Friday, April 4, 2008. 13:00 – 14:35
Session 1
«Design Research and Meaning:
Enacting New Technologies»
Introduction: Martin Wiedmer — Institute for Research in Art and Design IDK, Academy of Art and Design, UAS Northwestern Switzerland in Basel
Klaus Krippendorff — Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia — «Scientific Research, and the Exploration, Creation, and Communication of Design Space»
I will contrast the paradigm of science with that of design to highlight the kind of inquiries that human-centered designers are facing. To appreciate the latter, I intend to review key concepts and practices of human-centered design but focus on two unique features: (1) On the search for variables and the creation of possibilities—a design space—to which others may be blind and which scientific research has problems addressing. (2) On the products that designers need to deliver: proposals for successful interventions into material culture. Such a proposal needs to communicate its possibilities—delegate parts of the design space—through the network of the stakeholders in a design or fail to reach fruition. I hope to conclude that all design inquiries need to rhetorically support that communication.
Rolf Pfeifer — Artificial Intelligence Lab, University of Zurich — «How the body shapes the way we think: Design Principles for Intelligent Systems»
Over the last few years there has been increasing evidence that intelligence is not only a matter of control (the «brain») but that morphology and materials, «embodiment», play an essential role. In this talk, I will explore the many implications of this idea, which are often truly surprising. The underlying insights will be summarized as a set of design principles that can be employed for understanding naturally intelligent systems, and to the design artificial ones – robots, computer programs, and business. The arguments will be illustrated with many case studies.
14:45 – 16:00
Michel Zai — etoy corporation — «MISSION ETERNITY: an artistic exploration of risk (and loss)»
The slogan «leaving reality behind...» was introduced by etoy and printed on the crew jacket in the year 1995 when the group declared «reality emigration». It was the time when internet pioneers started to introduce a massive upgrade of information society and the virtualization of life entered the next level.
In 2008, years after the collapse of the dot com bubble and in the middle of the second internet boom, the tag line still expresses the main strategy of etoy.CORPORATION: to invent new tools, redefine technology and culture or to simply create exciting art on the edge, etoy goes where most people don’t go. To disobey rules and trends of the present means to take a high risk to fail. But exactly in this disturbing moments of inner and outer resistance, of conflicts and crisis lies a big potential to sharpen the product or – in the best case – to discover new ground.
After the «digital hijack» in 1996 and «TOYWAR» in 2000, etoy tries to manage and at the same time to artistically exploit another fundamental threat: the volatility of digital data.
Panel Discussion. Moderator: Simon Grand — Member of BIRD — Institute for Research in Art and Design IDK, Academy of Art and Design, UAS Northwestern Switzerland in Basel