I&IC Workshop #1 at HEAD: “Soilless”, an ethnographic research

The first workshop in the project corresponds to a preliminary field research phase devoted to understanding people’s relationship with the Cloud. Given our ambition to revisit and explore alternative personal cloud systems, we find it important to investigate actual usage, problems, limits, experiences and situations related to the pervasive use of cloud computing.

 

Soilless – a research introduction and a field study from iiclouds.org design research on Vimeo.

 

Based on a series of user interviews and observations, we will address various issues related to this theme. Our aim is to have a sample of participants which practices have a certain diversity: nomadic workers, third-space users, musicians, VJs, journalists, etc. These interviews will be complemented by an analysis of on-line forums and groups focused on the discussion of cloud-related issues (Dropbox forums, blogs and social media messages discussing the limits and problems of these platforms, etc.).

HEAD / MD

 

HEAD / Media Design

Prof. Nicolas Nova

Co-Head of the I&IC design research.

Nicolas Nova is Professor at the Geneva University of Arts and Design (HEAD – Geneva) and founder of the Near Future Laboratory, a design studio based in Europe and California. His work is about identifying weak signals as well as exploring people’s needs, motivations and contexts to map new design opportunities and chart potential futures.

Nicolas has given talks and exhibited his work on the intersections of design, technology and the near-future possibilities for new social-technical interaction rituals in venues such SXSW, AAS, O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference and the design week in Milano, the Institute for the Future, the MIT Medialab.

He holds a Phd in Human-Computer Interaction from the Swiss Institute of Technology (EPFL, Switzerland) and was previously a visiting researcher at the Art Center College of Design (Pasadena, CA). He is also curatot for Lift Conference, a series of international events about digital culture and innovation.

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Contact: nicolas[dot]nova[at]hesge[dot]ch