Sharing Pillow by Rui Mu

Sharing-Pillow from Rui Mu on Vimeo.

Rui Mu is an MFA student at the University of Michigan's School of Art & Design. She has been exploring how product design can influence the behavior of users. This is what she says of a recent project:

"In 1979, a ‘one child policy’ was introduced to solve the problem of over-population in China. By 2007, there were approximately 100 million only-children in the country. This has had a great effect on Chinese economic reform. However, it has also introduced new problems such as an increase in selfish behavior that children have. This is currently resulting in a highly increased divorce rate in recent Chinese society since many of them are young adults.

Therefore, I have been exploring the didactic potential that product design has in changing selfish behavior by designing products that only function by being shared. I have designed an inflatable two-person pillow, which cannot be used comfortably without a partner. If one partner tries to use it, all the air will be pushed into the other half of the pillow and will provide him/her with no support. This product will not let one partner be lazy while the other one is working to encourage them to share housework fairly. In addition to changing couples’ behaviors, this pillow also improves their relationship by letting them use it together and spending more time with each other."

Triolin

Alex Sobolev - one of the participants in my Post-Optimal Objects class at the University of Michigan School of Art & Design has made a fully functioning three player violin as his thesis project. The Triolin was made with a combination of hand and digital fabrication.

Art 300 Metaproject

I have been working with Elona Van Gent's Advanced Studio Art students at The University of Michigan's School of Art & Design.

We have been exploring what ‘sophistication’ might be when applied to the use of 3D computer technologies. As a starting point I presented some results of a survey of practitioners I conducted which suggested that the folowing are important:

• The cognitive and technical exploitation of the software, hardware and processes of 3D computer technologies to ends which are not obtainable (or could not be done as effectively) by other means.

• ‘Sophisticated’ objects produced in this way have new aesthetic qualities that transcend the conventional applications of straight modelling and production, moving beyond mere, gestural form-making.

• Use of these technologies becomes ‘sophisticated’ when there is a fluid engagement of ideas, model and output - beyond merely employing the technology for its own sake.

The group was asked to develop a new, three-dimensional object from the creative combination of ‘found’ 3D objects downloaded from the Internet. This was not a modelling project - inventiveness in finding and using combining techniques were the main concerns. The objective was to combine objects, into a new, visually interesting and ‘sophisticated’ object. This was conducted over only 2 class periods. Creative play was definately encouraged. Each member of the group had 3 minutes to ‘pitch’ why their object was an example of ‘sophistication’.

I think we ended up with more questions than answers (always a good thing in my book) and a lot of new ideas that hopefully will help fuel future projects. The objects presented and the discussions that resulted made for some very astute observations and contrasting approaches and points of view. I hope that some of the objects get developed further.

Seminar, Guldagergaard, Denmark

I've been invited by Flemming Tvede Hansen (a PhD scholar in the field of ceramics, working in Copenhagen, Denmark www.flemmingtvede.dk) to participate in the following seminar:

In the cross-border of digital media and physical form
Seminar, Guldagergaard, www.ceramic.dk , 3/2-4/2 2007:

The idea about this seminar is to meet people working in the cross-border of digital media and physical form. The aim of the seminar is to make an interdisciplinary network for exchanging knowledge, - show and share, - so new hybrids fields and approaches can appear.
The meeting will be structured by presentations of works and issues on the use of digital media from the participants. The participants are invited according to their use of digital media as a base or a catalyst for a physical product or art piece.

THEME: The relationships between the digital media and physical form in your project.
How is the physical media related to the work in the digital media?
How is ones knowledge about the physical media utilized in the digital media?
How is the interaction between the physical and digital media in the creative process?
What do the digital media add in an artistic sense?

PLACE: Guldagergaard, Heilmannsvej 31A, 4230 Skælskør, DENMARK

Haque + Bleecker

The Poker Club at the Beehive Inn in Edinburgh featured Usman Haque (artist/architect) and Julian Bleecker (technologist/artist/think tank leader) to discuss the "internet of things" and "open source architecture". Hosted by New Media Scotland.

Both presenters took us through a short run down of their work and then there was a lively exchange between everyone present. Hopefully there will be a podcast from New Media Scotland in the near future.

Haque's presentation was broken into three categories: Invisible Stuff, Collaborative Stuff (produced by non experts - or vernacular creativity) and Social Space. He talked about Architecture as an operating system for the collaborative production of space. He stressed the importance of the necessity of the system (whether an augmented object or space) to have the capacity to build 'its' own perceptual categories. Several examples of previous and current work were shown.

Bleecker started with the question 'Is life hackable?' He characterised the upsurge of activity as a renewed or second order humanism. The term 'change agents' was used and it was pointed out that these are no longer well positioned parties such as New York Times reporters. Several projects were shown which showed how digital networks can shape physical activities in a sort of network practice - social practice continuum. It was stressed that we're not just talking about data transactions.

Some interesting points that came up in the discussion:

• We are surrounded by invisible information, how do we make this visible or legible?
• Technology extends the zone of our perception/agency.
• Is the web of objects the end of subjectivity or a new beginning for subjectivity?
• The role of human beings as filters.

The issues emerging for me are what do we mean by 'understanding' in relation to all the information we have access to and how do we have agency within it? One thing that came up over and over was the spatial or prepositional nature of our relationship to the digital networked public. As Bleeker points out in Why Things Matter are we 'on' or 'in' the network?

Things + Open Source (event)

Beehive Inn (18-20 Grassmarket), Edinburgh, Wednesday 24 May, 2006, 6 PM Usman Haque (artist/architect) and Julian Bleecker (technologist/artist/think tank leader) discuss the "internet of things" and "open source architecture". Hosted by New Media Scotland.

Haque Design + Research specialises in the design and research of interactive architecture systems. Architecture is no longer considered something static and immutable; instead it is seen as dynamic, responsive and conversant. Our projects explore some of this territory.
Usman Haque has created responsive environments, interactive installations, digital interface devices and choreographed performances. His skills include the design of both physical spaces and the software and systems that bring them to life. He has been an invited researcher at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, Italy, artist-in-residence at the International Academy of Media Arts and Sciences, Japan and has also worked in USA, UK and Malaysia. As well as directing the work of Haque Design + Research he was until 2005 a teacher in the Interactive Architecture Workshop at the Bartlett School of Architecture, London.
He is a recipient of a Wellcome Trust Sciart Award, a grant from the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology, the Swiss Creation Prize, Belluard Bollwerk International, the Japan Media Arts Festival Excellence prize and the Asia Digital Art Award Grand Prize. His work has been exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (London), Ars Electronica, Transmediale, Hillside Gallery (Tokyo), The National Maritime Museum Greenwich and the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography. His work has also been presented at international conferences including Siggraph, VSMM (International Society on Virtual Systems and Multimedia) and Doors of Perception.

Julian Bleecker heads the Mobile and Pervasive Lab, a near-future think tank and research and development lab at the School of Cinema-TV and the Annenberg Center at the University of Southern California. Bleecker is an expert technologist with over 20 years of hands-on experience. He is fluent in many modern programming languages and best-practices development approaches for distributed networked systems, desktops and mobile devices. He is Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California in the School of Cinema-TV’s Interactive Media Division and is a researcher at USC’s Institute for Multimedia Literacy. Since 1988 he has been involved in a wide variety of technologies from virtual reality to mobile experience design and location-based media applications. His past and current clients include MTV, Comedy Central, VH1, Scholastic, Sun Microsystems, Volvo Cars, Barnes & Noble, MCI, The National Building Museum, Continental Airlines, The New York Sun and TheStreet.com. Bleecker’s proficiencies include emerging technology design, research and development, implementation, concept innovation, and strategy consulting. His areas of expertise include media and entertainment, mobile designed experiences, location-based media, and social software. His background in electrical engineering and computer science, coupled with his work on emerging technology design allows him to provide a unique perspective on the near-future possibilities of technology-based mobile, location-based, social and networked applications, products and services.

Bleecker wrote the Manifesto for Networked Objects — Cohabiting with Pigeons, Arphids and Aibos in the Internet of Things that I posted about previously.

Should be a good one.

Spime: A Theory Object

The link to Bruce Sterling's speech at Emerging Technology 2006 is online at:
http://www.viridiandesign.org/2006/03/viridian-note-00459-emerging.html

"In the Internet of Things debate, people are still trying to find the loose
verbal grab-bag just to put the concepts into. So I would argue that this work
is basically a literary endeavour. When it comes to remote technical
eventualities, you don't want to freeze the language too early. Instead, you
need some empirical evidence on the ground, some working prototypes, something
commercial, governmental, academic or military.... Otherwise you are trying to
freeze an emergent technology into the shape of today's verbal descriptions.
This prejudices people. It is bad attention economics. It limits their ability
to find and understand the intrinsic advantages of the technology."

"It's turning into what Julian Bleecker calls a "Theory Object," which is an idea
which is not just a mental idea or a word, but a cloud of associated commentary
and data, that can be passed around from mouse to mouse, and linked-to. Every
time I go to an event like this, the word "spime" grows as a Theory Object. A
Theory Object is a concept that's accreting attention, and generating visible,
searchable, rankable, trackable trails of attention."

Julian Bleeker's 'Manifesto for Networked Objects' is here: http://research.techkwondo.com/files/WhyThingsMatter.pdf

Shaping Things

ISBN: 0262693267

Picks up where Sterling's Siggraph keynote of 2004 leaves off. That is available at: http://www.boingboing.net/images/blobjects.htm

Excellent stuff. Crammed with ideas. Sometimes his terminology and neologisms are a bit dodgy - he also forgets to explain that a SPIME is a 'speculative imaginary' object.

"Rapid prototyping is a form of brainstorming with materials. It's not simply a faster way to plunge through older methods of production, but a novel way to manage design and production. By previous standards, it looks as if it is profligate, that it "throws a lot away"- but with better data retention, "mistakes" become a source of wealth. Rapid prototyping seen in depth is an "exhaustion of the phase of the problem" - it isn't reasonable, thrifty or rational, but it has the brutal potency of a chess-playing computer." pp. 48.

There is some great stuff on the evolution of human engagement with objects: artifacts, machines, products, gizmos, spimes and biots. A nice diagram on the mirrored S-curve of technological adaption, too.

Sterling, B., Shaping things. 2005 (The MIT Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts).

Emotional Security

An interesting range of "softened" security products at http://www.sweetdreamssecurity.com/

PC/furniture?

A PC case mod done in a Japanese furniture style. From Extreme Tech. An interesting blend of technology and furniture. Reminds me of the 'wireless' we had when I was a kid: big, wooden and sat on the floor.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1898200,00.asp

The System of Objects

"To take an example: the most 'essential' and structural aspects of a coffee mill, and hence the most concretely objective things about it, are the electric motor, the electricity furnished by the power company, and the laws governing the production and transformation of energy; what is already less objective because it depends on a particular person's need, is the mill's actual coffee-grinding function; and what is not objective in the slightest, and hence inessential, is whether it is green and rectangular or pink and trapezoid... Indeed, the characteristic of the industrial object which distinguishes it from the craft object is that in the former the inessential is no longer left to the whims of individual demand and manufacture, but instead picked up and systematized by the production process, which today defines its aims by reference to what is inessential (and by reference to the universal combinatorial system of fashion)." pp7.

Baudrillard, Jean, 2005. The System of Objects. London: Verso.

Research Goldmine

Pentti Routio of University of Arts & Design, Helsinki has to be thanked for his incredibly generous online resource: Arteology- or the Science of Artifacts. Set aside a couple of days and dive in http://www.uiah.fi/projects/metodi/110.htm

The Material Culture of Everyday Life

"The material object is posited as the vehicle through which to explore the object/subject relationship, a condition that hovers somewhere between the physical presence and the visual image, between the reality of the inherent properties of materials and the myth of fantasy, and between empirical materiality and theoretical representation." pp11.

Attfield, Judy, 2000. Wild Things. Oxford: Berg Publishers. ISBN: 1859733697