The experience of Course( Joe Zhou)

I'm a bit late to write this...But what can I do? I have been in China for 10 days!

Anyways, I think I'm lucky in John's class since I'm indoor person. I heard the other Think Tank went kind of far outside or made some kind of protest. I am just neither very radical nor outgoing. I enjoy to stay inside and watch doctumentary movies. I finished watching every movie in class. It is the most comfortable way of education for me.

I didn't really touch many new ideas in the course like I told John, sicne I knew them quite ahead. But I made some leap on the further development of ideas. And the course makes me indeed more aware of think deeper about an issue. It is not only about noticing, but finding out origin and future possibilities. Knowing is easy deal. Solving is hard.

I used to be a rigid Greenie, now I am able to be more tolerant. The Short History of Progress is sort of a balancing with David Attenbough's programs, which put the most focus on wild and nature. I get more parts of how human do things instead of how beautiful the nature is. The nature is beautiful; but human beings do have patterns.

It is interesting that I often fall into a situation where girls outnumber boys. In Toronto Humane Society, while I was a volenteer of kitten feeders, I was the only male at my shift for 3 month. Well,girls are very actively speaking! Often passionate as well. In high school it is kind of different. I'm glad that people want to speak.

Anyway, I had a quite fine experience. Hope others can be positive as well.

We liberals just too often go into depressed ends. My cousin in China often comments on the western aesthetic as "werid, frustrating, dark, gloomy, and not pleasant". It seems we have thrown away most of the comfortable spirits!

And in the end...

I taught two sections of Think Tank: Awareness in the fall term of 2008. It was a great experience for me, brought me into contact with some very interesting young people, and reminded me how much I enjoy learning as well as teaching.

In the last few weeks, students prepared presentations dealing with a problem (and its purported solution) that they find interesting. The only limitation was that it had to be a problem that calls for a collective (social, citizenship) response. They also had to consider how they, personally, could make a difference. Can you dig it?

Architectural preservation
Art in children's lives
Caring for people with disabilities
Corruption in Cdn politics
Depression
Food additives
Garbage and recycling in a retail store
Globalization
Handgun violence in Toronto
Human trafficking
Lack of recycling in apt buildings
Nicaragua's plight
Non-violent struggle
Pollution in outer space
Polygamy in muslim and western countries
Problems with foreign aid
Prostitution
Racial discrimination
Religious extremism
Street kids
Transporation fuels and climate change
Wind energy
Women's reproductive rights

Thanks all, it was a real pleasure!

"The Fate of the Earth"

I wanted to share this video with you guys because I thought that it gave an interesting outlook on the fate of our planet. Since we are all designers and artists, this video shows some interesting insights as to how other artists react on the topic of our world's fate.

- Michael E.

art and vanity

In the coming weeks we will be looking into how we, as individuals, are the driver, the response , AND the solution to unsustainable consumption, and how this has come to be. These photos show a piece of artwork by Chris Jordan in which he gathered/arranged 32,000 Barbie dolls, equal to the number of elective breast augmentation surgeries performed monthly in the US in 2006. Consumption doesn't stop with 'things' - it extends right into our bodies. For more of his interesting work in this vein, see the link at upper right of the blog page.

Healthy consumerism

With my consumption journal I organized my findings with a pretty obvious chart looking at whether what I was using was essential for my everyday life or just something I use only occasionally. I decided though to focus on a more human aspect and how my activity and consumption during the day related to my health. I basically decided to categorize each thing as either being a health conscious consumption or not, and I was surprised to find that a lot of my activity is not based on improving my health. I always thought that health was a very important aspect of my day to day life, and to see the facts in a chart stating any differently was unnerving to say the least. Im not sure though if this categorization really works when it comes to any kind of comparison between another persons health chart, because everyone has their own definition of what is healthy. I still think it would be interesting to see what people come up with. 

Zones of Response

Here is a diagram that I showed on the blackboard while we were at FoodShare - it illustrates that key responses can come from anywhere - civil society (you and me), government, or businesses. There are many projects and initiatives that occur in the overlapping area between two of these - for example, when governments fund development efforts in Africa; or when an NGO like Greenpeace works with private industry to develop new refrigerators that don't use harmful CFC chemicals; or when government requires minimum prices be paid for certain goods (like milk or wind energy) to ensure that part of the marketplace (dairy farmers, renewable energy producers) remains viable. Initatives like FoodShare are working at the intersection of all three, and initiatives of that kid are particularly interesting since they exploit the strengths of all major institutions in society.

youtube video

If you have some extra time on your hands check out this music video on youtube that I thought was pretty cool and related to this course: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBvaHZIrt0o It's a specific video for the song "remind me" by Royksopp about our daily consumption and it reminded me of the journals we just did.

"24 Hour Assignment: Nancy Huang."

Comparing the charts “Needs and Wants of 24hr Items“ and “Spending and Not Spending Money in 24hrs” I see a similarity between both of them and they are a co-relationship. I believe my spending in these 24hrs was somewhat a waste because I already have what I need. What I wanted was what I spent on.

The Mafat Conspiracy

Hi, this is Gabe. Sorry, my title doesn't have anything to do with my project, but I thought it was pretty catchy, no?

The story of one man's self discovery began on a Tuesday some time ago. I chose Tuesday to keep a record of all my activities since Tuesday is often my busiest and therefore often my most eventful day. But, boy was I wrong this time. Not only was it a fairly typical day, but I had the runs quite often. As somebody with an enflamed bowel, I tend to go to the washroom more frequently than the average person. I counted around 11 times that I had to go to the washroom and that includes using the sink and the whatnot.

But what probably compounded this problem was the amount of coffee that I consume each day. Even as I write this, I have a nice large dome shaped glass of ice coffee, garnished with a lemon on its edge. I have a love for both coffee and cold drinks and since I discovered ice coffee I've been living in paradise. Thus, probably the calalyst for an increase in coffee consumption.

The only thing that seems to top my craving for coffee is my food addiction. Believe it or not I'm one of those few lucky people that eat at least three meals a day. Although, that Tuesday was one exception unless you count 4 slices of salami as dinner. I did get to eat at both macdonalds and the rocket 88 cafe that day which has made me realize that I don't really eat all that healthy usually. In fact, I ate macdonalds again earlier today which shows how consistent I am at it. It is also quite a waste of paper and other things that they use to package that stuff in nowadays. Saddly, most of my diet consists of fast food.

Aside from all the coffee, I probably don't drink all that healthy either. I finished off my day with a nice bottle of smirnoff before going to bed. I know, it kind of defeats the point since its probably the best time to drink in the morning, before classes start.

I don't really drink booze that often though. I just do it more often lately to deal with the stress of school, with having to commute for more than an hour each day, and with having to deal with the fact that none of these illustration teachers at ocad know what they're talking about. They remind me of a story I heard about a man who sought out every master in the world to learn martial arts. By the end of the story none of the masters knew anything. Maybe my instructors have a great deal of success and experience in the industry, but none of them seem to know how they got it.

The remainder of my day consisted mostly of studying, work, critiques, etc. Rather than actively participate in any social event, instead I tend to get most of my social interaction mainly by chance. I would occasionally run into a person here or there and participate in small talk. This is nothing new to me, but this is probably the first time in a while I ever put much thought into it. Social interaction is probably the weakest thing on my list, with working and washroom time being the most dominant. However, ironically, its through work at school that I get most of my social interaction and if I didn't go to school and just stayed at home then I would probably turn crazy.

Anyhoo, that's my reflection of myself. Hopefully I'll be able to put it in novel form next time.

Good night and Happy Halloween,

-Gabe October 28, 2008

Sarah's Consumption Journal

For my consumption journal, I tried organizing my information into a couple of different categories. Firstly, I differentiated between the things I used that were necessary and the things that I used that I didn't really need. 57% of the things I consumed were necessary and 43% of the things I used were unnecessary. I think this is pretty good, especially because I was very strict with how I defined necessary and unecessary. Another interesting way I organized my material was between expensive and inexpensive. I didn't realize until I started how difficult it is to decide what expensive really means. To a very poor person, a $10 hairbrush might be ridiculously overpriced, but I defined it as inexpensive. I decided that whether something is expensive or not is a personal thing that depends on the person who is defining it. I found that 63% of the things I consumed were inexpensive, and 37% of the things I consumed were expensive. The last comparison that I did was things that I bought for myself, and things that my parents provided for me. I found that 51% of the things I used were bought for me by my parents, and 49% of the things I consumed were things that I bought for myself.

Consumption Journal

I found that the majority of the things I use during the course of my day contributed to a constant, "running" cost. 62% of the products I used (including the frequency of their use) were a financial liability in terms of some aspect of their general application. What the hell, now I know why I'm so broke.

Nate Kuehl, 2305548

Joren Cull's Consumption Mania

The information that I gathered demonstrates that my time is spent engaged in private and isolated activity almost in equal proportion as it is spent in societal interactions with objects. In total 248 contacts were made with objects that are part of my daily experience. Approximately 100 of the 248 interactions took place in the public domain. This represents 40% of all my daily activity. Most of the private interactions involved utilizing objects that I considered essential. These contacts are important in preparing me to join my external community. These readiness interactions involved eating; brushing my teeth, and negotiating the space in my home to access areas that I needed to so that my basic needs for food and hygiene can be met. These interactions represent a total of 60 out of 248 or 25% of total interactions and 60% of all private connections.

The connections made with the external world within a societal context primarily related to utilizing objects in the service industry that allow me to negotiate distance. To travel to my needed destinations, approximately 68 interactions occur where contact is made with objects that allow me access to a specific location. This represents 27% of all interactions and 45.9% of all societal connections.

This information implies that my consumption is focused on completing the essential tasks in my day in a manner that allows me to socially fit in. My contact with objects is primarily linked with the reality of my work day.

Consumption Journal - Derek Eng

The thing I found most interesting about my consumption journal was not what was on my list, but rather what I had originally forgot to put on my list: my eyeglasses, all light sources (from the bathroom light to my desk lamp), the toilet and toilet paper, and the refrigerator. These are things I use absolutely everyday and can’t imagine living without, and I seem to have taken them for granted. But when you realize that much of the world’s population live without many of these things, it really puts into perspective just how lucky we are.

The most meaningful analysis I made was categorizing the data according to which needs the items satisfy on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Once again, I’m struck by the fact that I’m on the fourth level of the pyramid, while billions of people around the world are barely past the first level. It reminds me of the site globalrichlist.com, in which you can enter your annual income and see where in the world you rank. While someone in Canada who makes minimum wage might think of themselves as poor, they are still among the wealthiest 15% of people in the world, richer than more than five billion other people!

This assignment has made me realize just how lucky I am. With the world economy not looking so good at the moment, this just might be the right mindset to have.

P.S. Those who have Karen Simpson have probably seen this really interesting site that’s related to consumption: http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php?id=?view=XXX_09NNN/. It features the work of an artist who assembles prints from thousands of smaller photographs to depict the actual number of items consumed in a certain time period (For example, the number of plastic cups used on airline flights in the US every six hours.)

Alvydas Brazukas - My Consumption Journal

Let me start off by saying I was surprised by the results of my consumption journal. After spending an entire day trying to track everything I used I noticed how long my list got. I could not believe the amount of times I did things, or the amount of times I drank or ate etc. So I made a few graphs to record my work. One thing I wanted to bring up was the amount of times I used water. I think water was something I used the most in my day. I made a chart to show how many times I used water, and in what area of my life. I divided the information into four different categories: using the washroom, hygiene, drinking, and cooking.

As you can see I use water quite often in one day for many different reasons. It made me wonder about the actual amount of water I used and I wish I was able to somehow measure the amount of water used. It would be interesting to see how much water I used in a week, and then in a year. If you could get an average for the amount of water used by everyone in canada in one year I'm sure it would be a startling difference then the amount used in other parts of the world, like third world countries. Then it makes me wonder if third world countries even have access to fresh water, and if they did, would they use it for all their areas of life like I have here? It' s pretty interesting to see how people are surviving in other places of world with a lot less of everything we use. I think it goes to show how the North American lifestyle can be quite lavish, even if it is with something so simple as water. And I think that is something I really realized through the exercise of the consumption journal. Sure I knew all along everything I was using and what was essential and non-essential, but it was until I had written it down and actually saw my list that I realized how much I use alone.

Michael's Consumption Log

To be honest, I wasn't totally surprised when I made my first graph comparing essential vs. non-essential things I consumed throughout the day. Although I thought there would be a greater percentage of non-essential things than essentials, but then I realized that I look at a lot of my activities/property as essential (ie, computer used for work, schoolwork, artwork). Though these things were not necessarily essential for living, I believe they are essential for my overall happiness and well-being.

What really surprised me was the huge difference between manufactured goods I had consumed compared to everything else. About 86% of everything I consumed in one day was manufactured in one way of another and I would not be surprised if that number is actually higher. I then began thinking of how all these things affect me and how they effect my everyday life. I thought about where all this stuff came from and how many other people had/used the same things as me. The very thought of it was almost unbelievable. For instance, how many cigarettes I consumed in that one day was around 10. All ten of those cigarettes ended up on the sidewalk or street somewhere (sorry) and I'm not the only one who does this every day. There are about 5.4 million smokers in Canada... that's roughly 5.4 million Canadian smokers throwing cigarettes on the ground! If each smoker threw only one cigarette on the ground outside just once a day for a year that number would amount to 1.9 billion butts on the ground in Canada alone!

I thought about many other things that I do not need or can live without and it's almost ridiculous. I almost don't know where to go from here....

-Michael

a pie chart from Katherine Toong's journal

Every Sunday I travel to London to teach dance classes for 8 hours. Yes, it does requite a lot of travel within my automobile, but throughout the week I never drive and always walk whenever it is feasible. While at school, home or any public facility, I try to take stairwells rather than elevators but as I live in an apartment and my dog is of the basset hound bread I must use the elevator to avoid long term damage to his leg's bones and muscles!

I found that the item which was used the most throughout my day was my car's remote door opener, looking at my history with recent cars I don't believe I open the doors with the actual keys at all.

Chris' consumption journal

I decided to break down my information into essential and non-essential, because I feel like I got the most out of that graph. A lot of things that I use everyday seem so non-essential, when just considering my primary needs, but so essential when just considering my personal needs. I mean it is possible to walk to school and not take the TTC, but how long will that take? It is also possible to not have a cell phone, but that little device has slowly become apart of my life that I didn’t even realize until I was making this chart. I began wondering about things that I use everyday and wondered if I really do need them, like the cell phone. This made me realize the days when I forgot my cell phone at home, and how helpless I feel when I needed to check the time, make a call or just using it as entertainment device to pass the time. It made me realize that even thought it may seem like some of the things that I use seen like it is non-essential, they have slow became essential things in our everyday modern life.

I also wanted to know when in my day do I use the most. I feel that if I can figure that out, maybe I can cut back a little and save some energy or materials during that time. I have realized I use a lot during my mornings and afternoon. It could be because I did my journal during a school day, when I was busy, taking the bus, printing projects, sketching for my classes and so on. I have also notice that at nighttime, I hardly use much, except for things that I might have on the whole day, like my cell phone. I have also notice I use my computer quite a lot and it seems like I cant live with out it. Just going through my list, I can’t even figure out which items I should keep and which I shouldn’t, this got me thinking about how much I have been brought in by this whole consumption driven economy.

Consumption Journal! (Kaley McKean)

It was a pretty big surprise to take a look at all the things I consume during a day of doing nothing but sitting around at home. And looking over my list now I can think of a handful of things that I used that are so ingrained into my daily life that it didn't even occur to me to write them down! Like my cellphone, or the refrigerator, or my bedroom door.

I split things up into the typical category of essential vs. non-essential, which was harder than I expected. There are so many things that, while not vital to my survival, are vital to my life as I know it. Without things like my phone and computer I would not be able to communicate efficiently - or even make this blog post! Without art supplies I wouldn't be able to succeed as a student and develop a career. Does that make these things essential? Anyway, I tried to narrow it down to things that were actually necessary for me to live, but it was tough.So obviously most of the things I use in a day are non-essential, but it's really not as simple as that, as I'm sure you all know! Still, there is a lot I could cut out if I had to.

Another way I broke things up was into Reusable vs. Non-reusable. I was pleased to see that most of the things I use are reusable. Of course, there's not a lot of things that are reusable forever, so I only applied that label to things that I thought would last me for more than 6 months or so. Interestingly a lot of the reusable items, like furniture, dishes, or clothing, were purchased second-hand or received as hand-me-downs. They're being re-reused! Whereas all the non-reusable things, of course, had to be purchased new. Most reusable items were also things that were shared with my roommate.

Consumption

I felt that the consumption journal was an interesting way to explore how much we take from the world versus how much we are giving back. As much as it was tedious to record my daily activities, I found that I learned a lot more than I had expected to. 

For one, I spent a simple day going to class, hung out with a few friends and finished up doing some homework for the next day. These tasks do not seem so complex at hand but according to my list, they are. I made charts and graphs to represent my data to see what exactly I was using so much. 

The item I consumed most that day was electricity, mainly from lighting. I found that very strange because we are provided with a light source, the sun. It would be interesting to see more buildings and houses designed to incorporate the sun as the major light source.

Jenn's Consumption Journal

When I was recording my daily activities I started noticing things being used quite a lot that I never really paid any mind to.  Doors, lights, pens and paper, my phone, and my computer were all handled quite excessively (though I suppose some of that is unavoidable!).   One of the ways I broke down my data was essential and non-essential.  This definition is actually quite difficult to make in today's society.  Some things seem essential, but they are really just essential to our way of life, not to everyone's way of life.  I tried to weed out the ones that were really just luxuries, and found that most of my consumption was non-essential.

It is interesting to compare different days for the sake of this project.  My original data is from a Wednesday, a regular school day.  When I think about the ways in which my activities differ on a school day from a day off, I find myself consuming a lot more non-essential "luxury" things on my days off.   I also find myself using certain things more, like food-related things, the ttc, money, as well as objects that aren't used on a regular basis.  That led me to another of my sorting methods: by usage.  I sorted everything into items used daily or items not used daily.   I found that most of what I use is used regularly, every day.  However, the amount of stuff I didn't use daily was pretty close to the amount that I did.  This lead me to wonder, does the variable stuff change a lot from day to day?  If there is so much that I consumed strictly on that day (and not every day), how would these items vary on other days?  It was quite interesting to think about the things I use in this way.

George's Consumption Journal

I examined the amounts of time linked to my usage of everyday objects.

As we can see from the graph below:
Much of the time is devoted to comfort-related things. These included my bed, my chair, and lamps. It was hard to define someting such as a lamp as comfort-related versus being a necessity. While certainly not necessary for my survival, in order to do work at night to succeed in school and in life lamps are necessary.

This kind of brought up the notion of what is 'necessary' and what society requires as necessities. From a societal perspective, lamps would be an absolute necessity in order for people to work and go to school the way we do.



Another way I examined the data I collected was to classify the objects as being absolutely crucial to my survival and also the ones that were disposable. An interesting observation I made is that most of the disposable objects I used (plastic/paper bags) were in connection to whenever I bought food or did groceries. This was very interesting to me. The one thing, food, that was completely crucial to my survival (aside from clothes to keep me warm) was also the thing that created the most waste, due to the amount of bags involved.

This has made me think twice whenever I get food now. Vendors reach for the bags almost automatically now. If I really don't need a bag, I'll tell the vendor so.

Consumption Journal - Laura Adams

This exercise made me realize that all the things I use in a day, from a simple pen to the subway station escalators, use up energy in one way or another and go through a long process of either manufacturing, transportation or some sort of alteration for me to be able to use them. I also realized that all the little things you use, even if they seem insignificant like 30 seconds of water running, eventually add up to a considerable amount of energy spent.

The things I used the most of were electricity, manufactured objects and food. That made me wonder what I would do with the manufactured objects once they no longer function or meet my needs, like my kettle or chair. I can give away clothes, but I think I’ll have to throw out the other stuff even though it seems wasteful and harmful to the environment. More of what I used was consumable (things I don’t recycle or reuse) than reusable, but at least it doesn’t create any further waste subsequent to its creation.

Overall this has made me think about how even our most mundane daily activities and purchases will somewhere down the line affect other people’s lives because every person makes a little difference. I think that like cells, we make up a living organ with a role to play in support of the whole body (the global economy I guess), expending energy and contributing energy to keep the engine going.

Consumption Journal: Nolan Pelletier Click to enlarge.

a Day Consumption - Rosalynh Woo

Of the resources I have consumed, I felt it significant to categorize them in two sections: reusable and not reusable. To my astonishment, more than half of what I use was single-use-only resources that become no longer useable and thrown away. The air I breathe 24 hours a day, electricity, gas in my car, foods and make-ups are all manufactured or drawn from different sources around the globe, yet after brief uses, the gathered and manufactured resources are used up, often leaving nothing but wastes behind. While clothes and dishes are washed and reused, such cycle is not permanent. In another words, even ‘reusable’ resources are abandoned after they lose their intended functions.

With the category of ‘reusability’ behind, asking whether resources I consume are recyclable reveals predictable yet terrifying facts. More than half of my consumed resources are not recyclable. Those would include consumptions of foods and services. But, comparing what are recyclable and reusable, it came to my attention that a majority of resources are neither recyclable nor reusable. Shampoo and cooking foils, for instance, are designed for single-usages that, after used, pollute water and earth as well as air when incinerated. Obvious as it seems, majority of my consumptions lead in one way or another to serious pollutions despite the number of facilities to reduce the impact of pollutants released daily into nature. With such destructive consumptions of resources repeated daily and weekly, people cannot bother themselves with news headlines about unprecedented changes in global weather and ecosystems and the reduction of the ozone layer.

CONSUMPTION JOURNAL by Anna Totska

A Sunday Consumption

My graphs are not the most fancy because I am computer retarded (my apology). So I hand rendered these bad boys and hopefully it looks clear to anyone who is looking at them. Anyway, my first graphs, my lists consist of three category of: technology must have in an average day, technology able to live without for a day or two, and basic need. My second graph is just two element, survival and useless.

My first one is basically based on what an average person would need now a day, stuff they cannot absolute live without for a day. To give some examples from my list, stuff such as papers, light, desk lights, pen, and pencils are just some of them.

My second one is based on the fact that if I was thrown into the jungle to survive like our ancient ancestors did when they only knew how to say "ooga pooga". What are the stuff I consume that is apparent to the survival and what are some just completely useless. If I was to bring an eraser into the jungle to survive, what can I do with that, erase my dangerous surrounding? Only cartoon can achieve that, and unfortunately I live in a world where that action is not possible.

To be honest, I'm not unhappy with anything I consume or was overwhelm with how much stuff there was. I don't think there was a whole lot that I can say that I can cut back from my life. Maybe other than TV? I do pay attention to what I consume normally, but not as detail as making a list of it (even though I didn't bring this up in the group discussion). I think it's because I never did have a whole lot when I was growing up, so I don't usually take things for granted (not trying to teach a lesson here, so please don't take it the wrong way). I've always pay pretty close attention to what I have and what I use. Plus, I don't have a lot of money, so that limits any crazy spending. If I did have a lot of money right now, man, talk about the stuff I would want to get, a snowboard, better snow jacket, a car, and I can go on for pages. And my second graph for survival would probably only take up less than 10 percent by then. I think sometime we consume depending on our own condition. If we were poor, I don't think any of us would be very surprise about our list, but if we were rich, then we'll see something very dramatic.