Complex system:

A system that uses different parts to function as a whole. Examples are an ant colony, an economy or the climate. However, systems that function like this but are reversible, such as the mechanism of a car are not considered to be complex systems

Systems thinking:

Thinking about certain actions and what their consequences can be and what the consequences could be if you skip some steps.

System boundaries:

Form boundaries to get to the essence of a problem and to filter the necessary from the unnecessary. This can help you to set a clearer goal.

Resilience:

Resilience is to make something capable to adjust easy to certain changes and to change these into chances for the future.

Equality:

That everything is the same, to have the same rights and are treated in the same way.

Equity:

Everyone gets adjusted support to their needs.

Social justice:

Social justice is a political and philosophical concept which holds that all people should have equal access to wealth, health, well-being, justice, and opportunity.

Project context

Our project is called blood, sweat & tears. This project is about using body fluids to extract minerals from where we can harvest crystals out of. In our project we both engage an environmental and a social aspect to connect to new earth and the social practice.

The environmental aspect is that we change the way where we mine minerals from the earth’s crust which is normally done to a more sustainable way of harvesting from our own body’s. In our project we want to research if there are enough minerals (salt) in body fluids such as blood, sweat, tears and urine to grow salt crystals from.

The social aspect of our project is about marriage. Marriage is something which has a big cultural and social value and seems to be one of the most important things in most cultures around the world. On the other hand, buying a wedding ring is just a commercial business with loads of cheap shops where people can customize a standard ring to make it “personal”. With our project we want to change this custom by making a ring that is really personal because the crystal in the ring is harvested from your partner and takes time and effort to make.

Marriage

People get married less and get divorced more often.

Marriage is less functional and people in the Netherlands are less religious as they used to be.

People don't see the need to get married anymore, therefor more people get married just out of social pressure.

Mining

Damage the earth

Run out of resources

Bad work environment

Consumers don't know where the crystals come from.

Unpersonal

Harvest body fluids

Endless resources

Sustainable

Cut out supply chain

More personal/ real value

Concepts

Sources