Blinking Light Technology (BLT)

I am embarking on the learning curve that is Arduino (an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software). As I am prone to, I have dumped links to stuff I have found useful HERE.

PBB (Book) Update

The PBB book proofs just arrived. Even though I've been working on it for eighteen months, I'm impressed. They are much slicker and the printing quality is higher than I had expected. It should be available later this week...

PBB (book)

Finally, the 'Perimeters, Boundaries and Borders' publication is nearing completion. A year and a half in the making, final proofs are en route from the printer and the book will be available soon. The contents are as follows:

Introduction (Keith Brown)
Perimeters, Boundaries and Borders (me)
Design Now (Paul Rodgers)
Designing Digital Art (Cezanne Charles)
CityLab (exhibition plan)
Cyclone.soc - Gavin Baily & Tom Corby
WiFi Camera Obscura - Adam Somlai-Fischer, Bengt Sjölén & Usman Haque
What’s Cooking Grandma? - Human Beans
Flight – Take Off - Geoffrey Mann
Warp - Simon Husslein
Chicken Soup From Mars - Ben Woodeson
Watermark - NIO Architecten
Remember to Forget? - Aoife Ludlow
Coded Ornament - Justin Marshall
LSD Drive - Simon Blackmore
Ibuki – Presence in a Sigh - Masaru Tabei and Yasuno Miyauchi
Motion in Form - Tavs Jørgensen
Sheep Jet Head - Brit Bunkley
Holy Ghost - FutureFactories
.MGX - Assa Ashuach, Arik Levy, Naomi Kaempfer & Dan Yeffet
Contributing Organisations (Fast-uk & folly)
Credits and Acknowledgments

Chain Reaction (event)

rootoftwo will be participating in the 3rd international gathering of the Upgrade! International in Skopje, Macedonia, between 11 - 14 September, 2008. Upgrade! is an international, emerging network of autonomous nodes united by art, technology, and a commitment to bridging cultural divides. This 4 day festival was initiated by Upgrade! Belgrade, Upgrade! Berlin - Public Art Lab, Upgrade! Sofia - InterSpace, Upgrade! Istanbul - NOMAD and Upgrade! Skopje - Line Initiative and movement.

The Chain Reaction program will include: an exhibition, live audio/visual performances, lectures, discussions and presentations, a screening program and workshops.

Algorithms and Scripting for Visual Art (event)

I have been invited to attend the workshop 'Algorithms and Scripting for Visual Art' at La Salle University, Philadelphia, PA on May 29 & 30, 2008. This is the first in a series of workshops sponsored by the National Science Foundation CPATH Program: Revitalizing Computer Science through the Science of Digital Media. This workshop will examine how algorithms and computer programming are used in the generation of visual art, graphic design, and creatively imagined architectural spaces. The participants will discuss how to direct curriculum and pedagogy in introductory computer science courses toward both traditional computer science majors and students interested in digital art or web-based graphic design. I'm particularly keen because Marc Fornes will be there. Marc is the founder of THEVERYMANY a design studio and collaborative research forum engaging the field of architecture via encoded and explicit processes. Marc is also a curator of scriptedbypurpose.

Design Connexity (event)

The Eighth International Conference of the European Academy of Design will take place at The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland, 1st, 2nd & 3rd April 2009.

Conference themes are:

Design Connexity
As the trend towards globalisation continues there is a growing connectedness between all our actions and a growing interdependence between the social, economic and the environmental. This increasing connectedness raises new moral and ethical issues and challenges. This concept has been termed ‘connexity’ (Mulgan, 1998) and provides the title for the conference and the backdrop for the themes of the EAD 08 Conference, which seeks to explore the implications of these trends for design research and practice.

Design Interconnections, Intersections and Convergence
This theme is concerned with the growing inter-connectedness of design, the interaction between design and other disciplines and the convergence between disciplines. Are design schools becoming the new business schools? Are new design professionals emerging that challenge the existing notions of what designers do? This theme invites papers that consider the impact of inter-connections between disciplines, the professions, and the implications for design education and professional practice.

Design Empathy
Products and environments need to satisfy functional as well as supra-functional needs (including the social, cultural, emotional, aspirational and spiritual). The data that can shape and guide decision-making can be visceral and ephemeral. More compassionate design approaches are necessary to ensure empathy and shared understandings are developed, and are particularly sensitive to how individuals communicate. We live in a verbo-centric culture, yet we experience the world visually. This theme invites papers that address issues, strategies and theories that consider empathic design.

Design Thinking
Design thinking is concerned with bringing about improvements in the human condition. This contrasts with critical thinking, which is concerned with the analysis and the breaking down of existing ideas. Design thinking is a creative process based around the building up of ideas. Design thinking does not seek to evaluate, as there can be no simply right or wrong answers. All ideas are welcome, since these have the potential to provide creative solutions. Design thinking offers strategies which can be applied to everyday situations. This theme invites papers that provide insights into the ways in which design thinking can be applied to address the critical issues facing contemporary society.

Service Design
Service design is concerned with both the tangible and intangible. It may be concerned with human interactions within systems, environments, communication and social interactions between people and organizations. It requires designers to question existing assumptions, undertake close observation of environments, provide diagnostic assessments and envisage new solutions. It has been applied in areas such as information services, health and education. This theme invites papers that provide insights into the application of service design that offer new solutions to tangible problems.

Design Boundaries
In a post-modern digital age we can witness attempts to combine art and technology crossing the boundaries in what was originally described by C.P. Snow (1959) as the ‘two cultures’. Snow’s fundamentally convergent position sought to expose the cultural divisions between art/humanities and science/technology. New design courses are being developed that embrace the concept of transdisciplinarity, moving beyond traditional subject boundaries. This theme invites papers that explore the boundaries between disciplines and professional practices, for example between design and architecture, design and craft or design and fine art.

Responsible Design
Designers are often cited as being major contributors to the ever-growing problem of waste as landfill sites fill up with discarded products that were designed without any consideration for recycling or reuse. Responsible designing makes it imperative that new products are designed with ‘cradle to cradle’ vision. This theme invites papers that explore the issue of responsible design, developing new strategies and insights into how this may be achieved.

Anti-Design
The Ad Busters web site states that: “We are a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age. Our aim is to topple existing power structures and forge a major shift in the way we will live in the 21st century”. Is this the beginning of anti-design, a reaction against our material culture? This theme invites papers that challenge our notion of the role of design in the 21st century.

Design Fiction (book)

"It is a book of "design fictions." By deliberately creating objects that cannot exist -- because the material is not yet available, or the business plan, or the manufacturing process, or the infra- structure to support it, or even the human sensibility -- it becomes possible to explore the meaning of design at a more profound level and to think more richly about what is and what might be.

The principal objective of the book is to stimulate thought: What is an object? Why do we desire what we desire? Why has "functionality" been defined in such a historically narrow way? What is beauty? Nonobject is an attempt to free the imagination by disengaging it form the constraints of utility, economy and technology."

nonobject

EMF Dog Helmet (POO)

Another Post-Optimal Object from Rob Knecht. The EMF protective dog helmet is designed for family canines that may be susceptible to prolonged exposure of Electromagnetic Fields. Wireless networking, electrical appliances, and in home wiring may inhibit your pet's health. The helmet is constructed from fiberglass and EMF shielding fabric to prevent any stray magnetic fields from reaching your dog's brain. A nylon collar is fitted with a EMF detector to alert the pet owner of any dangerous EMF fields.