Sketching ’08 held at RISD’s Industrial Design facilities. 45 folks who, for all intents and purposes, live in the near future — doing the things that will likely become conventional in a few or five years. We convene annually to share insights, thoughts, projects and approaches to doing design, technology and art as a way to materialize their ideas.
Elizabeth Goodman has been note taking — it all starts here on her Confectious blog.
A few interesting contrasts here. This is the sort of expression of familial/local pride that seems particularly New England-y, not to mention the fascinating and huge Safe and Vault store. The contrast of material, rather than digital, protected storage is curious, and the fact that there is a store to sell vaults and such reminds us that the ephemeral world of bits and atoms still has some material anchorages, whether protecting data centers, or other material — disks or flash storage USB sticks, they are all still material objects.
The other thing of course is the sign that a grandmother — perhaps owner of the store — has placed in the window, telling passersby that her granddaughter will be competing at the Beijing Olympics this summer. I was struck at the contrast between the pride of the grandmother and its expression in a rather rag-tag sign.
Continue reading Signs of Local Pride