Living within technology. Technology living within you.

It’s awful being me.

I don’t often encounter others who choose to live far, far outside the box. Those who live deep inside the formal structures and language of concept development seem quite a rare breed. We must scrutinize, dismantle and dissect every single piece of the technological world around us to inquire whether it is fit for purpose.

As one journeys through life every situation must be scrutinized for contradictions and all solutions must be assessed with a critical eye.

Unless you are entirely surrounded by nature, almost every single thing around you was designed by a person who was solving a problem. We’re all so used to this technology that it becomes an unnoticed part of our environment. We take it for granted, and we’re supposed to. It was all designed with this in mind. However, if you are warm and content, and the lights are on and you are reading this half a world away, it is worth taking a moment to appreciate the marvel that surrounds you.

From the information technology before you to the very paint that may colour the walls, all of it was designed by a person who saw a problem and solved it. Consider those who may have worked hard to design their titanic machines that generate the power delivered to your home, or simply created the handle on the door to your room.

To design the most mundane item that you can see right now may have taken years of study. Consider the job interview some humble engineer had to ace to design some small component of the headphones that you may be wearing, or your laptop keyboard. Consider the army of technicians who designed the jungle of technology in between.

Consider for a moment all of those careers, struggles, personal triumphs and disasters. Consider all of the problems, from personal to technical, that they had to solve to help you live in comfort and happiness. And then think…

..what problem were they solving!? Did they solve it well!? Did they get it right!? How could it be better!? Crikey, why did they do it that way!? They should have done it this way! Are you kidding me!? This design is a joke! Were they even trying!? How embarrassing! This one looks like a Friday afternoon effort for sure! Why, why, why, why, why, why?

Perhaps I can offer some impression of what it’s like to see the world in the way that I do, because of what I do, and the way that I do it. A suitable example is provided by a neat design.

It’s a knife a fork and a spoon. Three of the simplest and most commonly found tools. A big portion of the world use these tools every day and don’t give them a second thought. And yet, some designer out there saw a problem with these ubiquitous tools and solved it. It’s quite attractive and has the appearance of an elegant solution to a simple problem.

However, attractive design will always draw my attention. Not because of the aesthetic appeal, but because aesthetics are often a feature of the innovation theatre. This is the sort of observation that will start the process of deduction, over which I have little control. Is this attractive because it is an elegant solution, or is the aesthetic actually hiding an inelegant resolution?

Is this beauty, truth?

After all, returning to the knife, the fork and the spoon, seeing the world from my perspective, to identify the problem this designer actually solved is not quite so clear. This is where having a formal language to describe the mechanism of problem solving comes in very useful. It allows us to describe the solution even if we don’t yet understand the problem.

To me, the solution to the problem presented by this knife, this fork and this spoon looks like nesting. One object is inserted inside another. From here, perhaps we can work backwards to determine the problem actually solved. What kind of contradiction does nesting usually resolve? For example, nesting is often found when objects must be both large and small.

The telescopic behaviour of a radio antenna or the leg of a camera tripod offer examples. These structures must be long when in use, but short when in transit. With such a common use for nesting in mind, then perhaps the knife and the fork and the spoon must nest inside one another to save space. This nesting results in a knife and a fork and a spoon that consume less space than sets of cutlery usually require.

Many would look at this design and conclude that we have before us a cutlery set that is both large and small. But not me. If you’re me, you keep going. After all, do cutlery sets actually suffer from this problem? And if they do, does this nesting actually solve it? I’m thinking about the cutlery I usually employ. The cutlery I am familiar with. I’m looking at that redesigned, big fat handle required to nest the other items inside, and I’m not convinced.

Observe how cutlery usually stacks. Cutlery is often flat, and that fork and spoon are actually conformal. Cutlery sets stack one on top of the other. Cutlery sets don’t really suffer from a space problem, and if they do, they stack.

Also, if you’ve had to fatten the handle of one tool to incorporate the others, are you really attempting to save space?

No.

So what problem does this redesign of knife, and fork, and spoon actually resolve? If this nesting does not solve a space problem, what other problems does nesting solve? Perhaps it resolves a weight problem. Perhaps these tools employ far less material than typically employed by a knife a fork and a spoon.

The tools must be both light and strong, and the material strength has been selected to resolve the physical contradiction. The material employed must be both strong but not strong. Lightweight plastics are formed into a framework to provide strength. The solution strategy employed is therefore taking out, and porous materials, not nesting.

Perhaps this frame like structure is necessary to impart strength on weak materials. This means that the nesting behaviour is actually a by product of this weight saving.

But is it really? Are you convinced by this argument? Looking at the chunky plastic structure, I’m not. So what is this nesting for? Are there any other problems that nesting typically resolves?

Nested objects all occupy the same location.

With one object hidden inside another, both objects occupy the same space. If one object is placed inside another, two objects become one. If a knife a fork and a spoon are nested inside one another, Three objects become one.

These tools work together. They work as a team. If we split up the team, the team suffers. When might a knife, a fork and a spoon be in danger of becoming separated? In storage? In transit? Rattling around inside a picnic hamper? Or living at the bottom of a rucksack? Under these circumstances, these three tools can become separated from one another.

And alone, they are far less effective. Keeping these tools together in these environments presents the cutlery set with a contradiction. They must be both one item and three items. One item in storage, three items in use. This is resolved by separating this contradiction in time. At one time they are one item, in use they are three.

This is achieved through a nesting strategy. These three tools nest inside one another to make three items into one.

But we’re not done yet. Not yet.

Our design language offers us a solution strategy that leads us back to yet another question. Three must also be one. Now that we understand the problem addressed and the solution proposed, can we think of other solutions to this problem?

How else might three objects become one? A bag? A box? A joint? A magnet? An integrated clip? A piece of string? A rubber band? Merging the tools into one object?

So many options for three to become one.

This is what it’s like, doing what I do, in the way that I do it, seeing the world the way that I see the world. Every contradiction must be identified and the elegance of every solution scrutinised and addressed.

And when considering this knife and this fork and this spoon, this whole chain of events, this whole line of reasoning, took on a life of its own that lasted about a minute.

It’s exhausting being me.

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