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Tuesday, August 27, 2013
The Imaginary Factories Inside All Our Gadgets
WHAT IF AN IPHONE WASN’T JUST A GADGET BUT A PLACE WHERE TINY PEOPLE WORKED? THE IMAGINARY FACTORY SERIES EXPLORES THE INNER LIFE OF OUR TECHNOLOGY.
The problem of explaining how technology works to an inquisitive kid can befuddle the best of parents. It’s easier to explain to a kid how a radio works if you pretend that, instead of transistors, there’s a tiny orchestra inside every box. Likewise, a television is the stage of a versatile, microscopic theatrical company; a computer, filled with wizards and mathematicians.
Maybe it’s because grown-ups resort to such whimsical explanations of technology that there’s something so deeply satisfying, as an adult, to think of our gadgets as filled with a race of tireless Lilliputians. Twenty-eight-year-old PUK artist Jing Zhang’s work explores the imaginary world of the tiny imaginary people who live inside our iPhones, televisions, cameras, and teapots. Her Imaginary Factories are very charming, indeed.
Part How Stuff Works, part Polly Pocket, Zhang’s Imaginary Factories peel back the layers inside our favorite devices to reveal the whimsical factories within. Her work isn’t going to teach anyone how to tear down an iPhone or a digital camera, but it does humanize our technology by making us think about it more intimately: the gadget, not as a sandwich of silicon and glass, but as a workplace some tiny munchkin might conceivably spend 40 hours a week in.
"One thing that really intrigued me in the creation of Imaginary Factories was Ikea furniture manuals," Zhang tells Co.Design. "They are just the amazing, beautifully designed pieces of universal instruction." What Zhang wanted to do with her Imaginary Factories was borrow the design language of an Ikea brochure and bring it to life with as much vividness as a kid’s playhouse.
In Zhang’s designs, for example, Apple’s iPhone becomes a long, mostly flat radio station. An antenna connected to a giant mainframe sucks in and spits out broadcast signals, while blue-collar pixies man the intricate clockwork of the camera and gesture control apparatuses. A digital camera, on the other hand, is like a multistory printer, in which different wavelengths of light are combined into a single vibrant photograph. A cuckoo clock doesn’t just house strange clockwork birds but actual people, pulling on cords and working levers. And in Zhang’s world, even something as simple as baking a cake can be explained with the metaphor of the munchkin.
"I believe there is a miniature world in everything," says Zhang. And she’s right, of course. Our gadgets may not be filled with tiny people, but like any factory, they do have inner lives to be explored. Zhang’s infographics might not explain to archeologists of the future the specifics about how the technology inside an iPhone actually worked, but that’s not what they’re for. Zhang’s Imaginary Factories aren’t so much a glimpse inside our gadgets as they are a glimpse into the child within all of us.
You can explore Zhang’s other work here.
Big-picture thinker. Likes the window seat.
Photo by Dragon Images/Shutterstock
Introverts, rejoice! The Internet thinks your glorious idiosyncrasies and private vexationsare adorable and that you are worthy of complex care and feeding. Yes, it's great to be an introvert in 2013! So how do you know if you are one?
Huffington Post’s popular diagnostic, "23 Signs You’re Secretly an Introvert," says you may claim membership in this elite club if “idle chatter” fails to thrill you, if networking “feels disingenuous” (you “crave authenticity in [your] interactions”), if you “have a penchant for philosophical conversations and a love of thought-provoking books and movies,” if you’re “geared toward intense study and developing expertise,” if you “have a keen eye for detail,” and if your habit of “thinking before [you] speak” gives you a “wise” reputation. There’s more: You might also be an introvert if you “look at the big picture” and if you prefer the window or aisle seat on buses.
I always thought I was an introvert because occasional bouts of solitude recharge me and lots of excited conversation with new people eventually turns me limp. But given the above lofty criteria, maybe I'm actually an extrovert? Luckily, Gawker’s Caity Weaver has come out with a list of “15 Unmistakable, Outrageously Secret Signs You Are an Extrovert.” They include:
You interact with other humans in orthodox ways and sometimes it’s fun and sometimes it’s not and mostly it’s whatever.
When you want to stay in, you just do it without making a big, aggrieved production about how it is absolutely essential for you to stay in sometimes—you need to do it, you just have to recharge—because you have extreme intermittent photosensitivity...OF THE SOUL.
You speak at a volume perceivable by humans.
So maybe I am, secretly, an extrovert. Or an ambivert, which is a mix of the two personality types. This makes me a little sad, since the cachet of the introvert seems to have skyrocketed recently: A great piece by Sandip Roy, “The Introvert Strikes Back,” posits that “the tables are turning … The Introverts Rights Revolution … might well be upon us.” Books like Quiet: The Power of the Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talkingand articles like “Why Introverts Can Make Excellent Executives” imply that introversion is marketable. And, anecdotally, sighing over your “old lady ways” and “social awkwardness” has become a bit of a humblebrag—as if you can’t wait to get the check, go home, and work on your novel while your silly friends fritter away their youth at some gross bar.
So why the cultural apotheosis of the lone wolf? Why has she captured both our admiration (with her supposed profundity) and our sympathy (with her supposed fear of social gatherings)? Why does she get to climb the Parnassus of nerd-cool, one commendatory listicle at a time, while friendly, tail-waggy extroverts are left in the dust?
It’s the Internet’s fault, writes Amy Grey in the Sydney Morning Herald. The online balance of power between introverts and extroverts is totally skewed. Grey says that “the Internet has become an introvert’s playground,” allowing them to “perform to a captive and sympathetic audience.” Online, they control the terms of their social engagement. They can unplug at any time. And yet they still enjoy the benefits of communicating with others, of feeling heard and valued. (This makes the Web a great place for shy extroverts, too. They can interact from a distance, take time to compose their thoughts, and present a safe, curated image to the world.) Drawn by these advantages, introverts and shy extroverts flock online, where they produce lots of introvert/shy extrovert clickbait (seehere, here, and here). And then the poor, conforming regular extroverts, who just want to get along with the group, adopt the new norms, the ones lionizing introspection and alone time, and soon enough our nation's bars and restaurants will be empty, with everyone busy at home being "introverted."
Of course, the scientific definition of introversion is different from the Internet's definition. The introvert label doesn’t mean you are scared of others—that’s shyness—or that you contain mental and emotional depths incomprehensible to the trifling masses. It merely describes a person who prefers interacting in smaller social groups and occasionally wishes to be left alone. How trendy
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