I&IC Workshop #3 with Algopop at ECAL, brief: “Botcaves”

Note: I publish here the brief that Matthew Plummer-Fernandez (a.k.a. Algopop) sent me before the workshop he’ll lead next week (17-21.11) with Media & Interaction Design students from 2nd and 3rd year Ba at the ECAL.

This workshop will take place in the frame of the I&IC research project, for which we had the occasion to exchange together prior to the workshop. It will investigate the idea of very low power computing, situated processing, data sensing/storage and automatized data treatment (“bots”) that could be highly distributed into everyday life objects or situations. While doing so, the project will undoubtedly address the idea of “networked objects”, which due to the low capacities of their computing parts will become major consumers of cloud based services (computing power, storage). Yet, following the hypothesis of the research, what kind of non-standard networked objects/situations based on what king of decentralized, personal cloud architecture?

The subject of this workshop explains some recent posts that could serve as resources or tools for this workshop, as the students will work around personal “bots” that will gather, process, host and expose data.

Stay tuned for more!

 

Botcaves

botcave-workshop-image

 

Algorithmic and autonomous software agents known as bots are increasingly participating in everyday life. Bots can potentially gather data from both physical and digital activity, store and share data in the ‘cloud’, and develop ways to communicate and learn from their databases. In essence bots can animate data, making it useful, interactive, visual or legible. Bots although software-based require hardware from which to run from, and it is this underexplored crossover between the physical and digital presence of bots that this workshop investigates.

You will be asked to design a physical ‘housing’ or ‘interface’, either bespoke or hacked from existing objects, for your personal bots to run from. These botcaves would be present in the home, workspace or other, permitting novel interactions between the digital and physical environments that these bots inhabit.

Raspberry Pis, template bot code, APIs, cloud storage, existing services (Twitter, IFTTT, etc) and physical elements (sensors, lights, cameras, etc) may be used in the workshop.

 

Bio

British/ Colombian Artist and Designer Matthew Plummer-Fernandez makes work that critically and playfully examines sociocultural entanglements with technologies. His current interests span algorithms, bots, automation, copyright, 3D files and file-sharing. He was awarded a Prix Ars Electronica Award of Distinction for the project Disarming Corruptor; an app for disguising 3D Print files as glitched artefacts. He is also known for his computational approach to aesthetics translated into physical sculpture.

For research purposes he runs Algopop, a popular tumblr that documents the emergence of algorithms in everyday life as well as the artists that respond to this context in their work. This has become the starting point to a practice-based PhD funded by the AHRC at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he is also a research associate at the Interaction Research Studio and a visiting tutor. He holds a BEng in Computer Aided Mechanical Engineering from Kings College London and an MA in Design Products from the Royal College of Art.

 

http://www.plummerfernandez.com
http://algopop.tumblr.com

I&IC Workshop #2 with James Auger at HEAD: output > “Cloudified” Scenarios

Note: the post I&IC Workshop #2 with James Auger at HEAD, brief: “Cloudy” presents the objectives and brief for this workshop.

 

After last week’s workshop at HEAD – Genève, we learnt that addressing Cloud Computing from a design perspective requires to take a detour. Instead of looking at data centers and cloud computing directly, we asked students to choose a domain of everyday life (religion, cooking, communication, etc.) and work on how this technology may influence it, the kinds of practices that may emerge and what kind of implications would surface. The projects reflect this diversity and we also push the student to adopt both a critical and speculative angle. Such requirements mean that the output of the workshop largely consists in a set of short scenarios/usage strategies exemplified by sketches and pictures. Each of them provides a subtle perspective on cloud computing by showing that the limits and the opportunities of these technologies are entangled.

 

Cloudified Scenarios – a workshop with James Auger at HEAD – Genève on Vimeo.

 

Two posts have been added later as follow-ups to this one that propose an update to the direct results of the workshop:

- http://www.iiclouds.org/20141112/iic-workshop-2-at-head-design-implications/

- http://www.iiclouds.org/20141112/iic-workshop-2-at-head-ui-proposals/

 

I&IC Workshop #2 with James Auger at HEAD: ongoing work

Workshop day 2, we’re working on the various contexts in which cloud computing and data centers can be deployed in the near future. Each group started exploring domains such as religious objects/ambiance, local communities, illegal content smuggling, urban animals and music playing.

 

James-diagram

I&IC Workshop #2 with James Auger at HEAD, brief: “Cloudy”

At HEAD – Genève today, we started the first workshop of the research project with James Auger (from Auger-Loizeau design studio and the Royal College of Arts in London). We’re going to spend this week with the first year students of the Media Design MA exploring cloud computing, personal cloud systems, objects and user interfaces.

In order to address this, the workshop started with a background description of the project’s purposes, the evolution of computers and network infrastructures, as well as an introduction to the current state of design objects and architectures related to cloud Computing: NAS systems, servers combined with heater, speculative projects related to such technologies. From this broad list of material we wondered about the lack of artefacts that go beyond purely functionalists goals. Cloud computing systems, especially in the context of people’s context is generally a commodity… hence a need for design interventions to re-open this black box.

Following Eames’ quote “A plan for arranging elements to accomplish a particular purpose” (as a definition of design), we asked students to start with a basic activity: to create a map of “elements” related to cloud computing. They had to choose a domain of everyday life (cooking, communication, etc.), begin by compiling “their” elements (material scale, cultural, historical, list people’s motivations, objects used to achieve it, situations, behaviors, etc.), sub-themes.

From this we discussed this ecology of elements and what aspects or user contexts they could focus on. Interestingly, students chose very broad topics: religion, communication, cooking, art performances, animal-computer relationships or music-making.   Based on this map, we then asked students to explore the role of cloud computing into these elements by looking at these questions:

  • How elements of the diagram might work with the cloud? How the cloud may influence each of these elements/the relationships between two of these elements?
  • How relationships between the elements on these maps may evolve with cloud computing?
  • What are the new situations/problems that may arise with the cloud? Implications?
  • What kind of objects will be linked to the cloud? Why? (From products to the role of the product and situations that arise)

The (many) answers to these questions led the groups to highlighting design opportunities to be discussed tomorrow.

ECAL / M&ID

 

ECAL / Media & Interaction Design

Prof. Patrick Keller

Co-Head of the I&IC design research.

Patrick Keller is Professor at the University of Art & Design, Lausanne (ECAL) where he teaches design in the Media & Interaction Design unit. He was in charge of this unit between 2001 and 2004. In 2007, he led the design research Variable_Environment that united designers from ECAL and scientists from EPFL (design & sciences research).

Patrick is a founding member of fabric | ch, a studio for architecture, interaction and research. As part of his activity as creative director for the studio, he formulates new space proposals that combines digital, physical and environmental dimensions. Oscillating between devices, installations, experiments and productions, the work of the collective has been exhibited and published internationally, so has presented in numerous talks.

Patrick Keller studied architecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL) where he graduated in 1993 (M.Sc) and in Berlin. He then continued his education in the research labs of the EPFL with a postgraduate in Computer Graphics (Mas). Patrick worked at the EPFL as a research assistant where he contributed as a designer on several research projects between 1996 and 2000, before formally founding fabric | ch in 2001.

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Contact: patrick[dot]keller[at]ecal[dot]ch

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

EPFL / Alice

 

EPFL / ALICE – Atelier de la conception de l’espace

 

Prof. Dieter Dietz

Educated at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich (Arch. Degree 1991), Dieter Dietz also studied at the Cooper Union in New York with Diller/Scofidio. Since 2006, he is Associate Professor for Architectural Design at EPFL, director of the ALICE laboratory in the ENAC faculty. He collaborates with the ALICE team on research projects at diverse scales with labs inside and outside EPFL.

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Contact: dieter[dot]dietz[at]epfl[dot]ch