Perspective

Every time I walk out of a dark building into the bright sunshine, I am reminded of the awesome and overwhelming power of the sun. 386 billion, billion megawatts of energy are released from the sun every second in the form of gamma, ultraviolet, infrared, and visible light rays. What we as humans react to so strongly to about the sun is the vast amount of light. Light envelops us in its embrace. It is, in a way, its own being. I am reminded of how far light has traveled, through the vast, cold emptiness of space, just to reach my eye, and how many other billions of humans have shared the same experience at every moment in history. Light is an element of every religious doctrine and culture; it is an aspect of human existence which we all share. Yet, since it is always there, light is often overlooked and taken for granted. It is this line of thought that brought me to the perspective with which I assembled my light timeline.

Light has been a critical part of human development throughout history. Light from the sun promotes growth and gives energy to the earth; but light also can denote heat and warmth, like in a flame, or affect our moods, providing comfort or influencing emotions, such as the sterility of fluorescent lights. However, light also has a greater potential then just illumination, and throughout history, humans have investigated and utilized light for many different means.

In my light timeline I addressed five ways in which light has been used for purposes other than just pure illumination. One of the earliest known applications of the nature of light was the sundial. To a degree, sundials represent a great monument of human development. The use of sunlight to tell the time represents a level of knowledge and ingenuity which was not achieved until that point. Similarly, the methods of using glass fibers to transmit light, of using light to animate images and entertain us, of using electroluminescent fibers that have been woven into fabrics to create environments and experiences, and of using new materials which convert visible light into electricity all display a level of innovation and forward thinking which did not exist earlier in history.

This examination into humanity’s utilization of light as a means of developing our universal knowledge informed my recent work in advanced studio, which focuses on utilizing smart materials and nanotechnology to solve design problems. Photovoltaic cells, which I examined in my timeline, are in a genre of power generating smart materials which harness sustainable energy sources, such as visible light, pressure, and heat in order to generate electricity. These materials hold an exciting potential as sustainable solutions to our current energy crisis. These technologies are not necessarily new or recent, but for various different reasons, have not been used to their fullest potential. It is exciting and simultaneously overwhelming to contemplate the applications of such compelling materials.

This issue of utilizing materials also relates to my first timeline, which focused on the use of the chisel throughout history. Tools retain a great deal of information about the development of humanity. The development of tools sheds light on intellectual development as well as socio-cultural progression. The more advanced a society, the more it produces, and the more tools it uses. The story isn't one of continual development as there are periods when progress is slow or even goes backwards. My timeline focused on the chisel and its adaptations in different time periods and cultures. Each chisel example I used showcases a development in the use of new materials and making processes to form tools and their resulting creations, starting with the use of stone, and progressing through to the modern use of pneumatics and electricity to power chisel tips in jackhammers. It is interesting comparing these different leaps in material utilization and manufacturing breakthroughs to modern day developments, which seem to be happening at an exponential speed.

In our current world, the separation between the material and the product is beginning to blur. Nanotechnology is pushing this boundary even further as it seeks to manipulate and create with the very fundamental building blocks of life, atoms. At the same time, these developments beg the question, “what is the role of the designer?” I find this interesting, especially in the context of this history of industrial design course, because the nature of industrial design is inherently hard to categorize and its origins hard to isolate. It seems the modern industrial designer has become the jack-of-all trades, attaining information about all the different disciplines and developments and disseminating it into their work. It is interesting as well to consider design through the eyes of science, especially the laws of physics. “All elements in a finite system will move from disorder (organization) to order (equilibrium). A building designed to resist the forces of gravity, weather, and time will eventually be reduced to the elements from which they were first generated. A product which is designed to solve current design problems becomes obsolete in a decade, and sits in a landfill. It seems that designers have a unique role in our modern world in that we have the chance to influence the public’s awareness of many different issues, ranging from cultural differences, to socio-economic discrepancies, and a sustainable future.

I find that combining information from history with information which is just breaking into the human consciousness is extremely valuable. There are so many long held ideas which are taken at their word, without further examination. Distinguishing what ideas and movements have carried through to today because of their merit and what ones have survived only by lack of reexamination seems important to me, and is something which I constantly grapple with. By researching and compiling the timelines for this history of industrial design course, I hope to further this exploration and find more and more references to which I can compare and differentiate from, to develop myself as a designer and world citizen.