Music 256A Reading Response 5

Elena Stalnaker | Fall 2021

Reading Response ~ "Artful Design" Chapter 5 and Interlude

I have been thinking of accesible/universal design and artful design as separate schools of thought, but all this discussion of models of the human body (pg. 211-215) and the idea of "new hands" (pg. 206) has me wondering about their intersection. I think in someways mouses only needing a few inputs to work can be helpful for making computers accessible. For instance, one could also navigate a computer using the keyboard, or even their eyes, if a mouse didn't work for them. But building things that needed more inputs (i.e. drumset with hands, eyes, and feet) seems like it might potentially run the risk of being less accessible/universally usable. At the same time, I can imagine people coming up with creative ways to play a drumset with no feet or eyesight, and I even know of a team at Microsoft working on a drum kit that works with eye tracking for ALS patients who have lost all mobility. Maybe that same principle of adaptability could be applied to another system with a fuller conception of human bodies.

The drawings of instruments' conceptions of their musicians on pg. 213 are funny and a little grotesque, but at least in my own experience as a musician and observer of other musicians, instrumentalists who play with their whole bodies sound the best and tend to be the most experienced/accomplished. I wonder if my friend Gaby's cello knows about the facial expressions she makes when she plays, or the intense mental focus she no doubt needs, or the way she moves her whole body into bow strokes. I wonder if the pianos my friend Lena plays know how she bows her back and scoops her elbows and sways side to side as she plays. Are those little movements less important than the obvious ones necessary for playing music? If not, does that mean instruments actually do conceive of our whole bodies already?

I wonder if part of why people get injured so often using computers (back pain, carpel tunnel, repetitive stress injuries, eye strain, etc.) is because to operate a mouse you only need hands and eyes. Maybe we get so focused on using these small parts of our bodies that we don't notice when other parts are suffering (i.e. bad posture, sitting all the time) and we overuse the parts that are necessary.

I'm realizing I always want to talk about the manifesto parts of this book that come at the end of each chapter. They always make bold claims I agree with fervently. For instance, "Aesthetics is Not a Problem to be Solved" on pg. 277. I really resonate with the statement "art is what emerges from us earnestly trying (and often failing) to understand ourselves and our emotions." I love that this can be applied to technology as well, because I think of the results oriented mindset described in the second paragraph as so fundamental to what technology is that it didn't even occur to me to truly look at it the same way as art, even after reading the first 4 chapters of the book. I think there was still a disconnect in my mind that this manifesto bridged.

I find the manifesto on pg. 305 - "Aesthetics is Not a Luxury" - very powerful. I had never thought of the concept of designer goods as a perversion of the word designer to make design something that largely only serves as a status symbol. I love the idea of retaking design, and that "design is what is inside." I really like the idea of being aware "of beauty and truth when we see it, regardless of the price tag or marketing jargon." I feel that exact process of decoupling value from price is why I love shopping at Goodwill so much (aside from wanting to live sustainably and support them as an organization, of course).