Announcements & Calls For Things Archives

Thrilling Wonder Stories..London Edition

WONDER STORIES 3
Live in London and New York Oct 28th

Created by
Liam Young [Tomorrows Thoughts Today]
And Geoff Manaugh [BLDGBLOG]

In Association with the Architectural Association, Studio-X NYC, Popular Science

We have always regaled ourselves with speculative stories of a day yet to come. In these polemic visions we furnish the fictional spaces of tomorrow with objects and ideas that at the same time chronicle the contradictions, inconsistencies, flaws and frailties of the everyday. Slipping suggestively between the real and the imagined these narratives offer a distanced view from which to survey the consequences of various social, environmental and technological scenarios.

Wonder Stories chronicles such tales in a sci fi storytelling jam with musical interludes, live demonstrations and illustrious speakers from the fields of science, art and technology presenting their visions of the near future. Join our ensemble of mad scientists, literary astronauts, design mystics, graphic cowboys, mavericks, visionaries and luminaries for an evening of wondrous possibilities and dark cautionary tales.

For the first time, Wonder Stories will be simultaneously hosted in London and New York and Popular Science will join the Architectural Association and Studio X NYC in coordinating the event this year. Join us for the third event in the series as we chart a course from science fiction to science fact with talks, a hands on taxidermy workshop, animatronic guests, swarm robotics demonstrations, datascapes walking tour and live movie soundscapes.

Free to all. OCT 28 1200 – 2200 at the Architectural Association London and OCT 28/29 at Studio-X NYC

The event will be streamed live streamed here and you can follow the twitter feed with #tws3

Hosted by
LIAM YOUNG (‘Tomorrows Thoughts Today’ and the AA’s ‘Unknown Fields Division’)
MATT JONES (‘BERG London’, Design technologists)

VINCENZO NATALI
Director of Splice, Cube, and forthcoming films based on J.G. Ballard’s High-Rise and Neuromancer by William Gibson

BRUCE STERLING
Scifi author and futurist

KEVIN SLAVIN
Game designer and spatial theorist

ANDY LOCKLEY
Academy Award-winning visual effects supervisor for Inception,compositing/2D supervisor for Batman Begins and Children of Men

PHILIP BEESLEY
Digital media artist and experimental architect

CHRISTIAN LORENZ SCHEURER
Concept artist and illustrator for video games and films such as The Matrix, Dark City, The Fifth Element, and Superman Returns

JULIAN BLEECKER
Designer, technologist, and researcher at the Near Future Laboratory

CHARLIE TUESDAY GATES
Taxidermy artist and sculptor, to lead a live taxidermy workshop

DR RODERICH GROSS AND THE ‘NATURAL ROBOTICS LAB’
Head of the Natural Robotics Lab at the University of Sheffield,to lead a live Swarm Robotics demonstration

GAVIN ROTHERY
Concept artist for Moon, directed by Duncan Jones

GUSTAV HOEGEN
Animatronics engineer for Hellboy, Clash of the Titans, and Ridley Scott’s forthcoming film Prometheus

SPOV
Motion graphics artists for Discovery Channel’s Future Weapons and Project Earth

ZELIG SOUND
Music, composition, and sound design for film and television

RADIOPHONIC
Throughout the day we will be accompanied by electronic tonalities from Radiophonic

NEW YORK EVENT

Hosted by
GEOFF MANAUGH (BLDGBLOG, STUDIO-X NYC)
NICOLA TWILLEY (EDIBLE GEOGRAPHY, STUDIO-X NYC)
POPULAR SCIENCE

BJARKE INGELS
Architect, WSJ Magazine 2011 architectural innovator of the year, and author of Yes Is More: An Archicomic on Architectural Evolution

NICHOLAS DE MONCHAUX
Architect and author of Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo

HARI KUNZRU
Novelist and author of Gods Without Men and The Impressionist

JAMES FLEMING
Historian and author of Fixing The Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control

ANDREW BLUM
Journalist and author of Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet

DAVID BENJAMIN
Architect and co-director of The Living

MARC KAUFMAN
Science writer and author of First Contact: Scientific Breakthroughs in the Hunt for Life Beyond Earth

DEBBIE CHACHRA
Researcher and educator in biological materials and engineering design

JACE CLAYTON AND LINDSAY CUFF OF NETTLE
Nettle’s latest album, El Resplandor, is a speculative soundtrack for an unmade remake of The Shining, set in a luxury hotel in Dubai

CHRIS WOEBKEN
Interaction designer

SETH FLETCHER
Science writer and author of Bottled Lightning: Superbatteries, Electric Cars, and the New Lithium Economy

SIMONE FERRACINA
Architect and author of Organs Everywhere

DAVE GRACER
Insect agriculturalist at Small Stock Foods

HOD LIPSON
Researcher in evolutionary robotics and the future of 3D printing

ANDREW HESSEL
Science writer and open-source biologist, focusing on bacterial genomics

CARLOS OLGUIN
Designer at Autodesk Research working on the intersection of bio-nanotechnology and 3D visualization

[Image credit ‘Inception’ dir. Christopher Nolan]

Speculative Design: Blowup – The Era of Objects

Just a quick note to say — I’ll be at this event at V2__ in Rotterdam (V2_, Eendrachtsstraat 10, Rotterdam) Thursday September 29..so if you’re around, you should come. If you’re not — you should dial-in: ((This event will be streamed live at http://live.v2.nl))

Beyond the flying car: join top designers Julian Bleecker (Nokia, Near Future Laboratory), Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino (Really Interesting Group), and Anab Jain (Superflux) in an exploration of speculative design.

We are rapidly entering (and perhaps even have already entered) an era where we are able to print 3D objects at our desks, make and share laser-cut gifts for friends, and use off-the-shelf tools to plug these creations into the web and have them send status updates on our behalf. We have some commonly-held visions of the future, but what could our very wildest dreams (and nightmares) look like, beyond the cliché of the flying car? What answers can we find in speculative design? Our expert guests will explore these questions in collaboration with the audience in a hands-on, “open think-tank” format.

Addressing this contemporary issue will be Julian Bleecker: designer, researcher at the Design Strategic Projects studio at Nokia Design and co-founder of Near Future Laboratory; Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino: product designer, entrepreneur, and partner at Really Interesting Group (London); and Anab Jain: interaction designer, founder of Superflux, and recent TED Fellow.

Following a brief talk show with Julian, Alexandra, and Anab, the audience will have the unique opportunity to collaborate with our invited experts in an “open think-tank”: a guided speculative design session wherein we’ll address the product design challenges of the near and not-so-near future.

Continue reading Speculative Design: Blowup – The Era of Objects

Design Fiction on Australian Radio / FutureTense

I had a fun discussion with the folks at this wonderful Australian Radio National’s Future Tense show on the topic of design fiction — “Fictitious futures, virtual development and visual language.”

I suppose its a measure of things the degree to which the conversation about the co-mingling of design, science, fiction, fact and technology spreads far and wide — even to discussions in the realm of public radio. It’s tempting to be more actively involved in the practice of these things.

Actually — finding the way that even the behind-closed-doors work I do during the day can squeak out into the light of day without ruffling feathers is on the list of things to do..or has been for a couple of years now. Not at all to crow about the work, but to share it because there are learning experiences in there and, frankly — it’s not the kind of work that tips directly into the kinds of back alley gossip about what the titans of industry will do this quarter to make their financial lap dogs pant happily. It’s just great, exciting, thoughtful speculative design work that should be discussed and learned-from — process, outcomes, how-to do speculative design..more the meta-meat that is intriguing rather than the material itself.

Continue reading Design Fiction on Australian Radio / FutureTense

Design Fiction Workshop at UX Week 2011

So — enough yammering. Time for some hammering. It’ll be workshops from here to fore. Getting to work. Shirtsleeves. Lab coats. Smocks. Aprons. Hammers.

I’ll be doing a workshop later this summer — August 24 from 2-5:30, to be precise — at the UX Week week-ish long conference in San Francisco brought to you by the fine folks at Adaptive Path. It’s got the didactic title: How the Practice of Design Can Use Fiction to Create New Things. We’re done with fancy, clever, snarky titles for workshops.

It looks like a swell line-up. Old friends. New ones. Fun sounding workshops and methoducation sessions.

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From Dick Fosbury to the guy who put wheels on luggage, creating disruptions to convention in positive ways has often meant looking at the world differently. Fiction, especially science fiction, is a way of telling a story about and then forcing one to think about the world by looking at it with a different lens.

Design can approach its creative and conceptual challenges to make things better, or to think differently or to disrupt convention by combining its practice with that of fiction.

In this workshop we will look at the practical ways of employing the rhetorical, creative and cinematic aspects of fiction to help think, act upon, design and create new things.

The principle is simple. If cinematic and literary fiction is able to help imagine and communicate things that may not be possible, how can these same forms of story telling help design practices create disruptive visions of the near future?

In the workshop will share a number of relevant case studies where design and fiction were brought together. The process and outcomes of these case studies will be discussed. Through these case studies we’ll discover approaches, techniques and principles for a pragmatic designing-with-fiction process.

Prerequisites:
An open mind, notebook, pen. Familiarity with science-fiction film, optional.

Outcomes:
A set of tools, approaches and processes for initiating practical design fiction in the studio.

Continue reading Design Fiction Workshop at UX Week 2011

Quiet But Not Quiescent

Judge not the less yammer-y state of the studio blog to indicate that there is nothing worth yammering about. It’s just that the clang of steel caressing code has been going on and that in great measure, too. Some of you may have glimpsed and grinned at the fantastic electronified edition of the paper Drift Deck that we developed a couple of years ago. That’s right. We’ve added *batteries to the Drift Deck and it’s fallen into the *app well..it’s an app which is fantastic because it means the last remaining physical card editions can become properly *artisinal and the electronic battery editions can spread the sensibility of the Drift Deck concept to the rest of the world.

Release is imminent. Prepare ye iPhones. Hop expectantly from foot-to-foot. More news in a short while, including linkages to downloadables. In the meantime, check out the new Drift Deck webified “page” and the fantastic roster of hammererers that batteryified the ‘deck.

..And then — onto the next thing here. It’ll be quiet a little, but good things are baking in the kiln, rest assured.

*Willow next. The superlative friendregator for the discerning social being.
Continue reading Quiet But Not Quiescent

And Another..

MDP Studio, South Campus Wind Tunnel

Art Center College of Design is booting up a new track within the Media Design Program (MDP) called Media Design Matters (MDM). They’re looking for a *second faculty member with a background in the social sciences to help build out that faculty. ((The search for the first member continues.)) The second search is for a second position for this new track for an individual with a background in design and technology to be hired Fall 2011. Which is, like..pretty soon.

Here’s the actual thing that would be pinned up to the artisinal “cork board.”

Position Title: Full-time Core Faculty

Department: Graduate Media Design Program, Art Center College of Design

Positions Available: 1

The graduate Media Design Program (MDP) at Art Center College of Design is looking for a full-time faculty member with a background in design, culture, and technology to begin Fall 2011. The faculty member will work with other faculty from design and social science backgrounds to develop a new curriculum for a track within the Media Design MFA called “Media Design Matters” (MDM), that brings together media design, social research, public policy, and information technologies to address social issues in an applied context. Media Design Program students are world class and come from diverse disciplinary and national backgrounds.

artcenter.edu/mdp/matters/

The MDM curriculum will be built around an 8-month team-based project conducted in the field in partnership with an NGO, development agency, national non-profit or local community. Our first project partner for 2012 will be the U.S. Fund for UNICEF.

The new degree track is a collaboration between the Media Design Program and Designmatters. Designmatters is a college-wide initiative exploring social and humanitarian design and helped Art Center become the first design college to receive United Nations Non-Governmental (NGO) status. designmatters.artcenter.edu

Position Description:

As one of three core faculty members for the Media Design Matters track, this position is for a person who has at least minimal experience in each of the categories below:

● working knowledge of the basics of programming and electronics

● hands-on design with communication technologies and systems in applied contexts with real people, in any of the following: ubiquitous computing, web design and development, mobile design, interaction design, UX, service design, media design, HCI, hardware sketching, and/or social networking;

● a critical framework for understanding design, technology, culture, and power in diverse social contexts;

● experience building communications with existing resources through a design approach such as: reuse or repair, second-hand electronics, DIY, repurposing third-party applications or services (analog/digital, high/low tech), working within open source communities, maker/kit culture, etc.

Within the Media Design Program, core faculty members work collaboratively on program curriculum and philosophy and are responsible for one or two assigned areas of administration or research. We are looking for someone who is specifically interested in emerging social and cultural roles for design and technology and who is interested in building connections with the same at other academic institutions or companies throughout Southern California and around the world. The curriculum is still being designed so there is an opportunity to develop and test new pedagogy that brings a critical approach to applied research with people, technology, and social issues.

The faculty member will be required to travel in both the Fall and the Spring for the MDM project. The project location will change from year to year and could be as far away as Uganda or as close as downtown Los Angeles. Faculty members will have the opportunity to use the MDM project situation to conduct their own research in parallel, if desired.

Candidates will be eligible for a 3-year renewable full-time contract. The “core faculty” designation is a premier position at Art Center. Faculty will be expected to maintain an active research practice. Salary will be commensurate with professional experience and teaching.

Qualifications:

We are looking for an individual with a demonstrated commitment to building innovative approaches to emerging issues and interdisciplinary practice and to developing a strong context for their own practice. Candidates should have a minimum of the following: a masters degree in their field; three years teaching experience, full- or part-time; and five years creative practice in applied and/or research contexts. Experience with any of the following, while not required, is a definite plus: working across cultures, working in the field, managing projects, managing IT partnerships, developing funding relationships, working with non-profits or development agencies.

Application Process and Materials:

Posting dates: March 23, 2011 – open until filled. For best consideration apply before April 15, 2011. Review of applications to begin immediately.

Please send the following as email attachments: a cover letter, c.v., statements of professional and/or research interests and philosophy regarding pedagogy and technology, and contact information for three references. References will not be contacted until a final interview has taken place.

Please provide either a URL by email or digital portfolio on disk by mail showing a range of personal, professional, and/or student work that demonstrates abilities in the areas identified above.

Please send questions and/or application with reference to “MDM Full-time Faculty-D/T” to:

HR@artcenter.edu

Human Resources

Attn: Nancy Duggan

Art Center College of Design

1700 Lida Street

Pasadena, CA 91103

About the Graduate Media Design Program

Art Center’s graduate program in Media Design offers a two- or three-year Master of Fine Arts curriculum that helps ambitious designers from a variety of backgrounds become design leaders and researchers in emerging fields. Graduate Media Design prepares designers for a world in which virtually anything—from a new material to a global network—may be the next medium or platform of communication. artcenter.edu/mdp/

About Art Center College of Design

Founded in 1930 and located in Pasadena, California, Art Center College of Design is a global leader in art and design education and the first design school to receive the United Nations’ Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) status. Art Center offers bachelor’s degrees in advertising, entertainment design, environmental design, film, fine art, graphic design, illustration, photography and imaging, product design and transportation design. A graduate program of study can lead to a master’s degree in art, broadcast cinema, industrial design and media design. The college also offers a series of programs for the general public, including Art Center at Night, its continuing studies program; Saturday High for high school students; Art Center for Kids for children in the fourth through eighth grades; and the Design-Based Learning program for K-12 educators. artcenter.edu

Art Center College of Design is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Continue reading And Another..

Art Center Summer Residency: Learning and the New Ecology of Things

Seems Art Center’s Media Design Program has extended its deadline for applicants for a summer residency — learning and pervasive/ubiquitous/thing-y computing.

http://www.artcenter.edu/mdp/research/summer2011/

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Learning and the New Ecology of Things

We are particularly interested in projects that explore learning in a context of pervasive computing, including mobile technologies, social networking, online systems and digital media. We will consider projects for all learning situations but are most interested in post-secondary art and design education, as an extension of our New Ecology of Things initiative.

This unique context is best for research that incorporates design and prototyping as a mode of inquiry. Outcomes may include working prototypes, speculative visions, new pedagogical models and new learning contexts.

The project may consider the full spectrum of pervasive computing’s role, from additions to the traditional studio classroom, to supplemental learning outside of the classroom, to distance learning with a teacher, to completely self-directed learning.

Since the project is focused on pervasive computing, traditional browser-based online learning systems should not be central to the project.

* How do the tangible interactions enabled by pervasive computing change the potentials of eLearning for art and design students who are learning how to make physical artifacts?

* How might art/design critique be affected by the use of pervasive computing?

* What role might tablets, smart phones, sensors, or actuators play in learning?

* What role might social networking play in new learning systems integrated with ubiquitous computing?

* How might contemporary educational practices such as project-based learning and collaborative learning change in a context of pervasive computing?

* What role might tangible interaction play in education for non-artifact-based design such as that for experiences, plans, and systems?

Continue reading Art Center Summer Residency: Learning and the New Ecology of Things

The Urban Internet of Things 2010. An International Workshop

Coming up is an exciting sounding workshop on the “urban internet of things — programming the real-time city.” Some more opportunities to get this one right..or at least human.

** As more people move to cities, it becomes increasingly challenging )) the necessarily understated preamble (( to build efficient )) maybe we shouldn’t even hope for efficiency (( infrastructures that support the needs of inhabitants without sacrificing the quality of life. The increasing digital instrumentation of urban areas through various networked sensors provides many opportunities to design smarter cities )) smart? i’d settle for clever and wily (( through a meaningful interpretation and usage of all this real-time data. In today’s world, there are strong incentives to leverage the most recent technologies to create digital infrastructures that foster collaboration between the different disciplines involved in urban design. By considering the IoT as a platform for engaging citizen’s action, a new design space is created where citizens are at the center of its urban environment and empowered to actively shape the city they live in.

The goal of this workshop is to gather original and inspiring contributions from technology experts, researchers in academia and industry, designers, urban planners, and architects that are willing to share their knowledge, experiences, and best practices for building smarter cities. We will explore the design of open and efficient platforms and tools to collect, analyze, store, and share the enormous amount of real-time data digital cities generate through a mix of papers, demos, invited presentations and open discussions for collectively create the city of the future. **

http://www.webofthings.com/urban-iot/2010/
Continue reading The Urban Internet of Things 2010. An International Workshop

iotaSalon: The City @ UCLA

This sounds like fun.

May 6, 2010, 7pm
Experimental Digital Arts at UCLA.

iotaCenter’s mission is to inspire both new and existing artists in a historically dispersed and constantly changing technological environment.

The theme for our next iotaSalon is THE CITY. We will be investigating the way urban environments are depicted in abstract and experimental works. How does construction influence image creation? How does the urban environment surrounding an artist inform or invade their work? How does the process of abstraction change our view of the city? How have architectural tools and thinking affected abstract and experimental moving images?

Screening on 16mm ((16mm FTW!!)) as part of the historic film segment:
Sausage City (1974) – Adam Beckett
Diagram Film (1978) – Paul Glabicki
Commuter (1981) – Mike Patterson

Screening on video for the contemporary segment:
Giant Steps (2001) – Michal Levy
Communicate (2009) – Erick Oh
Berlin Skin (2007) – Kim Collmer
Continue reading iotaSalon: The City @ UCLA