(a) The influence of technology and science on our lives
Technology
The word “technology” comprises two parts – “technikos” & “ology” (Technology, 2009). Thus, the literal verbatim derivation of the term technology is literally “knowledge of the skillful and practical” and can be can be defined as the knowledge of the manipulation of nature for human purposes (Technology, 2009). Technology is the application of purposeful information in the design, production, and utilization of goods and services, and in the organization of human activities (BusinessDictionary.com, 2016).
Technology can be described in the following ways:
- Tangible Technology: blueprints, models, operating, manuals, prototypes.
- Intangible Technology: consultancy, problem-solving, and training methods.
- High: entirely or almost entirely automated and intelligent technology that manipulates ever finer matter and ever powerful forces.
- Intermediate: semi-automated partially intelligent technology that manipulates refined matter and medium level forces.
- Low: labour-intensive technology that manipulates only coarse or gross matter and weaker forces (BusinessDictionary.com, 2016).
Science
The definition of science is the observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena. It is in particular used in activities applied to an object of inquiry or study (Explorable.com, 2016).
The word Science comes from Latin word “scientia” meaning “knowledge” and in broadest sense it is any systematic knowledge-base or prescriptive practice being capable of resulting in prediction. This is why science is termed as highly skilled technique or practice (Explorable.com, 2016).
It is a system of acquiring knowledge based on scientific process or method in order to organize body of knowledge gained through research. Science remains a continuing effort on the part of human being to discover and increase knowledge through research. Scientist make observations, record measureable data related to their observations, analyse the information in hand in order to construct theoretical explanations of phenomenon involved (Explorable.com, 2016).
Reflexivity
Reflexivity is the idea that a person’s thoughts and ideas tend to be inherently biased. In other words, the values and thoughts of a person will be represented in their work (Investopedia, 2006).
BREAKING DOWN ‘Reflexivity’
There are two types of reflexivity: personal and epistemological.
Personal reflexivity refers to how a person’s values, beliefs, acquaintances and interests influence his or her research or work. Epistemological reflexivity attempts to identify the foundations of knowledge and the implications of any findings (Investopedia, 2006).
Technicism
Technicism is a belief that technocracy is desirable or inevitable. Also a broad social movement, especially influential in the United States during the early twentieth century (the Technocracy Movement), calling for the elimination of the price system in favour of the government of industry and society by scientific or engineering principles (Encyclopedia.com, 2016).
It is a philosophical, socio-economic and political system that refers to a predominant reliance on technology and technical knowledge as primary benefactors to society as a whole. This is associated directly with the scientific method and applied science, broadly both are essential tools for the development of current technology and vice versa (Wikipedia, 2016).
Influence of technology and science on a day in your life
Science affects us all, every day of the year, from the moment we wake up, all day long, and through the night. Your digital alarm clock, the weather report, the asphalt you drive on, the bus you ride in, your decision to eat a baked potato instead of fries, your cell phone, the antibiotics that treat your sore throat, the clean water that comes from your faucet, and the light that you turn off at the end of the day have all been brought to you courtesy of science. The modern world would not be modern at all without the understandings and technology enabled by science.
Without modern science, there would be:
- No way to use electricity
- No plastic
- No modern architecture
- No modern medicine
Scientific knowledge can improve the quality of life at many different levels — from the routine workings of our everyday lives to global issues. Science informs public policy and personal decisions on energy, conservation, agriculture, health, transportation, communication, defence, economics, leisure, and exploration. It’s almost impossible to overstate how many aspects of modern life are impacted by scientific knowledge (Undsci.berkeley.edu, 2016).
The impact of technology on our lives is unlimited, technology is designed to improve our lives and simplify the way we do things. As technology keeps on advancing, more entrepreneurs are investing large sums of money in tech start-ups; our demand for technology is increasing day by day. Silicon Valley and New York are now being populated by mushrooming tech start-ups, most of these tech companies are relevant, in that they solve our real-life problems, while others are just a waste of time. Many of these tech start-ups are designed to solve simple human problems like finding a date, finding an apartment to rent, discovering new deals and friends near you. So below I have credited some of the best 7 technologies and tech start-ups which I think can change the way you do some things and they can as well improve your life to a certain extent.
- Lockitron
These Smartphone applications are amazing technology that enables you lock or unlock your door from anywhere using your mobile phone.
HOW IT IMPACTS YOUR LIFE:
You know that moment when you have to rush to keep time with a business partner or friend, suddenly you reach in the middle of the journey and you remember that you left your door unlocked, the traffic is tight so you can’t make a U-turn that easily and the other person is waiting for you. That moment can be frustrating, so this is when this Lockitron technology comes in to make your life easier. You will technically be in position to check if your door is locked or not via your iPhone, if not, you can lock it remotely with your iPhone (Ramey, 2013).
The products you use that rely on technology
Social media
Lap tops- adobe software programmes
Cell phones
Television
Cars
Manufacturing products we buy in supermarkets
Internet
Gym equipment
Hair dryer and straightener
Music production
Connecting with others worldwide
How these objects describe your individual daily experience
Social media- this I use daily when I use Whatsapp and Facebook to connect and share things with friends and family around the world. It makes it easy to communicate and get messages across especially if it is important or work related messages.
Lap tops- containing adobe software programmes are used by all graphic design students daily to create new designs and is used entirely to complete our briefs that we have to submit with given deadlines.
Cell phones – I use my cell phone daily to do all kinds of things and the software needs to be updated with technological advancements to make the internet faster and things easily manageable.
Television- gives us entertainment when watching movies, series, documentaries, worldwide news etc.
Cars- my car is made using technology and high quality machinery that helps me get everywhere I need to be, most importantly to college or places in an emergency.
Manufacturing products we buy in supermarkets- makes it easy to buy food daily to satisfy our daily needs
Medicine- made using technology that helps us heal when we are sick
Internet- used to gain information quick and easily anytime of the day if an internet connection is available. This helps a lot when finding information for various assignments for college and reference images. It can also be used to download anything such as music, movies, software etc.
Gym equipment- I love to gym daily and the gym equipment makes this possible because as a young woman in this world it is not safe to run in the streets alone so the technological advancement of a treadmill made it easy and possible to train everything and anything is in a single environment using various machinery and equipment.
Hair dryer and straightener- makes it easy to dry and style hair quickly and efficiently after washing.
Music production- makes it possible to record music for the pleasure of people to listen and entertain them.
Connecting with others worldwide- by telephone, cell phone or social media we are able to connect with others anywhere in the world at any time using these technological devices.
Banking- makes it possible to save money easily and draw it anywhere you want to asong as there are banks available or credit card machines.
- b) Topic: Photography and New media
Three Types of Visual Elements Used in Graphic Design
By Ken Burnside, Demand Media
Graphic design is visual communication. A graphic designer utilizes aspects of how the human brain interprets visual cues to convey meaning and carefully chooses which elements to emphasize and which to diminish. There are a small number of visual elements used in graphic design, and each builds on expectations to catch the eye, to generate an emotional response or to layer information for ease of comprehension(Smallbusiness.chron.com, 2016).
Line
Lines are the most widely used visual element in graphic design. Many cartoonists are able to convey motion, emotion and use space with nothing but a single-weight line. Using bold lines will attract the eye, and the use of lines as a way to separate or link other diverse elements is widespread. Lines can also be created by the omission of colour or elements — a two column page layout creates a “line” down the middle of the page. Lines can convey a lot of design aesthetics with a few strokes and are often used to imply motion and texture to a drawing(Smallbusiness.chron.com, 2016).
Colour
Colour contrasts attract the human eye, and colours come with strong emotional signifiers. Orange and red imply heat and anger, blue implies coolness and distance, while green is often the colour symbolic of nature. It’s not by accident that most science fiction movies make “green goo” the default for “weirdly menacing alien stuff.” Colour provides visual shorthand, and similarities in colour are used to present objects as being parts of a set. Different colour and saturation levels can lend a visual hierarchy to your design. Warmer colours are spotted first, while cooler colours tend to be observed on the second pass-through(Smallbusiness.chron.com, 2016).
Space
Space is the part of your design where the other elements aren’t. White space acts as the backdrop that your other design elements stand out from, or, if used properly, guides the eye deeper into the image. Most of the illusion of depth in an image comes from carefully using white space and coloured areas along with some blurring to give depth of field. White space when designing a Web page is a place for the reader’s eyes to rest between other user interface elements. The basic Google search page is an example of white space used to draw the eye in to the important part of the page. Even people who aren’t designers can tell when space isn’t used properly – the design feels unbalanced, cluttered or busy(Smallbusiness.chron.com, 2016).
Shape, Texture and Form
Shape, texture and form are combinations of the three elements listed above. Shape is colour, and an explicit or implied line. Form is a shape carried into three-dimensionality and may use additional lines, lighting or the use of space and perspective to complete the illusion. Texture is additional lines and additional shading and colour used to imply motion, patterns or three-dimensionality – or to imply characteristics about the subject being drawn. For example, it’s very hard to draw a porcupine without implying some aspects of texture for the quills! In general, as the subjects grow in complexity, these three combinations of elements become more prominent (Smallbusiness.chron.com, 2016).
History of Technical Developments of photography
Invented in the early decades of the 19th century and the subject of numerous advances during the era of Victorian art, photography instantly captured more detail and information than traditional methods of replication, like painting or sculpture. The technical evolution of photography was a piecemeal affair, although a major leap was the discovery of light-sensitive emulsions in 1839, enabling cameras to take black and white photographs. Other important technical advances in the history of photography, included the following.
Photo etching was invented in 1822-5 by the Frenchman Joseph Niepce (1765-1833), who also made the first photograph from nature in 1826. Improvements (in the reduction of exposure time, the daguerreotype) were found by German Professor Heinrich Schultz (1687-1744) and French physicist Louis Daguerre (1787-1851), in 1837, with Daguerre being responsible for the first ever photograph of a person in 1839. In parallel to this, in 1832, the French-Brazilian artist and inventor Hercule Florence(1804-79) had fashioned a similar process, called Photographie, while the English inventor and pioneer camera expert William Fox Talbot (1800-77) was busy inventing the calotype process, which produced negative images. His 1840s research into photo-mechanical reproduction led to the discovery of the photoglyphic engraving process, the precursor to photogravure. The experimental British scientist John Herschel (1792-1871) invented thecyanotype process and was the first to coin the terms “photography”, “negative” and “positive”. In 1851, Frederick Scott Archer (1813-57) announced the findings of his research into the wet plate collodion process, which significantly improved the accessibility of photography for the public, as did the American innovator George Eastman’s 1884 introduction of roll film as a replacement for photographic plates. In 1908, the French scientistGabriel Lippmann (1845-1921) was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for his improvements in photographic colour reproduction. The development of the photographic process was studded with such discoveries and inventions, and many other advances in photographic glass plates and printing methods were made during the 19th century.
Victorian exponents included John Edwin Mayall (1813-1901), who snapped some of the earliest photographs of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert; Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-79), noted for her photographic portraits and mythological images; and Oscar Gustave Rejlander (1813-75), the Swedish cameraman and photomontage expert who worked with Charles Darwin onThe Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.
Twentieth century advances in photographic technology have been dominated by improvements in film and cinematography, leading to new creative forms such as animation art, cartoons and video art.
1850s art
Contemporary art
1850s photography
Contemporary photography
1850s fashion
Contemporary fashion
References
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- com. (2016). technicism – Dictionary definition of technicism | Encyclopedia.com: FREE online dictionary. [online] Available at: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O88-technicism.html [Accessed 1 May 2016].
- com. (2016). Definition of Science – Knowledge Attained Through Study. [online] Available at: https://explorable.com/definition-of-science [Accessed 1 May 2016].
- (2006). Reflexivity Definition | Investopedia. [online] Available at: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/reflexivity.asp [Accessed 1 May 2016].
- Ramey, K. (2013). Impact of Technology on Our Lives – 6 Technologies for Your Life – Use of Technology. [online] Use of Technology. Available at: http://www.useoftechnology.com/impact-technology/ [Accessed 1 May 2016].
- chron.com. (2016). Three Types of Visual Elements Used in Graphic Design. [online] Available at: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/three-types-visual-elements-used-graphic-design-73439.html [Accessed 11 Jul. 2016].
- Technology, T. (2009). Academic and Creative Writing Journal Vikram Karve: The Meaning of Technology. [online] Karvediat.blogspot.co.za. Available at: http://karvediat.blogspot.co.za/2009/07/meaning-of-technology.html [Accessed 1 May 2016].
- berkeley.edu. (2016). What has science done for you lately?. [online] Available at: http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/whathassciencedone_01 [Accessed 1 May 2016].
- (2016). Technicism. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technicism [Accessed 1 May 2016].
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