Author: Peter Dalsgaard

Categories
Architecture Design processes Event Interaction design Research Visualisation

Call for Papers: Media Architecture Biennale 2012

Building on the successful event in Vienna 2010, Media Architecture Biennale 2012 brings together artists, practitioners and researchers from academia and industry in the ongoing exploration of the meeting between architecture and digital media. The 2012 Biennale comprises an academic conference track, exhibitions, and industry sessions, as well as a full day of workshops. Our vision is to provide an excellent forum for debate and knowledge exchange; to offer a unique opportunity that brings together the best minds and organizations; and to highlight state-of-the-art and experimental research in media architecture.

THEME: PARTICIPATION
The design of media architecture invites encounters between people, the built environment, and digital media. It opens up rich opportunities for new forms of participation through dialogue and engagement. As an emerging field, diverse perspectives are coming together in media architecture, and the challenges are as abundant as the opportunities. At the conference, we explore “participation” as a core value of media architecture. In this context, participation may occur in the initial design stages of media architecture, e.g. as different practitioners, stakeholders and potential audiences take part in shaping future media architecture; it may occur when media architecture is realized and people experience and interact with it, e.g. when public spaces and urban environments and the practices they shape are influenced by elements of media architecture; it may also occur as new platforms give rise to new opportunities for shaping systems and surroundings.

TOPICS
We consider media architecture as an inclusive term that encompasses encounters and intersections between digital technologies and our physical surroundings. In this respect, we invite papers that present and discuss novel contributions to media architecture both on a practical and theoretical level and that further our understanding of the field through case studies, design approaches, and best practices. We expect contributions to critically explore a wide range of topics including, but not limited to:
– Case Studies of Specific Projects
– Future Trends and Prototypes
– Media Facades and Urban Displays
– Interaction Techniques and Interfaces
– Social and Cultural Aspects of Media Architecture
– Historical Perspectives on the Intersection between Media and the Built Environment
– Design Processes and Methods
– Participatory City Planning and Developing Urban Media Environments
– Participatory Architecture
– Spatial Locative Media
– Development and Design of Content for Specific Contexts

MORE INFO
Read more about submission details, important dates etc. in the full call for papers (PDF). There’s more info to be found on the Biennale’s official home on the web, on Twitter (#mab2012) and on Facebook.

Categories
Inspiration

Inspiring reads, June 4th

MaKey MaKey – Turn everyday objects into touchpads and combine them with the internet

Touche for Arduino – Capacitive-sensing technology providing touch and gesture sensitivity

32 Innovations That Will Change Your Tomorrow – Not the usual suspects, not all of them big game-changers

Inside StartX 2012 Demo Day – StartX is a the non-profit startup accelerator for Stanford students

Categories
Inspiration

Inspiring reads, June 1st

Clouds – Combining Kinects and DSLRs in experimental 3D filmmaking

Data visualisation DIY – Tools for data visualisation from The Guardian

What data can and cannot do – Cultivating a critical literacy towards the subject matter of data journalism

Data journalism: Anyone can do it – An overly optimistic take on democratisation of data and data journalism?

Categories
Inspiration

Inspiring reads, May 30th

InArticle – Autogenerates a range of data visualizations of a story from different news sources

CoDesign examines InArticle – In depth look at InArticle and the potentials of the service

Let It Ripple – Collaborative, web-based non-profit film making aka cloudfilmmaking

Categories
Inspiration

Inspiring reads, May 29th


Tether – Collaborative 3D augmented reality interface using gloves and iPads (yep, all in one)

The Power of Networks – Animated talk by Manuel Lima on the power of network visualisation

‘Joyful net work’ and Murmurations – Interesting ID concepts using social networks as a model to understand complex networks

The Pitfalls of Intuition and Memory – Nobel Prize-winner D Kahneman on the misleading power of intuition

Thinking That We Know – Talk by D Kahneman on how the mind filters and shapes what we call information

Categories
Architecture Visualisation

Patterned by Nature

A meditative peace to usher in the weekend:

The Patterned by Nature installation at the Nature Research Center at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, designed by Plebian Design, Hypersonic Design & Engineering, and Sosolimited.

Categories
Architecture Event Interaction design Research

Media Architecture Biennale 2012 in Aarhus

Great news: In November, my colleagues and I will host the Media Architecture Biennale 2012 in Aarhus. The Biennale brings together artists, academia and industry in the exploration of the meeting between architecture and digital media. The design of media architecture invites, shapes and creates encounters between people and the built environment, and digital media open up rich opportunities for dialog and engaging experiences.

As an emerging field, many perspectives are still coming together, and the challenges are as abundant as the opportunities. Public space and urban environments are increasingly shaped by elements of media architecture.

The vision of the Media Architecture Biennale is to provide an excellent forum for awareness, discussion and solutions; to bring together the best minds and organizations; and to present to the each other and the world the state-of-the-art of media architecture.

This year, we will extend the existing format with an academic conference track, new exhibition, awards and industry sessions, as well as a full day of workshops. We have a great crew organizing the Biennale; I’ll be heading the academic track as program chair alongside Ava Fatah from The Bartlett and we’re really excited about shaping this part of the Biennale. There’s more info to be found on the Biennale’s official home on the web, on Twitter (#mab2012) and on Facebook.

Hope to see you there!

Categories
Interaction design Narratives

Jake Barton on collaborative narratives

Brilliant talk by Jake Barton, founder of Local Projects, at the 2011 Eyeo festival. Barton’s projects explore collaborative and participatory storytelling using a variety of digital means – mobile devices, touchscreens, social media etc – and across a range of domains, from museums to exhibits and places of worship. The talk is packed with examples of this work and insights on creating meaningful modes of sharing.

With several of these technologies, we are only just beginning to see how we can employ them to scaffold interesting and worthwhile encounters. I suppose that this is one of the reasons why research in this area is so absorbing; new media emerge, old media transform, and we have so many opportunities to not just study, but actively experiment with and help shape what these technologies mean for us.

Categories
Design processes Interaction design Research

Workshop: Supporting Reflection in and on Design

Prototyping digital tools for collaborative design.

At the upcoming Designing Interactive Systems conference, held in Newcastle in June, I’m arranging a workshop in collaboration with professors Kim Halskov and Steve Harrison. The goal of the workshop is to advance the practical and theoretical understanding of documenting and reflecting on design processes. During design processes, tons of information comes into play, including sources of inspiration brought in to the creative process, design concepts created by desigerns, key decisions on how to move forward, user feedback, sketches, prototypes, and lots more. We wish to explore how design processes that extend over longer periods of time, weeks to several months, can be captured and documented, for instance through the use of collaborative web systems, how this data can be analysed, and what types of research insights such work can yield. In addition to discussing these issues during the workshop, it is the goals of the workshop is to establish a community of researchers and designers with a special interest in capturing and mapping design processes.

The workshop will be held on June 12th, if you wish to participate please visit the dedicated workshop website and send us your submission before March 5th.

Categories
Architecture Interaction design Publications

Understanding Engaging Interactions in Public Spaces

These days I’m visiting the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon for the Interact conference. In addition to listening to interesting talks, partaking in discussions about designing for the city and the intersections of participatory design and critical design, and of course enjoying the local cuisine, I’m here to give a talk based on the paper Understanding the Dynamics of Engaging Interactions in Public Spaces, co-authored with Christian Dindler and Kim Halskov. You can download a preliminary version of the paper [.pdf] and/or enjoy the slides below.

Continue reading “Understanding Engaging Interactions in Public Spaces”