highest growth in both innovation and research aspects with the percentage of 10.28, followed with music (7.26%), video animation (6.68%), and architecture (6.62%). (BEKRAF, 2017)
[5] See Ariyanti, H. (2018)
[6] There are four steps that are involved in this methodology, which are definition, divergence, transformation, and convergence (Bennet, 2006). For the independent study period, I mostly focusing on the divergence section of the methodology by conducting action research, involving gathering both qualitative and quantitative data.
[7] Youths especially in Jakarta, Indonesia, came from different background and demographics, making it harder to generalise them. One of the biggest issue that I faced back in the action research period is the low literacy level on youths in Jakarta, that made me making the decision to diverge the segments.
[8] I did the intervention by conducting a small writing segment for the graphic design students and asked them to describe and analyse certain visuals, with semiotics theory as the measure of success. However, 80% of the students were unable to provide objective analysis on the visuals. When I asked tutors why this phenomenon happened, they responded that they are unable to provide them visual literacy practices and the current curriculum doesn’t support visual literacy practice.
[9] See (Rose, 2001)
References
BEKRAF, B. (2017). Data Statistik dan Hasil Survei EKONOMI KREATIF: Kerjasama Badan Ekonomi Kreatif dan Badan Pusat Statistik. [online] Bekraf.go.id. Available at: http://www.bekraf.go.id/profil [Accessed 7 May 2018].
Bennett, A. (2006). Design studies. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, pp.130-146.
Constantopoulos, P., & Dallas C. (2008). Aspects of a digital curation agenda for cultural heritage. 2008 IEEE International Conference on Distributed Human- Machine Systems. Athens, Greece: IEEE.
Ariyanti, H. (2018). Pekerja media dan industri kreatif rawan terkena depresi | merdeka.com. [online] merdeka.com. Available at: https://www.merdeka.com/peristiwa/pekerja-media-dan-industri-kreatif-rawan-terkena-depresi.html?utm_source=Pekerja+media+dan+industri+kreatif+rawan+terkena+depresi&utm_medium=Line+News+click&utm_campaign=Line+Today+-+News [Accessed 17 May 2018].
Kardinata, H. (2016). Desain grafis Indonesia dalam pusaran desain grafis dunia. 1st ed. Jakarta: DGI Press.
Rose, G. (2001). Visual Methodologies. 1st ed. London: SAGE Publications.