Beyond Initial Ideation

I spent a lot of time working on my mindmap, trying to break things down and really consider every different direction I had. I tried not to be too specific just yet, but to really just try and figure out what would be interesting for me to work on. Before doing the mind map all my ideas were mostly mechanics — things like "take a lot of a small thing that is equivalent to one big thing and do something symbolic with it". I couldn't really break through all these mechanisms I wanted to explore to an actual topic without feeling like I'm forcing it. The mindmap helped me map my interests — completely ignoring the technical aspect at this stage (I'll figure it out when I get there). And viola! I've found an idea I'm very excited about that I feel is coming from the right place, and it is both relevant and will allow me to learn new skills I'm interested in (hopefully!).

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There's still a lot to figure out, but it's going to be some sort of device (form factor TBD) that gets real-time data of news articles from various sources. It will (hopefully) perform some sentiment analysis on said articles, and rate them on some scale (I'll have to figure out exactly what works and watch out for pitfalls). So the device will visualize a total live score, and will serve as an indicator to current events.

Now there are two main directions I'm thinking of taking this, and again — there's still more questions than answers but one step at a time...

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#1: The Red Line

Topic: Society, migration

Attribute: data driven, critical

The Red Line is meant to be this somewhat absurd, critical device that lets you decide where... your red line is and monitor when it gets crossed.

In the recent years having a "red line" kind of became a thing in my conversations with family and friends back home. I think it became a thing for a lot of people. We would ask each other "Well, where's your red line?" and tell ourselves that once it's crossed we will leave the country. This was going on even before the war (there was a whole government coup thing going on and we were on the verge of a civil war — which is still happening in addition to the war-war).

But the funny thing is, for a lot of people the red line keeps moving. Things get worse and we're like frogs in a gradually heating pot of water — still there, not noticing we're boiling to death. That said, I only got the idea because so many of my friends have either already left the country or are trying to figure out how to do so. I'm lucky for not having to make that decision at least until I graduate.

The device will be something that can be put on a table, like a desk watch or a radio. It will have a meter (imagine something like a speed meter, or radio frequency slider) that gets updated in real time, and will fashion a movable red line that a person could position across the meter to mark where their red line is. Wether they actually get up and leave when the meter reaches it or not — that's up to them. Wether they still can — not as much.

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2#: Current Events (temp name)

Topic: Society, awareness

Attribute: data driven, kinetic

Same base, but this direction is more about creating this monumental object (not necessarily huge, just like in the sense of feeling monumental, timeless). It will have a moving part — something that goes up and down, or rotates (will need to see what feels right and works conceptually).

I have been finding myself in a constant struggle with keeping up with the news. I get sucked in when I do read it, and it usually makes me very sad. So I'm trying to avoid it, but I also feel like I need to know how "things are going", I can't live in a civilized society and be detached from reality (I also constantly have this kind of primal fear that something bad will happen to my family and friends back home).

Current Events is meant to be reflective of the current state of the world (or a place)— what's the score, are things better or worse? So It would serve as this indicator / compass of where we're at as a society. I really don't want it to feel presumptuous, but more... critical. I would want people to kind of look at it and see if it fits their idea of how things are, and question their awareness; perhaps they're so well-informed they can disagree with it; perhaps it'll lead them to become more aware of the world outside.

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General thoughts / questions

1. Should the data be global or of a specific place?
2. Good news are overwhelmingly underrepresented in most media outlets. I should look for references on how to maybe account for that bias.
3. Is the data accumulating? Does it ever reset? How do I keep the score as neutral and "fair" as possible?
4. The middle point should probably not feel like a balanced point?
5. Should there be any indication of when there's a new data point? Should it make a sound? Will the sound a motor makes work well?
6. Is this even achievable? Considering the fact that I don't know how to do most of what I'm going to need to do... How could I scale it down if I had to?