I engaged in conversations during the event and conducted follow-up interviews with some participants. This approach provided a wealth of insightful feedback, reflecting the diverse experiences and perspectives of those involved.
“It’s fascinating how my personal identity was transformed into a map so quickly, yet it perfectly reflected my cultural identity. Truly magical!”
Reflection: It validated the project’s objective of using technology to mirror complex cultural identities, suggesting a successful integration of AI with personal expression.
“Although AI couldn’t generate specific images on the map, participating in this process made me reflect on what truly represents my cultural identity.”
Reflection: This feedback highlighted an unexpected benefit – participants engaging in self-reflection about their identity. It showed that even with AI’s limitations, the project prompted deeper personal introspection, a crucial aspect of understanding cultural identity.
“The AI maps are efficient, but sometimes they don’t precisely reflect personal elements. Could there be an option to manually tweak the map for a more accurate representation?”
Reflection: The suggestion pointed towards an area for improvement, and it emphasises the need for balancing AI efficiency with personalization.
Although using AI drawing tool can meet the requirements of inviting most people without art background to participate in the event and save their time for participation, if I want the event to be more effective, I should provide participants with an option, that is, they can be on-site use other manual drawing software (eg. procreate) to modify the cultural map until they’re satisfied.
“Could this be developed into a platform like the MBTI, where people connect through shared map codes?”
“This could be a great party game, guessing each other’s cultural identities!”
“It’s fun guessing others’ cultures through AI maps, but why not create a platform for us to interact and get to know each other more?”
Reflection: In fact, whether it is to create a test platform similar to MBTI, develop it into a party game, or build a communication platform between people, these feedbacks and suggestions are in line with my goal of this project “to understand myself and foster broader cultural understanding and empathy” are consistent.
Regarding building a communication platform between people, although I have created an Instagram account for this project to display the participants’ personal cultural maps on social media, the influence is too limited and the number of fans is too small. There are even fewer people, so there is no way to achieve the effect of “communication”. At the same time, I discussed this issue with my tutor during the tutorial. She suggested that I can make an app similar to dating software in the future. Everyone can use the generated cultural map as an entry point to get to know and socialise on the platform. Can I create an app or website to realise the idea? I think I’ll try…..
The suggestion of a similar test for MBTI is actually quite interesting, but the scope involved may be more far-reaching and extensive. First of all, the biggest feature of personality tests is that they are categorised. The biggest feature of the personal cultural map I generated is “special”, emphasising the “uniqueness” of the individual and the “diversity” /”complexity” of cultural identity. Secondly, as a personality test, MBTI has certain psychological and scientific basis, although it is currently very controversial. But if I want to use the personal cultural map project as a test to understand my personal cultural identity, I must find experts in cross-cultural subjects to conduct more in-depth and extensive research, use some scientific theories as the basis, and conduct continuous intervention tests to have a chance of realising it…It sound challenge, but isn’t this what our courses need to explore??