This is the documentary process of crystallizing my future through the understanding of visions and one's insights. This is the project that was conducted by The Future of Work and Play class at Auckland University where I begin to explore further in the Design field.
Week 1 (7/31 - 8/7)
The Future of AI in Crime Scene Investigation
Week 1, our first studio session in The Future of Work and Play, the lecturers (Hans and Krishna) arranged an unexpected group exercise. We were instructed to depict our lives in 2027 and document our routines down as a diary entry. Later, we paired up with a partner to read our future diaries to each other and analyze the domains they mentioned as they share.
At first, I did not know that I would be presenting my wildest dream to another person, so I have pictured out my luxurious future with all the inventions and ideas I have in mind. But what is more surprising is that my counter partner has such a simple dream, where she enjoying life in the office with her friends and husband. This makes me realize that my dream is not just a universal dream after all.
Later, we were introduced to our first assignment - The Future of X.
Our task was to explore an area of personal interest (work or play) through interviewing experts and researching to develop one novel insight about the future of the chosen domain to be useful in the year 2027.
I started to think about a domain that would interest me, however, this has been proven through my picturized future in the exercise where all the ideas were started from the interior design. So I have made my choice immediately right after the class is ended.
This is where I did some of the researches on interior Design and futuristic ideas to brainstorm out insights as homework of week 1.
Week 2 (7/8 - 14/8)
Professional Interview?
Walking into week 2 with full confidence and ready to learn more. This is when I was another time got surprise by the lecturers. This week we are allowed to put our hand into the real world where we started our very first interview with all the professionals around the world to inheritance their insights and knowledge.
We first started to draft our interview list with all the questions we need to get to know more about our domain field. Without hesitation I put up all the research on top Interior Designers around the world as just to meet up with them has already a big leap from me. But it was not just about the meeting but also learn as much as we can from their insights and experience inside the real work life.
Finding them was not a hard problem to tackle on, however as they are all professionals in their field, being busy is an undeniable fact that everyone has, so getting in touch to get an interview was proven to be difficult for me.
Week 3 & Week 4 (14/18 - 28/8)
Tough time
Move on to weeks 3 & 4, this was the hardest weeks for me since New Zealand just moved back to lockdown level 3 and the campus was closed again. I was feeling depressed due to all the works that are now featuring online and class is held via Zoom. However, it is not a time to feel bad so I continued with my project to get more interviews and finalized my insights. Every week, we are given a task to brainstorming more and more insights because the more we have the better our insight will be.
Breaking through the barrier of depression, I pull out some more works on my Miro board to support my assignment and try my best to work everything out again.
Went back and forth with idealization and sources of Inspiration on the Internet and talks of professionals, I managed to get some insights that I was happy to present it to the lectures.
However, due the being incompetent in the originality I have to get back from scratch and started over to get better insights.
Week 5(28/8 - 4/9)
Starting from scratch
This week is a marathon for me to run and catch up with the project final.
Luckily, I have some thoughts over the vacation I have back in Viet Name's Lunar New Year. It was the time when I got into a bar which resembling those bar of 1900s Hong Kong bar. And this just sparked me on with the ideas of tourism. This is the big turn for me in the project.
First I ran through all the insights that I have in mind on everything that I could relate to my previous week's experiences. Then I put them into the comparison chart board that the lecturer Hans gave out to us to crystallize our insight better.
After the comparison is done I took out the most valuable insight on the board to tackle on and work it out as fast as possible. Even though it is fast, I feel like everything went smoothly and maybe even better results than my previous works due to all the knowledge and experience I learned.
After that, I started working drafting my article for the assignments and I was odd by how much I wrote out before I noticed that the article should only 500 words at maximum, so it took me some time to reduce and compromise all the words down to one final article.
Week 6 (4/9 - 10/9)
Due date - running with time
Last week of the first semester, even though, I started from nothing, I am happy that I have a friend (Troy Nguyen) who is in Viet Nam that works in the tourism field and Lucas who has an acquaintance with a senior graphic designer for a travel company. I was lucky to get in touch and interview them at the very last moment before the due date. I can not say how much appreciation I have for them. Thank you so much.
Under is the video for the project hope you like it.
In the end, I can not say thank more to all the people who help me and to the lecturers of the Future of Work and Play. This is one of the most interesting classes I have ever taken part in. It was amazing how I grew so much after this.