Media Designers: Zhengxin Xi and Dustin York
Zhengxin (Ina) Xi claims a prolific breadth of agency and freelance experience as a designer and illustrator. Her primary focus is on creating innovative ways of expressing narrative tales. One thing that Zhengxin found compelling about this particular project is that the educational function of this system generates a lot of social interaction, so that the technology itself starts to recede behind the human activity. She also found that another outcome of this type of community-based literacy education is that the learning process changes the public space of the village. The environment becomes 'enriched' in terms of it being representative of the collective memory of its inhabitants.
Dustin York has spent his professional life as a graphic designer with a considerable variety of experience working with design firms and also by freelance. His interest in design lies mainly in how it can relate to and affect the world at large. What he drew from this project was that the most effective solutions were ones that specifically attempted to find harmony with the way that people already learn and interact. In this way, the project to him was less about creating something totally new and more about finding honesty and usefulness in the system that was created.
Zhengxin recently earned her degree from the graduate Media Design Program at the Art Center College of Design, while Dustin is expected to graduate in 2012. Both are interested in how accessible technologies can be utilized to change perceptions and open up new possibilities, and that is precisely what drove the Sharing the Knowledge project in the direction it did. There are opportunities for progressive modes of interaction at the world's fingertips, Zhengxin and Dustin believe that this type of exploration is what it means to participate in this dynamic age.
Feel free to contact Zhengxin at zxi@inside.artcenter.edu and Dustin at dyork@inside.artcenter.edu.