Design Aesthetics @ UPSI: May 2013

Tuesday, 28 May 2013

List of Students Presentation Recordings (Audio)

Saturday, 11 May 2013

Assignment 2 of Semester 2 (2012/2013): Competition Design

I participated the Malaysia Technology Expo 2013 in Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC), Kuala Lumpur between 21 and 23 Feb 2013. One thing I learned from this event is that judging from the financial perspective, the REAL winner of the expo is the organizer, rather than those who won the best awards. For instance, UPSI spent over RM100,000 to participate in this expo, and the cost includes the rental of exhibition space and the construction, decoration and maintenance of the university booth. The printing of A1 size posters, the transportation and the accommodation of exhibits, participants, demonstrators, etc, really cost a lot of money. What's more, UPSI's booth was one of the smallest as compared to other public universities in the expo.

This experience prompted me to make "competition design" as the second assignment of this course. This group assignment requires students to design a competition where they can prove their acquisition of knowledge and skills in Design Aesthetics.

To begin with, I guided the students to form a group that consists of 12 to 13 people in which each of the members choose one role listed in the Belbin’s team role theory (see Fig 1). I randomly chose team members for all the team, despite receiving fierce resistance from the students. Among the 123 students I have in this course, there were repeated students, students in their 5th, 4th, 3rd and 2nd semesters. They preferred to work with those they like or used to work with. I justified that in real life, we don't normally work with people we like or prefer; worse, we constantly have to work with people we dislike.

Fig 1: Belbin's team role

After accepting the fact that they have to work with whoever I assigned to the group, the students began to form Facebook discussion groups to discuss and negotiate individual workload. They have to answer the following questions collectively:

a. What is the competition?

b. Who are the targeted participants?

c. When would the competition be held?

d. Where would be the competition be held in UPSI?

e. Why would UPSI organize the competition?

f. How to evaluate the entries of the competition?

I observed what they had done via Facebook group and arranged for the assessment of their proposal presentation. To make sure every student contributes to the group work, I insist to have each student presents for 2 minutes, explaining how they play their role in the group. Other students who play the same role as the presenter were guided to assess the performance of the presenter. This forced all the students to become attentive to every presentation.

They had to present:

a. The competition proposal

b. The list of potential judges in UPSI (with justification of qualification and experience)

c. The evaluation forms:

i. Aesthetic evaluation form

ii. Creativity evaluation form

iii. Other appropriate forms

Wednesday, 1 May 2013

Meanings of "Beautiful" in various languages

My lecture on beautiful has reached a bottled neck as it becomes repetitive to me to explain the same thing for the fourth time. In this semester, instead of me lecturing about what does beautiful mean, I asked several students to share the meaning with the class.

Beautiful in Tamil: —அழகான (pronounce as 'alege'): It is meant only for female.

Beautiful in Arabic:

—جميل (jamil) for male

—جميلة (jamilah) for female
Beautiful in Bahasa Java:—Ayu: gadis ayu
—Apeik: for things

Beautiful in Brunei: Bisai (for female, menyeluruh)

Beautiful in Kedayan: Lawa (for female)

Beautiful in Kadazan - Dusun language
The sharing was followed by two Kadazan - Dusun students, they explained the following:

—Olumis / olundus / Oligang / olidang(Dusun(Dusun): for both gender (more towards female)
—Awantang (Dusun): specifically for male / handsome
—Ogingo / awanus (Dusun): for things (in Tambunan, Papar and Penampang areas)

Fig 1: Areas where Kadazan - Dusun live in Sabah.

When I google-ed the word "olumis", I found this photo matching the concept of olumis and Sabahan.

Fig 2: Miss Earth Sabah Top Four at Olumis Borneo Batik House. Source: Rungitom Life

Beautiful in Iban Language

—Bajik : for female, berasal daripada satu mitos, mengenai seorang perempuan yang bernama ‘Kumang’
—Sigat: for male, pasangan Kumang, namanya ‘Keling’

Fig 2: Miss Kumang Gawai Festival 2013, Natalie . Source: New Sarawak Tribute.

Fig 3: Mr Keling Gawai Sibu 2013, Mr Kevin Kedit. Source: Borneo Post Online

Beautiful in Chinese Language

Do read this article: 《不懂羊就不懂中国人武汉学者详解羊的传人说》