Session two.

Again three.

Very focused very close up presentation
and let me just introduce all three.

Now you know we're going to
discuss at the end of the three.

Laura for
La Mer is a Fulbright award winning and

National Science Foundation scholar
a writer a social scientist and a design

researcher she's an associate professor
of design at the Institute of Design and

affiliated fact of the at the College of
Architecture at Illinois Institute of

Technology where she's director
of the critical futures lab.

Laura's research is focused
on the aesthetics and

politics at the intersection
between design and

Emerging Technologies she is
the coeditor of markets for

Christine Satchell and
Martin kids of the book or it's and

that is a pretty it's
a doorstop from from social

butterfly to engage citizen MIT Press
twenty eleven and she received a Ph D.

in communications from Columbia by
finding information science is now

the new the raw it's a bit in between
all these disciplines somehow.

We just are almost about to
hire someone who has a Ph D.

in that trying to make a case to
the School of Industrial design that

that she quite important.

Following Laura will be Lisa Marks this
is an assistant professor of design and

very College in Kentucky who work
explores the borders of an interactions

between Parametric Technology and
drawing inspiration from endangered crafts

this is Stuart for seven years at Parsons
School of Design in New York and has

presented from Minneapolis to Bangkok she
has started an experimental opera company

didn't know that as well as attention
fabric structure company working.

Large brands including
Google Jet Blue's Crystal

lease is going to be joining the School
of Industrial Design faculty this August.

So we are extending and expanding the.

The resume and the third person in
this mid afternoon session is Jan.

There is an assistant professor in
the Department of Architecture and

a Fellow of the Center for
heritage conservation at Texas A and M.

She's a licensed architect she's
worked professionally in Boston for

over a decade on the restoration of
a diverse range of historic buildings

from Trinity Church St
Elizabeth's Hospital in D.C.

and the Jewett Art Center
do it out at Wellesley.

Ritually from India she started
her preservation career

there working on projects funded
by the World Monuments Fund and

the international trust for
cultural heritage at Texas A and M.

she engages in research and teaching
that investigates the boundaries between

architectural design preservation
theory and professional practice so

the three very close up looks maintenance
and ongoing repair let's give Laura.

Thank you so much for
this invitation and introduction.

It's actually.

Really interesting because I actually
thought I was done writing about this

topic and then I realized things
just got interesting so and

I really do enjoy writing about this topic
and it's been a really inventive way for

me to explore theory making.

In a kind of more roundabout way and
as a social scientist I have my own

misgivings about you know
this type of engagement but

as a design researcher you know I really
find that it makes a lot of sense to me.

And also from a perspective of feminist
techno science I find that there's a lot

of support in previous work by

feminist scholars of technology as well
as in some of the emerging journals and

things and that's where I've found
a home for this kind of work as well.

So today I'm going to offer three
vignettes on Dick a maintenance and

repair drawn from my own
experiences from two thousand and

sixteen to the present and these men yes
are drawn from a series of articles and

books chapters on network
medical devices and

I think that it's really building
up into a book project So

drawing on hair ways cyborg I've created
the figure of the disabled cyborg as a way

of understanding the ways in which network
medical devices both offer to extend and

repair the capabilities of my body and
drawing on Jackson's broken moral

thinking I develop a multi scalar
thinking I'm sorry multi-skilled theory

of broken body thinking that collapses
the world on to the body and

expands the body into the world
suggesting a different sort of concerns

relations contingencies and processes
more recently I've engaged with K.

fears notion of crypt time and
carries ritual view of communications to

develop the idea of data rituals which are
embodied processes required to manage and

participate in every day activities and
lastly I recently were explored

the tensions between connection and
disconnection around post-human futures.

But first I'd like to introduce you to
some of the actors in these vignettes

of it you can understand better what I'm
talking about so first is my insulin pump

and second is a continuous glucose monitor
and here's a list of a host of other

things and artifacts and technologies that
I might refer to in some of these yet.

And so for

vignette number one I'm going to tell
you about rx it batteries and what's.

Sugar.

So in June twenty sixth seen just as the
United Kingdom was in the middle of its

own Breck's it breakdown I was attending
an important conference in Brighton

on the first day during the first hour
of a hands on workshop on smart cities

the AAA battery of my pump died I
had woken up with a very high blood

sugar which is very common when travelling
due to jetlag in a regular sleeping and

eating hours I needed to adjust my blood
sugar by administering influence as

I tried to bolus as it is called I could
see that the battery was very low I did

not have any batteries with me and I did
not know where I could go to quickly get

them since I was in a university building
a few blocks from the main shopping street

I didn't want to wait too long to get
a new battery sense if I did all of

the insulin settings would be erased and I
didn't think I'd be able to remember them.

There were at least four different
settings at four different times for

the basal insulin that is twelve
delivered twenty four hours a day and

four different settings for the bolus and

insulin which is necessary at meal time
and there's also a setting for the insulin

some sensitivity ratio which is needed if
you need to lower your blood sugar and

as we are sketching ideas for smart city
technologies I started scribbling all of

these numbers onto a piece of paper at the
next break I rushed out to get batteries

at a supermarket a few blocks
away at the same time the C.G.M.

continuous glucose monitor stopped
functioning and failed to connect with

the sensor under my skin I knew that
my blood sugar was dangerously high and

it was high enough that I could even get
a sudden heart attack I began checking and

rechecking the i Phone app and

the transmitter to try to
get it she read discover me

there were various possibilities for
the failure the Bluetooth

signal might have disconnected
the transmitter might have popped out

of the small plastic clips attached to
the sticky adhesive securing the C.G.M.

to the body I decided to wait I did
not want to restart the sensor because

if I did it would take two
hours to start up then.

I would have to put in the correct
many measurements from the meter but

the meter was back at the hotel
room a twenty minute walk away

soon enough my monitor found me again and
we were reunited.

So this vignette serves to illustrate the
ways in which post human subjectivity can

be found within the Monday in day to
day experience of living with being and

becoming part of these network
technologies in replacing batteries

checking connections the post-human is
reconfigured disturbed and disrupted

rather than revolutionary and disruptive
these experiences illustrate the ways in

which reliance on these technologies like
many other technological systems and

infrastructures is subtle invisible and
intimate when they are functioning well

like the false binary of utopias and
dystopias function and

just function must together define
post-human subjectivity is in it's

in the very breakdown of these networked
medical devices that I'm more aware of my

own multiple contingent identity in this
way my identity is composed of human and

non-human parts as different
components of the system fail and or

reappear I can transform and rearrange
my identity at the same time while they

are constantly monitoring it intervening
in my life in important ways I'm also

continuing really engage in processes
of monitoring surveilling and

intervening in the lives of the devices
this affective cognitive and

physical labor of maintenance and
repair is demanding in a motion energy and

time but it is rarely accounted for as
we have pushed more and more human labor

to the margins of the machine and
to the edges of the economy quoting the.

Yes I need my devices but
they also need me.

Vignette to crip time
in the disabled cyborg.

So on Thursday March thirtieth this
is actually last year I'm right about

the time of the maintainers coming.

And the alarm clock on my i Phone stopped
working I woke up with the sun in my

eyes piercing through the metal slats of
the blinds a few minutes after my alarm

was set to ring I was puzzled I have
been using my i Phone as an alarm

clock since two thousand and seven when
the phone was first released usually it's

on my nightstand but sometimes I even
keep it under my pillow I googled for

a fix I followed various recommendations
from tech websites I closed and

reopened all the apps I restarted
the phone I tested various features of

the clock app I upgraded to the latest
operating system nothing seemed to work

if anything after several hours of
troubleshooting my action theme

only to cause even more problems after
an appointment at the Apple Genius Bar I

restored the phone from a backup when I
restarted the phone I found that the data

from a few applications had been a racist
I also needed to log back into more than

two hundred forty applications for the
most part I had forgotten my usernames and

passwords the alarm clock
still did not work.

The following day the decks come G five
mobile app which I used to check my blood

glucose in real time began to fail screech
screech the app without a high pitched

sound crashed and needed to be reset every
few minutes this was distressing as a type

one diabetic I need to check my blood
sugar regularly throughout the day so this

narrative is rich with many temporality
as materiality as meanings affects and

contingencies that are ever present in
these systems as well as in my lived

experiences as such my my body is networks
and dependent on a system of technologies

that's fragile vulnerable and prone to
breaking down like the i Phone nestled

under my pillow the disabled side or
exists within between and out of sync

with intimate infrastructures in which
the world collapses on to the body and

at the same time the body expands out into
the world from these personal narratives

we can begin to understand in a new and
different way and ways more faithful to

feminist science questions about
data infrastructure and the.

Tipple human experiences of time the ways
in which it's possible to see the self in

the system and as a wanderer Nelson writes
in her ethnographic work on race and

genetic testing such scalar projects take
the form at the interplay of the macro

mezzo and micro level processes
as a disabled cyborg to medical

devices the insulin pump and the monitor
mediate my experience of the world.

I cannot go more than an hour
without being plugged in so

to speak I cannot be more than twenty
feet from the C.G.M. receiver and

these intimacies keep the system
functioning however imperfectly

when I spend too long in the bathroom for
example when washing my face or

brushing my teeth the C.G.M. loses
track of me I wait fifteen minutes and

it rediscovers the streams
of data flowing from my body

I am not a set of parts fused together
as one but I'm rather a living system

in which capabilities are distributed
shared in human machine collaboration.

So the third vignette is the newest one
and I you know I took the invitation to.

Speak here as a way of having
a reason to write this up and

it's something that I've only been
noticing now in the last few months so

it's still a bit rough in terms of
the analysis but so in late November I

noticed the black plastic casing of my
insulin pump was cracking so much so

that a neat circular piece of plastic
had peeled neatly off the top where

the insulin canister locks into place that
model had expired and I've been reading

receiving e-mails and calls from the
company for about six months I called and

my representative and after a fifteen
minute conversation decided to upgrade to

the newest model described as the world's
first hybrid closed loop system.

According to the company
the mini med six seventy G.

system offered smartcard the only
technology that mimics some of.

The functioning of a healthy pancreas
by providing two new automated

levels of insulin delivery I was about to
leave town for winter break in an overseas

vacation and it was unclear whether the
new model would be delivered in time and

explained to me that since some of the
components of the new system were being

manufactured in Puerto Rico the company
was experiencing delays in shipping

their sensors due to the aftermath of
Hurricane Maria I never really considered

the relationship between climate change
colonialism and the logistics and supply

chains of medical device companies in
the past so I thought this was interesting

the pump arrived about forty eight
hours before I left Chicago and about

five days later a box of sensors arrived
in New York a few hours before I left for

Lisbon this is the only only one of the
many dilemmas of distributed living and

working that continues to confound
databases customer service representatives

and large institutions in any case the new
model required three in person trainings

I offered I opted to order a loaner pump
through the company's travel program and

as a backup in case my old
one broke down completely

while I was away this didn't happen
I wondered how much longer I could

make it with the old pump whether taper
superglue could hold it intact for

a few more months or even years when
I turned returned from holiday I was

excited to set up the new pump one
Friday night and in early January

the twelfth to be exact I returned home
from the year's first university faculty

council meeting and had little plan for
the evening I took out the slim white

boxes designed to look identical to Apple
products within less than an hour I'd

set up the new system and
put the settings and

cast aside my old pump which sat on
the kitchen counter for well over a month

until I sent it back to the company about
ten days later on a Tuesday morning after

consulting several different manuals all
of them with simultaneously too much and

not enough detail I charged and
inserted the new sensor and.

Taped to my stomach before heading to my
first training a one hour appointment with

the company rep to go over
the features of the new pump.

That Friday morning my husband and
I woke up earlier than usual to a loud but

muffled beeping noise which group or
progressively louder as I lifted

the comforter as a heavy sleeper I'd
missed the two vibrating alarms and

had that had preceded the beeping
the sensor needed to be calibrated every

twelve hours but it could be pause for
one hour increments in order to calibrate

the sensor it's necessary to test your
blood sugar with a glucose meter.

A week later on the following
Tuesday morning I was read

up ready to set up auto mode

I wondered if there are times when I need
to turn it off such as when exercising.

The company rep said theoretically
you should never need to turn it off

while explaining the automatic mode
setting we got to talking about

the benefits of allowing the automated
system to adjust insulin levels adding

insulin if blood sugars to high and

suspending delivery of insulin if it's too
low I wondered if I might sleep through

the night a bit better the company rep
responded I met with a patient recently

that described the new system saying
that it was the best sleep of my life.

That Sunday night the day before an
important day long meeting I woke at two

thirty in the morning to a buzzing
alerting me to calibrate the sensor

I paused it was and
was awakened promptly an hour later and

again an hour after that that night I was
awakened no less than five times with

various alerts of all kinds and
I'm actually still trying to get the data

from the company to document
which ones those are.

And I was Crocky and delirious The
following day I made it through the day

having to excuse myself from meetings
several times in order to calibrate

the pump in order to stay in auto mode
by the end of the day I was completely

exhausted and frustrated three of the
fingers on my left hand were purple and

sore each displaying a constellation
of punctures after pricking

them nearly thirty times to calibrate the
pump as opposed to the usual twice a day.

By Wednesday February seventh I'd updated
my fave Facebook status to idea for

a new theory of media and technology abuse
of technology no matter how badly it

behaves one day we wake up the following
day thinking it will be better

only to have our hopes and dreams crushed
by disappointment and this post prompted

an exchange about Lauren cruel optimism
describing described as a relation or

attachment in which something you desire
is apt actually an obstacle to your

flourishing by Tuesday February thirteenth
abandoned auto mode completely.

Well it's easy to critique technological
systems it's much harder to live

intimately with them with
automated systems and

in particular with network
medical devices the technical and

legal entanglements get in the way of a
more generous relations between humans and

things with my previous system
the two technically in Cata and

compare I'm sorry to
technically incompatible but

complimentary devices that made for
good companions in my care I could

flexibly adjust the temporal patterns
according to my daily rhythms while on

the one hand the devices had their own
needs batteries data network software and

hardware on the other hand I could
hardly I could ignore the alerts and

alarms when they were intrusive
with automated closed loop systems

more of the agency in control is
deliberately entrusted to the device and

the human is cast aside for example you
cannot ignore the calibration alert for

more than one hour without turning off the
sense sensors the system completely and

according to the company rep for
regulatory and

legal reasons related to getting the
technology approved for use you can't game

the system humans are not trusted
to do the right thing but what much

of what is considered to be gaming
the system from one perspective

is what allows for the appropriation
flexibility and participation in socio

technical systems to allow them to fit
in with every day lived experiences.

And so those are the three vignettes and
these are the places where

I've already published this material and
the most recent.

Launch you know the company launched this
closely system only about a year ago and

so these are just like the very early
understanding of what closed loop systems

mean within the context of these type
of networked medical devices and

interesting enough just doing a little
bit of background research to prepare for

this talk I went back to and found
an article about those early close loop

systems which were really about the you
know prepare a way cyborg which

is about a techno human that could
withstand like a dramatic environmental

changes like traveling to the moon and so
that's the context that sort of the early

cybernetics history is really now
only being adopted into our present

day medical devices so that's what I
have to share with you today thank you.

OK Hello I'm going to be talking about
repairing as part of making from a single

stitch to the fabric of a cultural
practice my name is Lisa marks and

I've made a lot of mistakes.

Which I'm sure none of you have been so

I figured as long as I'm sitting here
surrounded by all of these brilliant

people I'm just going to go through
everything I've done wrong.

And we're going to start with knitting.

So.

You know I always think these books kind
of side by side are really hilarious

because they're both cowboy themed and
because knitting is so gendered and

it really used to be a thought of
as a male art and it's you know for

many many years not become a female art
but most of the time when we think about

knitting we think of like knitting
circles and you know grandmothers and

people that aren't that cool and so
you know that goes along with me.

And my embedded link
didn't work that well so

I'm just going to click over to the video
that I opened which is not that one.

This one here so

this is his all Tindall she is
the fastest in that or in the world.

And so

she kind of gets a slow start within
two seconds she's just like go away and

I kind of thought when I learned in that
I would be like this in no time right.

Because she never makes mistakes like
that it's perfect She's a machine.

You can hear the clicking if you listen
very closely but it's it's beautiful.

So if I can somehow make
it back to my presentation.

It all has different controls
because I'm on a mac book.

So usually when people start knitting they
start with like I'm going to make a scar

right so isn't it.

I'm going to learn it and

I'm gonna make a scarf and then as have
you guys know a lot more things than that.

Now so when you sit down to make
your first scarf you actually

in order to complete the scarf are doing
seventeen thousand stitches right and

so when somebody says I You've
just learned to knit and

I made the scarf you don't really think of
them as an expert yet they're still pretty

beginning but they've done the singular
thing seventeen thousand times if I

did something seventeen thousand times I
would think I'd be pretty good at it but

this person is still really just
a beginner say I do a blanket and

I've done you know a couple
hundred thousand stitches

I'm still just a beginner because
there's so much more to learn.

Because you keep making mistakes right so
here's a picture of a mistake and

unless you're pretty good at knitting I'm
betting most of you can't see the misting

Can you see them stick.

Can you see it now maybe
it's really really

close you can kind of see it like there
in the middle this is a skip stitch.

But about this one.

You see it.

This is an added stitch
if you pull it apart and

really look somehow my my thread
got looped around the needle.

And we've all seen those of us that have

that have worn penny hose we've all seen
this the dreaded This is called laddering.

And this happens when you just
drop a stitch in this image

doesn't this just make you
anxious to look at it.

And so when that happens the first thing
you do when you're beginning knitter is to

think My goodness I have to
rip out all of this work.

And this is part of knitting this
is part of making anything and

despite the fact that a lot of our
objects now are made by machines

they're usually prototype by
hand at the very least and

a lot of lot more things than we really
think about are still made by hand.

And so we think of it as having to rip
out because most of the time when we're

first learning knitting it feels really
complicated you're looping the string

around the needle and then you're pushing
the needle back in through and off and

it's like five different motions and you
think that the stitches really complicated

is a very scared to learn how to
knit because it looks really hard.

But it's not actually a loop even
though that's the motion you

do that's not what it is and so

if you really start to analyze a stitch
it's not this if you don't really know

knitting looks pretty complicated this
is an illustration of knitting and

it looks like spirals or braids or
knots and if you kind of take it apart and

loop it you see there are just these
rows of kind of these feathery loops and

then if you take that apart even
further this is one row of knitting and

then even further this is one stitch of
knitting It's not that complicated but

the motion to do it is really really
complicated and so by analyzing exactly

what you're doing which takes doing
it a couple hundred thousand times.

You can start to see that you can repair
it without undoing it you can go back and

you can grab where that loop.

Where that loop kind of dropped off
at the bottom of the ladder and

you can either pay.

From the front towards the back like
on the side or from the back towards

the front like on that side and
that is the only difference between and in

the prostate and those are really the only
two stitches that existed in that NG You

can add more you can skip some you know
in different ways but really that's it.

And once you start to realize that that's
it you can also play around with that and

use those mistakes as design elements but

you have to really understand
the structure structure of a stitch first

which takes several hundred thousand
stitches and so you can start to design

with that you know these are thing
these are these are ways that you

can use a lot of rain which is really a
mistake when you're knitting or a decay of

your beautiful knit project and then you
can start using that as a design element

which is one of my favorite things to do
when I can make mistakes and then use them

as design elements I just think that's
that's the best design in the world.

And so I start with knitting because

knitting is what I consider the most
universal craft knitting has no known

origin there's no country that owns
knitting it didn't come from anywhere

nobody knows I mean it came from somewhere
but nobody knows where the oldest

the oldest myth on knitting is that
even in the pattern on the surface back.

So it's that old and you can really see
some similarities between knitting and

the servants back.

So this is this is the earliest knitting
that we have on record from the temp to

eleventh century and this was an Egypt and
that has to do with kind of maintaining

a practice this isn't the first
knitting ever attempted obviously but

it's the it's it's the latest or the
earliest knitting that exists and that's

because of the climate it didn't degrade
because there wasn't that much moisture.

And then a few centuries later we see
a much more complicated knitting and

that's because of kind of the knowledge
that we build generation upon generation

we're always building and building and
building and knowledge you're not

nobody in the world even Hazelton
dull would be able to sit down and.

Through this without the knowledge
of the people that came before them.

And so this comes to a world wide
problem of of the decay of craft these

this is intentional cultural heritage and

these are these are craft forms
that are in danger of going away

in the next few generations if something
isn't done and you know while I

agree that I would want to use power tools
instead of steel wool and all of that and

I am all for progress I also think it's
a shame to to watch these things die off.

And so I wanted to see if we could take
that same thought of looking at a single

stitch and looking at the geometry of
a single stitch in the same way that we

were parents were making we repair as
we practice while we're knitting and

apply it to Croatian Baghban lice
Croatian bop and lace bobbin laces

is also a pretty universal cross that's
been done all over the world Bob and

laces done in many many countries but but
it's done very specifically in Croatia

it's done in one island in Croatia
has a long history there and

these are pictures of how it's done and
it's still done that way and

it's still the way that that I learned
to do it when I learned to do this.

And my attempt was to try and
make three dimensional lace.

And this was not my first attempt but
this was one of my early attempts and

we can see some pretty bad mistakes
like up here this this just kills me.

Like look at that mistake
that just ruins it for me.

Really nice photo of
a really bad mistake right.

And but at that point I was
kind of sitting there and.

I was I was telling severe this a couple
months ago and you know we were describing

this like it was almost like I was this
early settler sitting by the fire with

you know with tuberculosis or something
because I had I had recently gotten out of

the hospital with some respiratory
issues and I had to finish this project.

But I also had to build it around not
being able to go into a wood shop and

being around dust and not being able
to do that much physical stuff and so

I picked this because as a K.

I can sit here and
I can really do this and so

I was sitting there laboring
over this thing for hours and

hours and hours because it was
very calm and I could breathe.

But it took me I think like five
tries of doing this thing and

till I didn't make that same mistake and
part and

I couldn't repair it because you can't
repair it until you know the structure of

each stitch you can't just go back and
pretend you know how to do it and

all the sudden it works because
there's something I forgot and

I didn't know what I forgot and in less
I'm following these instructions while I'm

not looking Ikea I can't really
understand what the mistake was.

And so I started analyzing a single
stitch both kind of as I'm making and

mathematically So
this is a grasshopper diagram and

this is an algorithm
of a single stitch of.

What's called a whole stitch base
the whole stitch and bobbin lace.

And so by doing this I really
understood the lace and I have.

That example so eventually and
there's still mistakes in it but

eventually I got it where
there's a lot less.

But the other thing that
I was able to do is start

adding in some attractors into tractors
and different mathematic influencers.

And to create different types of forms so
this one has kind of more of a bubble

form and there's a lot of different
variations I have this can seem like.

It was.

That.

When those were made those
were made to go on a wall.

But.

I didn't redo them for you guys.

So you know and and there were a number
of them I didn't bring all of them today.

And so when we did this we start to think
about what this could what this can become

and so we can because of these forms and
some different techniques with

making the lace over three dimensional
forms we can make customize shapes without

any Seems And the thing that I think
is nice about this is that it's still

handmade in a very traditional way it
wouldn't be able to be made by a machine

all of the machines that we have that
make lace make two dimensional fabric.

And so it's still very traditional.

So.

In terms of application I started thinking
about what it could be applied for so

I went towards tourist lingerie for women
post Mustek to me because lingerie is

really classically what lace has
been used for in a lot of different.

In a lot of different areas.

And because we can customize it to three
dimensional form it can be customized to

women who haven't even bodies so about
forty percent of women are choosing not

to have reconstructive surgery post
Mustek to me at this point and

they also can't tolerate most can't
tolerate under wires it's very painful and

there's a lot of sensitivity and
a lot of women are really choosing to

kind of celebrate and embrace their
new bodies in different ways and so

this was designed using three dimensional
lace to fit this this operated on.

Body and with this one there's kind
of symmetrical lines of gathering and

so some of the.

Features that it would show is is kind
of gathering underneath because there is

a lot of structure to lengths and so
it would help support without under wires.

It's seamless so

there wouldn't be anything that rubs
against scarring our sore to shoe or or

and or anything like that and with
this one there's kind of a symmetrical

gatherings here to give a sense of
fullness even where there isn't some so

this is in this example this would be
this would be a woman that wants to look

more symmetrical than her body actually is
for some other women they might choose to

have lines that highlighted scarring
are choose to highlight different form or

shape and there's a lot of different
visual play that can be done here.

So I kept my short.

I thought we were doing questions for
each one but you know.

OK so.

The everyone and thanks of you for
inviting me to the symposium as he

said and
in the introduction I'm pretty Arjun and

I'm an assistant professor at Texas A and
M.

but I just before I kind of started
teaching I have had this other career for

a while being an architect and
working for a few firms in Boston

where we've just worked on really big
buildings of trying to fix them up so

before I kind of start the listening
to the talks in the morning and

I kind of walked in on the first stock so
I maybe missed a little bit of it but

I don't there was this question about why
you know preservation of our maintenance

is not part of a sexy and you know what
we can do so I was just reminded of this

conversation I had with my daughter and as
I said she's five when she was growing up

Bob the builder was one of her favorite
cartoons and when she got to know I'm

an architect for the longest time she
felt that I actually built buildings so

you know it was kind of
a let down which is like so

you don't actually build the things that
just make them on your computer in a slave

Yes that's what I do and
then she would keep asking

me to do make this building
to give it this building and

I was like no and then after a few
months I told her I actually

have not built that many new buildings
I mostly take care of old buildings and

she's like so you mean you just like
fix them up and that's all you do and

I was like yeah that's
that's pretty much all I do.

But I have a hopeful that you know the
time she is going to appreciate the love

and care and effort and innovation it
takes to actually take care of buildings

and fix them up so and then to be kind
of to spoke to me about this topic and

you know about proper Sibley talking about
you know how preservation architects

really work with buildings up close
I thought it was really interesting

because I mean I think all of us have been
around for the last twenty thirty years

can say how you know they've seen this
digital revolution in their lives but

when I started going to architecture
school in India I actually

saw a blueprint machine you know I had
the smell of ammonia and then you know.

Cab started happening in like the third
year of college and I came to the US and

of course it had been around for much
longer but now you know there it's tough

to find people in architecture offices
who can work in order cat because they

are just north of it so it's been it's
come a long way and so today I we thought

it was interesting to kind of chart that
journey of how you know preservation work

and the work of documenting historic
buildings has also seen this shift and

what that means for
how you know it gets the work gets done so

I'll share a few examples from
projects that I work done and

you know just kind of set share some
feel know it's practice points etc.

So of course you know this image is pretty
typical of you know what preservation

if you're out in the field and if you're
trying to look at a historic building and

say OK what do I see here what's going
on here what are the different materials

where is the decay happening where
do I see some cracking some Why sure

pretty typical drawing of how you know
architects would record that by hand and

this is perfectly fine
still happens quite a lot.

But as we'll see there are other
ways now to do this or you know just

in the absence of actually really
sophisticated drawings like the ones you

saw before just really taking a photograph
printing it out and marking it up.

Works quite well.

And this is kind of an early example from
the eighty's of how typically you know

when I started in preservation we used to
do drawings go out to the field make some

notes come back put those notes
on the piece of paper and

that goes out to the contractor and you
notice what's going on with the building.

But and that's pretty much what
we did in this first project that

I did almost ten years ago now and this is
Buffalo State Hospital of some if you're

familiar with this building done
by each are treated since so

you know has a big name architect behind
it also has a big name landscape architect

behind there because Frederick Law
Olmstead the grounds and they recently.

So ten years ago is when they were this
building had been lying abandoned for

many years and they were trying to
figure out what to do with it now of

course last year it just opened as a
boutique hotel so it's hotel Henry now and

the rooms are kind of this you know you
can get your asylum experience and.

They're they're not overtly themed But
but you still kind of.

That's that's what they're playing on but

but back in the day so this is ten years
back this is how we documented this

building it was in really bad shape it had
been abandoned since the seventy's and

very little maintenance had
gone into keeping it intact but

you know we just kind of had a guy
with a lift out and bent around and

got up and close to the facades and
tried to take as many notes as we could.

And I almost love the photograph because.

Because that was an engineer on
team who was really tall and

they intentionally made
me stand on the shortest.

Point on the roof but I think it is but
then we came back and

this is the drawing you know the typical
drawing that we would do and

of course this would be you know
kind of transcribing those notes

into a digital format and giving somebody
a sense of the damage to pretty.

Not very exact more like percentages more

like you know this is pretty much
the sense of what I guard but enough so

that somebody could take this and
put some costs on top of this so

they could try to get a sense of how big
was this job was it twenty million was

the sixty million how how big is this and
this is a big building so.

I think there's a plan but you know doing
the same with the plans of the building

if you can I don't know if you
guys can read on the screen but

you know they were they were graphic but
they were also you know in the ranges of

you know how much the damage is as a fifty
one two hundred percent is it you know so

so not really exact but kind of.

Which is I think how most of
preservation work gets done.

And you know this building this is
a photograph on from when it was under

construction so you know it's
that's perfectly fine and and

works just as well but by the time
we got to doing this other project

in Brooklyn New York and again this may be
a building that's familiar to many of you

this is the Brooklyn post office and
courthouse and this building.

That's a historic image of it it's
right in the center of Brooklyn and

are surrounded by pretty
busy urban streets and

again this was back in two thousand and
five two thousand and seven is when it

was in really bad shape and I don't know
if you can tell from here but they had.

They had covered up the sidewalk on all
sides of the building because there were

pieces of the building there
performing down and hurting people and

what you see up here is
a lot of terra cotta blocks.

And granite blocks and
this is a nineteenth century building it

had an addition in the early
twentieth century but

all of it is kind of stone and
terra cotta.

Really intricate pieces.

So we were hired to
the firm I used to work for

at the time Clancy architects we were
hired to kind of look at this damage and

make them figure out how to kind of
take care of this really detailed.

You know a big facade so so

what we sow the old kind of
way of going up on a lift and

getting up close to the building was not
unfortunately an option because they could

not close the street for that long of time
to allow a lift and for engineers and

architects to be out there so
what we came up with was this company that

is amazing as they're called were to go
axis and I there are some people you know

who have kind of taken after them but this
still remain kind of the only people who

do this kind of work what what they
are they're a bunch of structure.

Engineers who also love to be up on
groups and rebel from buildings and

this is this is a photo back in the day
like hanging from the Brooklyn point.

So what they do is they have a tablet
with them it is staggered to a camera and

they have tools with them as well so

you know they're trying to do some
testing like taking photographs and

not conditions on an article drawing off
the building facade on the tablet and

they very slowly you know foot by foot
keep going down and looking at and

then they kind of move over and then they
do it to the next be and they have a few

of these and frankly I mean window washers
I mean this technology exists on building

I mean people have been repairing for
other things just not for existing facade

assessments so they figured this was a
good thing to do and I had of image here.

There's some more images
of them doing the work.

But you have to go to
through special training and

everything of course to before you can
do this and there was a movie here that

you sound going to play but it's of
them kind of doing this on a project so

you can see them in action but
the but the guy who is there

Evan who who we worked with on many
projects he's basically describing that it

takes a special kind of person to do this
because you don't just not have to be

knowledgeable about the building but like
I said also be comfortable with hanging

from a height with on the stuff
attached to you and and

doing this assessment but
this is what comes out of what they do and

this is pretty much what they see on
their screens so they see on their screen

a very detailed image of the building
showing all the building joints and

everything so they knew exactly where
they are and then they put these and

I have a detail they put these
numerous little markings on the on

the tablet every time their tap their
pen and they see a crack or a spore or

any issue with the stone or
do they tap their screen and this kind of.

Text appears and then they can take
a photograph off that issue of that

particular defect and I get that that
also gets attached to that tag so

what emerges is almost
this kind of tapestry or

this chronicle of all these various
defects on the buildings face and

there is a very complicated system that
they have developed off you know assigning

courts to the what is a system of cracks
worsens an individual crack Orson's

a spoiled versus efflorescence versus a
rusting versus a atmospheric stain and so

on and so forth so there's this was kind
of a really kind of an eye opener and

a really big leap forward from the way you
know we were doing stuff you know doing

it in paper and all the things that were
getting lost and transcribing it going to

getting back to the office this was
right there in the field folks doing it.

And really and attaching the photographs
with every defect was also

really amazing because then you
could kind of always go back and

look how exactly that condition
looked like in that time period.

So it's just kind of a little bit of a
detail so if this was kind of how each tag

would look like you know that that would
be the photograph associated with it and

along with that there would be as kind
of a block also contains all of this

information which they fill in like if you
know that's that's the length of the crack

Now this is really useful because once
you start getting into quantities it also

becomes a system that can then be
quantified as a whole and be priced.

So this is just kind of so
but but what they were

doing is that they were looking at defects
they were literally just out there and

being like I see a crack I'm going to
document it and then into the architecture

are being asked to figure out what to do
with it how to treat this how to repair it

so we took all of their data and
then created drawings like the.

Yes and I'll show detail where each tag
that they had put was converted into

a repair tag and this for example tells
you things like OK it's a crack but maybe

sometimes I don't want to do anything
about it I just wanted to stay but if it's

another type of crack I want to tell the
contractor to patch it if this involves

some sort of a subjective judgment into
what into how to actually do the repairs.

So this is kind of the document you
know that gets made after that and

then the interesting thing with
the system was that people are also

able to extract that information
out into these major seas.

That were also then kind of
supplied to the contractor and

I don't know if you kind of got that but
each item had its own unique identifier so

we could really track where
it was how what the amount of

it was what kind of a block it was
whether it was a horn piece of store or

a rock creased piece of stone and whether
it was at the return or at the feet.

And so on and so forth but
then this also kind of gets tracked

through the construction process so
the drawings go to the contractor and

he knows that you know there is a unique
identifier to this and it gets tracked

through construction administration which
is this process of where we're trying to

you know see if they actually are doing
the work as they were told to and

then through the punch listing process
where you know there's a problem that so

really this complex kind of
system of tracking every little

crack as my presentation title said
every little thing on the building.

Which is very different from
the way this used to be done

which was much more organic and informal.

But then you know this kind of some
photographs from the work in progress

where all of those tags and details and

notes actually get get sorted through and
dealt with.

Kind of quickly go through these but.

And this is just showing you know that how
that building was a kind of mix of terra

cotta and Slate and granite and this
is the building actually completed but

what they ended up doing was fabricating a
lot of new terra cotta blocks and putting

on the building and also doing extensive
repairs on the granite on the roof.

And the interesting thing with this
building was it which I'll come to later

why that matters is they did the interior
of the building first in a really

multimillion dollar project and they were
hoping that the exterior was fine but

that only exacerbated the problems on the
exterior which is when those bricks and

those pieces started falling on
the pavement and they had to come back and

do this project so they did a little
backward you should always do the outside

of the building first before
going on the inside but

by the number last so this is after
this project at the same time be when

you know we were working with that product
and I should say It's called the T.

pass product is the tablet P.C. and

notation system now go to the access
was using at the same time my firm and

we've got this project to work
on St Elizabeth Hospital and

I know two of the presenters today talked
about this which is great because.

The first was a.

Mental health facility and
this one as well and I'd never really and

I worked on quite a few As you'll see
from my presentation I've never really

thought of them as repairing people but
it makes a lot of sense.

So here what the issue was we did
not this was a much shorter building

it was only three floors at the most three
or four floors at the most did not was not

in an urban setting like the Brooklyn
project so we wanted to and

we wanted to be closer as architects to
this process of diagnosing the defects and

not just getting this data from the other.

Four So

we thought OK we'll work with them to kind
of customize their system so we can be on.

On the site and actually diagnosing
the repairs why we see something so

you look at a crack and that's when you
make the decision of whether this needs to

be repaired or you're just going to ignore
it or you know are said this doesn't need

to be talked about so this is what we did
we and before I kind of get there this is

a very interesting image of this building
is actually in construction right now.

This.

There that they decided that they could
not save the inside of the building

because it was a wood structure so this is
really interesting how only the facade of

the building and it's a really long
continuous building that has is now just

left standing before they will come in and
put the new structure in and there is this

really complex system of trying to make
sure that these walls don't collapse

because they were load bearing was so they
were trying to support them on the sides.

But this is but
we spent many years almost.

Because there was this is a really
long building and this is in a clique.

With our set of binoculars and
the tablet system that we took from T.

pass working with the CAD drawings and
trying to transcribe all our notes

directly on the systems so
that they can be easily

just become the construction documents and
skip a step in between so to speak.

So you know we were looking at things like
of course algae efflorescence every little

prick every brick that had a hole in it or
a crack that needed to be replaced so

you can imagine the amount of
information that was going to be shown

on what we call them as repair drawings
in the preservation repair elevations so

we have your standard
set of elevations but

most preservation sets have these repair
elevations which are forwarded out so

if a building you know had lots of beliefs
then each face of it is folded out.

And has all of these kind of individual
tags put on it similar to you know

the process we had in Brooklyn and then
finally you know in this last project.

Were Mont which was also
a mental health facility and

and the so-called insane asylum
from the nineteenth century and

I just thought people might be interested
after we've seen so many of these as to

these were a thing back in the day in the
nineteenth century they were once about I

think seventy two hundred actually
hundred more than hundred facilities and

seventy of those remained and
now very few of them they're kind of like

a vanishing tribe because this
was like the typical format.

That the doctor called Dr Karp
right actually came up went and

then sent Elizabeth was one of the early
ones by eight hundred fifty S.

and then Buffalo which I showed in the
forest was one of the largest goes a tad

they just kept adding the wings on and

one side used to be men once I've used
to be human and this is Buffalo and

then this is Waterbury which was not
a traditional kind of bright but

a mental hospital nonetheless and
again it had the same challenges it was.

You know this really massive building and
I should emphasize that

this is there is a need to do this
because in projects as large as this.

With budgets of there was a budget
of ninety five million dollars on

the total and total restoration and
addition here

there has to be accountability built
into the system in a way to track

this through the construction process to
say how much of the wall area did we say

needed to be reported how many bricks
did we call out to be replaced and

if we were just doing kind of our paper
system it's really difficult to do that.

Through that system so again we were
you know looking at the building and

trying to document every little
thing those are the complete set

of you know the elevations all called
out and analyzed individually.

With binoculars our own he lifts and

that's kind of how those sheets
look like a particular sheet and

then the repair tags which were
even simplified in this case and

that people are not that interested
in this each individual.

And as much as we were
interested in giving them

kind of bigger quantities
that than we knew could be.

We knew that we were kind of talking about
the same thing because the contractor can

come back to you and say I saw on your
drawings that there was almost like

seventy percent of the brick that needed
to be replaced but because we have this

really detailed digital system of
tracking things we can see exactly

calculated and
it is this many square feet so there is so

there is this kind of really kind of
detail oriented way of approaching repair

and then of course you know we have laser
scans these days and at Texas A and M.

We do a lot of these and a lot of people
are looking at doing these really

detailed photogrammetry laser scanners
that can detect these defects cracks and

so forth and surface explanations and
buildings through this really detailed

point and it's great that that is I
wanted to end with saying that you know

with a few thoughts the first of which
being that you know as has great these.

Digital tools are I think
the human element and

documenting DK despite the ability of the
technical tools to make us more effort.

Is really needs to be emphasized because
it is because it is really subjective and

to Prize.

Many many see restoration and repair as
you know unsexy like we said are very

methodical as if you were going by a
manual or rule book that tells you what to

do but much like new design it is very
subjective and idiosyncratic deciding.

To catch one crack and not the other
is not always based on hard facts

despite the numerous attacks that you
know we saw there are spontaneous onsite

decisions really informal decisions
that the Masons break and

this is they see something and they you
know deal with it so despite you know this

these systems that we kind of do around
it it remains a very subjective.

And innovative in some ways field and
then the issue of authorship

our current you know we're talking
about this the romance of maintenance

is that it has none of the Stewart Brand
said this in his book.

How buildings learn so
you know that and that's really true.

You know preservation even in design
schools as well as in practice when I was

became a preservation architect it was
really viewed as a stand Jane chill kind

of activity to mainstream architecture and
design and

because it's it's meant to be
deferential you know preservation and

somebody as the secretary of interior
standards they have four categories

preservation restoration rehabilitation
and reconstruction and preservation really

means to get keep things the way they
are or to restore them and block those

instances restore means to take it back
to a particular period but in both those

instances they really want your repairs
to be deferential to the additional or

to blend in with the existing If you want
to pass muster with those guidelines and

want your project approved you really have
to make sure that every pattern of stone

that you do every infill that you do
really should blend in should not look

different like I think that sweater
repair that you showed today where that

was OK It's really not OK
in building design and

building restoration of preservation
you know to do that and

finally you know this whole issue
of preservation with the Big B.

as I like to call it worse is the routine
maintenance that facilities people do

every day and big buildings and campuses
you know the preservationists command and

they kind of lament these really
differed maintenance that has

happened over the years and
that has led to all the problems.

To be fair there are certain things
just like the things that I showed you

you know being on scaffolding up close to
the building and doing me some repairs

these are not things that you can do
in routine maintenance activities so

maybe a way to think of them is that there
are long term maintenance you know there

are things that happen every
twenty years so the big.

Some of these episodic.

Preservation big dollar campaigns but
also another way to look at is

that the reason why they sometimes become
such a big problems is because the simple

things have been overlooked all that
brick that was spoiling our you know it

was because they were rained leaders that
had not been maintained so you know I was

in preservation like you know these
days it's like follow the money on T.V.

everywhere in preservation it's
follow the water and the building and

then you can always find where
the problem is coming from but

despite that I would just end on this no
it also acknowledging that not everything

can stay forever acknowledging that
certain things are meant to DK An example

would be the brownstone that I worked on
a lot of buildings in the northeast it is

an extremely fragile material and I found
it has been on the building for a hundred

plus years it's probably you know lived
its life there's only so much you know you

can do to it by either maintaining it or
restoring it so with that and thank you.

Thank you.

I was wondering why for

many years I worked at persons
with Robert Kirkbride who.

So he is his doctor park rights grants and

his really involved with efforts
in building preservation and

one of the things that really
stands in the way for a lot of

these hospitals is the stigma that goes
along with them you know when when.

The doctor Dr Kirkbride designed them
they were they were made as beautiful

places for a few hundred people and they
were occupied by a few thousand people so

they became centers of
a pretty bad care and

you know kind of what we
imagine in the movies as.

These wards and so so that's something
a lot of them get knocked down completely

not even because of disrepair but because
of the stigma that goes along with them

and I'm wondering if that's something
that kind of as the architect and

as looking at it from a more technical
side if that was something that

impacted your work on
those buildings Yes So

if it did I remember in Buffalo when we
were doing the work at the The New Buffalo

psychiatric hospital is actually right
on the same campus it's next door and

a lot of people you know used to work in
the old building and now they're just

suddenly being rediscovered by architects
because of all the interest in it but

you're right I mean our perception
of it as this work of Richardson and

Olmsted was very different from them who
had family members who had either been

at the hospital or had not been treated
very well so for them it's not a happy

place and not something they want
to see but I think a lot of the and

by like I think that that how do you
it is there I think it's also chain.

Inching where from what I have seen having
been involved in quite a few of these is

just the sheer size of those and
the fact that hospitals specially are so

purpose built there are the kind of have
tiny rooms says there's such a purpose

built facilities that to adapt them to
a different use is extremely difficult and

costly I'll just give one
example as there was a big fight

in New Jersey there was a grey stone
psychiatric hospital was torn down.

And there was a big
campaign to save it but

Chris Christie made the executive
decision that to demolish it and

it's now just a green park the problem
there was that even the demolition cost

millions of dollars so it's not it's cheap
to even demolish them so I hope that kind

of plays into the thinking of whether to
save the building or knock it down but.

I think one of the cross-cutting
themes I picked up was about you kept

mentioning like the informal knowledge or
the situated knowledge and

I think that links a lot of course
to feminist techno science and

then also your example of a century
the the users or I'm not sure if they were

also participants in the design
of those particular.

But you know so you know valuing that
perspective as part of the design process

I thought was interesting

yeah I think that I think that you know
again the word feminism comes up and

I think that it's it's really important
with all of these things not only for for

you know my project and user of women with
breast cancer but also as as the people

that hold the knowledge of a lot of these
crafts they're there no less skilled in

the craft work is no less valuable than
things like woodwork and metalwork but

because they are more subject to decay
they're more easily forgotten and

all of a lot of the craft work that's
thought of as more feminine craft so

the ones that that are in danger of
dying out because of because of how

susceptible they are to take a.

Moment because I think you know there was
a question in the morning about feminism's

role in all of this and when I was working
at good accounting I was there for

two years we were a group of eight women
who comprise the preservation practice of

the forum and and we were you know we
just wanted to highlight one match and so

you know we could say we are a diverse
group or not just women but but

we didn't find anybody in all that
time which was interesting so

I kind of thought that maybe women
are more attracted to preservation

probably But but then I switched to
arms and I went to this other for

I was the only woman on a seven
person team of all white male

you know men in their sixty's so
so I don't think it's I mean if I

when I go to preservation conference I
think I see as many women as many men as.

This a lot of men but but on the other
side I think there is like this kind of

association that these that I felt both in
India and here are that preservation is

not designed or you know it's kind of like
this thing that you do on the side but

it is not central to design which

which I hope with changing
you know climatic conditions

in the recession are preservation practice
was booming during the recession because

there was no new construction happening
but they were taking care of a lot.

Well buildings.

And maybe I questioned all of you but

it I think if I'm struck
by the old new dichotomy.

In in actually all of
your presentations and

I wonder if you had any thoughts
on if kind of the way you

were forced to use the new because
the old wasn't but if you were.

If you were forced to not work on old
buildings but use the exact same skills

and same perspective on
to suggest a new building

do you think it would change
how the practice of designing.

Newer structures was done.

To them that were being
planned at the same time so

we were also designing maybe a completely
new addition to the existing building and

one of the things that I found most
interesting is in terms of on the loops

is how these are historic on reloads
with all their kind of belts courses and

you know projections and everything they
were not just decorative they were really

effort and water management and
deflection strategies that new on look so

we tried to bring that in our
practice the lessons we learnt

kind of from how these facades were
designed and how badly some of the mid

century stuff were designed in
not having those and seeing the.

Bricks palling and

the water issues in those buildings
the trend of trying to bring that back

some ways to say you know this is what
we've learned from these two new design.

That you could apply that to knitting
equally as well yeah you know I think and

I think it really applies to some of the
things we were talking about in session

one that things are always kind of
depreciating things are growing are or

they're sinking away
nothing is ever static and

I think of that as well with with some of
this knowledge some of it is thought of as

old knowledge some of it's thought of as
new knowledge but you know it all kind of

to me anyway I think it's all kind of
built upon layers of knowledge and so.

You know with with knitting sometimes
you're just following a pattern and

you're making that kind of prototypical
scarf but you're always playing around

with it and you're always playing around
with new patterns and new stitches and

new combinations that that it's built on
things that you're learning from the past.

And I think it's kind of our job to to
when we're thinking about conservation and

preservation to not just say it
needs to stay static that that is

this is what this is like here's you know
that's what lace is you know it's always

been something that's growing you know and
there's a natural ebb and flow to that and

I think it's OK to think about creating
new techniques upon old techniques and

combining the two and and thinking of
them a little having them that together.

Well I think first just want
to say that I mean enjoyed

another set of presentations
that also kind of.

Talk about really the values that
one has what one respects what one

regards what one values
what wants to keep.

The Recognitions of the fact
that things change and

that means the things some things grow and
other things fall away or decay and

how we develop strategies to
either accommodate that or to.

Ameliorate that or
to slow it or the process.

My my question is maybe mostly for
the first one about this sort of

the system you're basically talking about
a medication system that's the two point.

And I'm I'm kind of curious with what
you think that three point would be or

or how it was you were talking if I
understood right about this sort of.

The patient to the user or the person was
actually being read out of the equation

even though her body is
very much in in the process

how would you imagine that going forward
to reintroduce agency reintroduce

responsibility so I mean I think yeah and
it relates to this all the new and

there is a much of course longer history
around diabetes in particular and

the types of ways to address that whether
through you know you can use Of course

like a needle and inject yourself you
don't need a machine to do this work and

one can make that decision but I think
what's really interesting here is that

because what I tried to show was like
three snapshots of different technological

arrangements and one involved two devices
which was the infant pump and the separate

Contin no school glucose monitor and
then the second was the insulin pump and

actually the i Phone app version of that
which replaced at the other physical

device and then the third is now
essentially one company dominating

the whole system and I don't I have

now that I'm comparing that experience
to the previous experiences I am

really seeing how the agency in terms
of what I'm allowed to control and

how I'm allowed to appropriate
the technology for

use is changing dramatically with this new
system and we're still such in the early

months of it in fact next Saturday I'm
going to go to like a three way

a three day or a three hour promotional
event that they're holding and

I'm just very curious about how
the technologies are being imagined and

marketed and sold and how that you know.

Disjuncture between
the personal experience and

I think what's fascinating is the ways in.

Which you know some some of the really
Monday now aspects like the fact that

this new pump actually takes
a double a battery every week

whereas the old one took a triple
A battery like every three months so

just in terms of the intensity of
energy to run a small computer

that has this more algorithmic auto
mode system I mean there are so

many examples that are different in
every way so now I'm thinking like

across the different systems and not just
like which of these is a better system but

just which of these Am i loud to
participate in and I've heard you know

I've learned from the company that some of
the legal and regulatory reasons like for

them to sell a device that is automatic
that is said to be automatic.

Means that they perhaps some of these
technical decisions were made because

of the regulatory system and
that's extremely problematic.

Especially if your quality of life
actually decreases you know so actually

what I'm doing at the moment is turning
off the system like three days a week so

that I can sleep through the night and
I'm at the moment of trying to decide do I

even want to continue with this new
system or just go back to the old one but

the one benefit of the new system is that
it has something called a suspend on low

so it actually will suspend or
turn off insulin delivery if it senses

that your blood sugar is going down too
much and that actually has been a quite

a big benefit so I'm really trying to
evaluate like is it worth that for

you know what actually has been a very
I would say incredibly stressful

experience of just constant interruptions
and caught a constant need for

late more labor then was required
in the previous system so.

This is.

You're.

Going to go.

There.

Yeah I mean I think this is the next
iteration of the thing with so

early on and they literally just announced
I mean they just introduced us last May so

they don't have you know there's not
even a I think what's happening is that

just like with our other software that we
download on our computers like this is we

are the better users like they are these
things are literally being tested on us

the way the same way that like in my other
research I look at driverless car test

beds are we are being tested you
know through our through Facebook

through smart cities and through medical
devices and that's the life we are living.

So what was fascinating when
these three were coming up and

I'm trying to sort of get you
guys in my mind constantly did.

The moment when that first vignette
happens here at a smart city conference

you can sit in in these rooms and
listen about smart buildings and

hallelujah it's nothing will
whether Nothing will age yet

we know everything ages
every component ages.

Or decays a different speeds
these a complicated systems and

the way that they're being designed is to
cut the human out and get standardised for

regulatory reasons there
was a very nice moment and

yours when you said well now that we
this is only a three story building we

don't have to hide these guys and
perhaps that will put our eyes and.

You know the optic back
into the into the loop and

these For
instance I mean I'm just fascinating

fascinated by I think what Mark's
question was those kinds of experiences

articulated by the unwitting beta
testers should actually be put back in.

To the loop of the design and testing
because otherwise the humans are already

being cut out of old smog city or
old smog building kind of.

Kind of systems.

And there's something really nice about
knitting that says there is a moment where

the mistake actually becomes productive
and I'm not quite sure whether that

metaphor exists in these automated systems
where the mistake becomes productive.

I think another way to say that though is
if you look at it like critical disability

studies the idea there is that we are we
should not be looking to fix every

problem because fixing
is about perfection and

I don't know how that plays
out like in your space but

this idea that that whatever one's

ability disability it should be
accepted in its own as a way of being

in the world that I think it leaks nicely
to this morning's presentations about like

a world where multiple worlds fit which
means that you actually have to know

something about the experience of those
other worlds in order to design for

that and I would say that what's been
happening at least with these particular

network medical devices is that they are
they are not being designed they're being

engineered but they're not being designed
at all you know the first screen

I see on this device if I hit
the wrong key is wrong key pressed and

I mean it's like Don Norman in one
thousand nine hundred ninety S.

How designed not to insult users.

So thank you all for a great set of
presentations this question is for

all of you but I think Laura you.

Explicit in talking about
the tension between this sort of

talking about subjective experiences and
your training in sociology but

at the same time as you they're going
through these experiences I think all of

us could objectively relate to them funny
or another about these breakdowns and

how they happen I cite in detention that
you describe in terms of the optics to.

Objectivity kind of recording all
of these and then the subject of

experience the tactile experience and
seeming edgy and your presentation.

Feminist theory there is
this idea of collapse things

that that the dichotomy subjective and
optics of is actually not useful and

we need to collapse that and
think about situated knowledge is so

I wonder how your perspective
into how these experiences and

writing about them fits into that
view of thinking or challenges.

You know I mean for me I just I didn't
choose this project obviously it

just kind of you know happened and I had
been studying wireless technologies for

many years and so it just happens to be
the best way for me to really learn about

especially wireless technologies and the
failures and breakdowns within that and

I very much like of course you know Donna
hare always discussions around fabulous

and fiction than facts and a big part of
the science and technology studies agenda

is of course to talk about the social
construction of of facts and so I think I

just see it that's why I see it much more
in a sense as a creative practice or

it may be an artist artistic and creative
practice that allows me to build the same

sorts of theories that I would build with
data if I was going out and studying.

Other people's experiences or looking at
Smart Cities technologies I just you know

I think it's just a different
way of theory making and and

you know I certainly don't do it at
all to have people I think people

sometimes feel awkward about asking about
that research because it is personal and

it does have these health concerns but
I you know I'm just doing it because it's

that for me it's like the most fascinating
way to learn about these technologies.

But this one is for Lisa can you
walk us through the process from

researching to our product I
was like wondering like does.

Were you intentionally like trying
to solve that problem or yeah

like I'm just like really wondering how
does your process you know that result.

I'm just leaving the room and

I'm just getting I had I have a couple
more I can show you so process thing.

I travel I travel with
large bags of objects.

So just in terms of describing
the process right now

in order to broaden out the research and
lace I'm learning how to do tatted lace

which is a very different type of lace and
so that starts with

making like little things of of
Ted lace and little doilies and

these are very traditional This one's in
progress but it's a pretty traditional

pattern and you can see like a lot of
really bad mistakes in all of these.

And I have no idea what
that will be at all and so

it doesn't start off with a with a human
or social problem as much as it starts off

with a fascination of a certain geometry
of craft or a certain type of craft

I didn't show sides of it but the when
I was analyzing knitting it turned into

bamboo and so
if you can help me by holding this and

that happens I kind of made another one of
the algorithms that made that knit stitch

and that can be applied into different
stitches into different shapes like this

and these blanks can then be
kind of knit together and so

the idea of this I these ones ended up as
these knit together you know they form.

Fabric that's made of wood.

So that ended up being
a lamp that I designed and

that was shown at Bangkok Design Week most
recently but it really is much more of

a material design and that was designed so
that artisans in Bangkok could

could you know grab a stack of these and
design whatever they wanted

because the knitting the shape is is
defined by the shapes that I designed as

well as how they put those together
whether they're knit or Perl basically.

And so the process the process is much
more exploratory of different craft

techniques now that I've just made
a mess of the supposedly I'm.

And usually after several thousand
stitches of doing it some

kind of application emerges of whether
it will just be a material design or

whether it will be a specific problem or
how that specific problem could be applied

to a human problem but
what I found is that most often it

turns into a little bit more of a material
design instead of an object design and

then I apply that material to it to
an object that could be a solution.

Yes Yep I prefer to kind of keep them
open to techniques because the fact of

the matter is I you know I think knitting
is fairly global And I think that lace

making is fairly global but this comes
specifically from a tradition of Croatian

bobbin lace I'm not Croatian I'm
not going to move to Croatia and.

And live on this island and

solve problems I'm not you know
I'm not capable of doing that but

the people that are there in the people
that really create these things could and

this is just a technique to show them
how they can use digital technology and

some of the emerging technology to enliven
their traditional techniques that will

still be done by hand and
still be done in traditional ways and

produce economy hopefully you
know with grant money involved.

So.

Call me everything.

Right.