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Stephanie – Practice storyworld

Fast forward to 2102, mankind’s obsession with aesthetics was the mood of the century. Everyone sought the latest technologies and gadgets to achieve the ideology of a ‘perfect’ aesthetic.

In order to advance the social ladder or maintain your social status, points were awarded by those around you based on how they perceived your aesthetic. Brands and companies vied with one another to invent the most cutting edge technology for consumers.

With that, make.io invented a cutting edge machine that looks similar to the MRI machines in year 2018.

This machine – Make Bot, can zap away all your imperfections and with their plasma skin rejuvenation technology, you can walk out of the treatment with flawless and poreless skin with no down time needed.

Botox? That’s a thing of the past. With its special microlaser, your skin is instantly lifted and wrinkles are gone in a nanosecond. 


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Small Design Decision – Jo-Ann Ng

Image result for is walle scifi
Aw :’-)

I’ve rewatched Wall-E at least 6 times but I think a (not really that small) design decision that was fascinating about this film was the distinguished shapes between ‘new’ and ‘old’ machines/technology.
WALL-E is a boxy (rusty) old ‘outdated’ with sharp edges, compared to EVE who’s super sleek and chic with curved edges, when all her limbs (and head) are retracted, it creates a seamless silhouette.
This transfers to the other robots in the film as well, such as the rogue robots which all have rounded edges even though they’re not necessarily spherical.
I’m pretty sure the differences between WALL-E and EVE are intentional to help with marketing purposes (easier to distinguish, sells the whole star-crossed lovers ish narrative) but it’s pretty cool that smooth edges are somehow associated with the future.

Image result for wall-e rogue robots
Rogue Robot pals

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Share Your World – Joey Ng & Wendy Neo

Wendy & I are in the group called: Developers.
We have changed and improved our Storyworld from Week 8 when we received feedback and suggestions from the class and Prof Andy.
We now present to you our new Storyworld!

(New) Storyworld:
In the distant future 2984, cameras are banned for everyone except the government and the elites. The government has super high security surveillance everywhere, on everything, on everyone.

Art, creativity and freedom of expression is banned and deemed illegal. The government and the elites determine what is art and what can be learnt. They force what they think is art down on the public and persecute all artists. Fine arts are now fined arts.

A black market exists for works of art such as photographs. They are rare illegal goods that can fetch a high price.

Jody secretly loves photography and she makes her own camera and darkroom to take and develop photos. Her camera is made from a beer can and a pencil. Her darkroom is portable. She sells these photos in the black market to earn money for her family. Because photographs are illegal, she tries not to have too many on her in case she gets caught, that’s why she needs to develop them right before she sells them with the portable darkroom. After she has the prints, she would rush to meet her dealer to get the prints off her, exchanging them for money she needs for her family.

Characters:
Jody’s family
Came from a family of artists, painters, photographers, directors. They were all persecuted in the Art Cultural Revolution of 2108. They now work in the art factories of the government, doing menial labour, producing art materials for the elites and their possé.
Mom: Was a post-impressionist painter, now working in a factory producing paintbrushes
Dad: Was a renaissance painter & photographer, now a runner in the admin of art office
Brother: Wanted to be a cinematographer until the Art Revolution of ’64 happened, now working in a factory producing photo paper

Tools & Technology:
Portable Darkroom – disguisable
Developing Kit disguised as a backpack
Photo paper
Film Camera disguised as a beer can

Microstories:

  1. Backstory on art cultural revolution & government: The StART
  2. Almost caught at deal: Found Art
  3. Background on her family: A family that art together stays together
  4. Special client/project: Developing Feelings
  5. Difficult project – brother can’t smuggle photo paper out: Out of Print
  6. Meets fellow developer: Developing Feelings Too

The Story

Jody looks up at the wall along the staircase, staring at empty frames that used to hold photographs of happy memories. A picture of mom and dad at the beach on a sunny day when they were younger, Grandma on her favourite chair in the living room, and Jody grinning with a chocolate layer cake on her 4th birthday. Jody knew which specific frames housed these photographs, but as the years went by, these images were slowly fading from her memory. It had been 15 years ago after all, since the The People banned photography for the masses.

Banning photography was just one part of the Arts Cultural Revolution in 2108. Drawing, painting, sculpting too, to name some from the list. Jody didn’t even know who The People were. She only knew that The People regulated the art all around the city, stamping a black shimmering emblem in the corner of every art piece to show that it was approved to be put up.

Jody’s mom and dad used to be printmakers. But 15 years ago The People in white suits barged into their home, taking away all their craft equipment and prints. The People then fined Jody’s mom and dad for making art. The only way they could pay off the fine was to work in a factory that manufactured photography equipment, something that wasn’t in their field of expertise so that they could not practice their art anymore.

When Jody’s older brother Jared turned 21, he too was sent of to the factory to work. Jody was about to turn 21 in a year, and she wasn’t letting her precious freedom go to waste. She was going to take photographs. A lot of them. And sell them on the black market for extra income for her family. It didn’t help that her mother was getting sick from breathing in toxic fumes at the factory everyday

Earning money wasn’t the only reason why Jody gravitated towards photography. She loved how she could capture beauty in a frame, how a moment in time could be immortalised forever in a photograph. As photography was illegal, there was no way Jody could purchase a proper camera, so she made one by herself. It was fashioned out of a aluminium can covered with black duct tape all over the exterior. A pencil was taped along the length of the can so that it wouldn’t roll about if placed sideways on a flat surface. There was a small hole in the middle, a few centimeters above the pencil which acted as the “lens”, and a slit where photo paper could be inserted into the can. Jared was able to help her smuggle photo paper out of the factory so she could carry on with this project.



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Practice Storyworld – Wendy Neo

This story is set in the future in 2099. Humans have managed to create the highest level of AI, Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI). ASI outperforms the human mind by way of superior speed of thought, enhanced memory, untiring performance, and instant upgradability. Somehow, humans have found out a way to programme ASI such that it is extremely intelligent yet does not want to overpower humans and instead wants to help humans.
Thus humans live in a utopia where robots and machines do all the work and humans no longer have to go out and earn money and fuel the economy because all the robots are doing it.

However, it is not really a utopia, not every thing is perfect. This is because since humans don’t actually have to do much work, the obesity rate is increasing in the city. There are still people that are fit because they take care of their health, but the proportion of obese people to healthy people is growing alarmingly. 

The main character is a 27 year old man called Bill who lives by himself in a small apartment. ASI was just implemented in the workforce 5 years before, thus he never really had to enter the workforce and earn money to support himself. Bill was never into sports, moreover he had a bad back, as a result he grows very obese.

Even though there are devices that help transport obese people, Bill does not want to draw that kind of attention to himself and feels insecure when travelling out in the city because of his weight. He is also tired of being alone, he wants to lose weight and turn his life around. No machine or robot can loose the weight for him, so he is determined to exercise and get fit.

Technology:

LG's exoskeleton suit could help to take the strain off factory workers (Photo: LG)
Back and leg support=


1. Back and leg support to help ease the load when he is exercising
2. Fitness trainer ASI (like a J.A.R.V.I.S that helps you improve your fitness) 
3. Exercise clothes — has a special thread that helps monitor heart beat and important information (i.e. like a fit bit but you just wear it as clothes)
– The sports gear works with the ASI to help create the best workout plan for the person wearing it
– The thread also send electric signals to heart and muscles to make it work harder (to loose weight faster) (non-invasive unlike pills, no side effects)

Genre:
Comedy and coming of age story

How the story will be told:
Through prose with illustrations

Antecedent technology:
Machines, robots and AI

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Practice Storyworld – Joey Ng

Characters:
Xiangyi
Jiang Jun (Older Brother)
Valerie (Mom)
Robert (Dad)

Genre:
Sci-Fi, distant future

Storyworld:
In the distant future, humans are forced to live underground because the environment has been destroyed and too unliveable to live. The Leader of the world decides to reenact the flood like Noah’s Arc to “restart” the world and wash away of the sins of humanity.

The Leader thinks that technology & electricity is the root cause of all these destruction and sins of humanity so He dictates that no electricity and any form of technology will be allowed in the Underground.

Xiangyi who loves photography and art is then on a mission to quickly take photographs of everything, everyone, every sight she loves to store these photographs and keep the memories with her when she need to go to the Underground with the rest of the world.

Tools:
Portable Darkroom – allowing her to develop photos on the go
Developing Tray Kit – strapped on the front of her torso, to develop photos
Photo Paper
Film Camera

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Practice Storyworld – Yukie Miyazaki

GENRE

Dystopian, sci-fi

CHARACTERS

Zachary, Dad, Whales

TECHNOLOGY

Broken hearing aid that allows the character to hear and communicate with whales

PREMISE

Environmental issues and global warming has brought Mother Earth to ruin and not many remain. People are forced to build upwards as everything begins to sink. Many don’t make it. A fisherman and his death son live alone together in the midst of the water and are doing their best to survive. Radiation and other leaks have caused many animals to become extremely dangerous as well, making surviving even tougher. The father also wants his son to hear again and has been trying to put together a hearing aid that will work, but fails time and time again. However, one day his son wakes up realising that he can hear the whales, and what they are trying to tell him is dire. 

STORY

Zachary roused awake as a groaning sound swarmed him. “Wait what?” Zachary touched ears. His face was wet, having fallen asleep in tears. The hearing aid vibrated. Another long moan followed. And another one. And another one. A melody. He touched his ear again. He snapped his fingers, and nothing. There was no sound. But the groans? What were they? 

He listened intently. For a minute there was nothing but the familiar silence, then came another song. He heard a swish, and it was like the tune of it had changed. He felt… sadness. The tune had now become melancholic. 

What was going on? 

He took the hearing aid out, and there was silence again…

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Small Design Decision – Brenda Tan

Movie title: Passengers (2016) 

A small design decision made in the movie is a coffee machine that dispenses different types of coffee to the passenger based on his travel class, by scanning a wristband that contains the passenger’s information. For example, an economy-class passenger like Jim has access to only a regular coffee, whereas a gold-class passenger like Aurora can get a latte. This smart coffee machine reminded me of a smart Japanese beverage vending machine that has an in-built camera that detects age and gender, and then displays drink recommendations based on the data it captures. You can read more about it here: http://retail-innovation.com/japanese-digital-vending-with-facial-recognition  

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Practice Storyworld – Chia Li Hui

1. Story

On a random day, Kate received a video message on her device. The device started to play the message and to Kate’s surprise, she saw herself on it. The message warned her that she should not invite one of her classmates, Joe, to hang out after school. Kate thinks that the message was a prank therefore, chose to ignore it.

When she reached school, she realised that there was a class gathering that day and Joe marked that he was unable to make it. Kate found the accuracy of the message weird but brushed it off and eventually, continues to persuade Joe to attend it. He finally gave in and went ahead with the class but the next day, Joe did not turn up in school.

Subsequently, every morning before school, Kate will receive one video message warning her on the things she should not say or do to Joe. However, Kate continues to ignore those video messages.

One day when Joe suddenly did not turn up for school, Kate found it weird. Kate approached her two other friends and there was a sudden revelation that all of them are receiving weird messages in the morning. At that point, they realized that those messages were serving as a warning of Joe’s suicide.

As days passed, the three of them will come together and discuss their video messages. From there, they found out that Joe was suffering from depression. When Kate finally gathered courage to talk to Joe about it, she found out that he lost his parents on the day they hung out. This caused Joe to resent himself and has always been thinking of committing suicide since that day. However, things did not become better.

One fateful night, Kate received another message, asking them to go to Joe’s house. She rushed to Joe’s house to find Joe trying to commit suicide. Joe was perplexed about the situation as he did not mention his suicide plans to anyone. It was then that Kate told him about what was going on. Joe eventually broke down in front of Kate. 

After that night, things got better, and Joe started to cherish his life together with his friends.

In the second dimension:

The three friends started to reminisce on their days together in front of Joe’s tombstone. They thought about the day they received the news that Joe had committed suicide and passed away. On that day, they recorded a video of themselves. The video consists of the things they wish they could tell their 18-year-old selves, to save their friend. At the end of the day, they left the graveyard together, thinking about Joe.

2. Method

The story will first show the video message that Kate received and how she ignores the video messages. Joe will start showing weird behavior that lead the group to confess everything that they have been receiving. It will slowly progress into how they work together and eventually, managed to save Joe.

The story will then move on to the second dimension where she did not manage to save Joe and the changes in their life without Joe. It will also show the origin on the videos.

3. Technology

The role of the device is to portray how the messages were sent from one dimension to another. It will also show how technology had advanced. The 3-dimensional video messages and the exclusion of phones in the world. The wristband will have to also show how people now video calls each other instead of texting and just normal phone calls.

I think that there is a need to create other materials to prove that the parallel dimensions do exist, and things can be transported from one dimension to another.

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Small Design Decision – Teo Zi Lin

Science Fiction Movie: USS Callister (Black Mirror Season 4 Episode 1)

The small design decision I noticed in this movie is that the protagonist, Robert Daly, harvested DNA from saliva on a lollipop to steal Walton’s son’s DNA and create a clone for his virtual reality game. This cleverly illustrates the potential of saliva to replace blood (which is the golden standard) for DNA analysis in the near future, unbeknown to many. In fact, collecting DNA from saliva is less expensive than DNA from blood, and saliva yields high quantity high-molecular weight DNA. (Read more facts about pros and cons of using saliva for DNA analysis here: http://blog.dnagenotek.com/8-facts-most-people-dont-know-about-dna-from-saliva)

Teo Zi Lin – A0160163R