.wk15. Blobjects

1) The 'blobject' phenomenon took off in the ID (industrial design) profession in the 1990s. Why?

Though the blobject was spurned by a changing culture mixing lives with the fluidity of technology, it propelled into such a big phenomenon because of CAD, modeling techniques and the development of new materials, production methods and rapid prototyping.

           

2) Which year in the 1990s was a watershed?

            1998

3) What three other products were introduced this year that were good examples of blobjects?

            New Volkswagon Beetle

            “5 flavor” Apple iMacs

            Nike Triax watch

4) On page 29 of "Shaping Things" Bruce Sterling describes when a 'gizmo' becomes a 'spime'. Copy the sentence here. ( actually found on page 23)

“When the entire industrial process is made explicit, when the metrics count for more than the object they measure, then gismo become spimes.”

5) On page 45 of "Shaping Things" Bruce Sterling describes a defining characteristic of a Synchronic Society. Quote him here.

“A synchronic society generates trillions of catalogable, searchable, trackable trajectories: patterns of design, manufacturing, distribution and recycling that re maintained in fine grain detail.”