http://blogs.poly.edu/bsww a conversation about space - physical and virtual - how it shapes our interactions and how our interactions shape it Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:14:13 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Today I attended the 3rd seminar of the Series on The Objects of Design and Social Science at Goldsmiths (London). The speaker was James Auger from the Royal College of Arts and the topic was "Critical and evocative objects". While I was intrigued by the projects he described, I was ... http://blogs.poly.edu/bsww/2009/11/19/critical-and-evocative-objects/ Writing an essay with Aileen for Taking, Moving, Leaving, our point of departure was cities we lived in and we realized how these cities were not mere geographical locations, but that they were "places", entangled with experiences, people and feelings. We found that ... http://blogs.poly.edu/bsww/2009/11/15/shifting-sense-of-identity/ building_space_with_words is featured on Caught in the Act: Art in Brooklyn, on Brooklyn Independent Television (Time Warner 56 and Cablevision 69). It was premiered on October 28 at 10 pm. For the next month, it will repeat every Monday & Wednesday at 2pm & 10pm. It's also on their website: http://www.bricartsmedia.org/community-media/brooklyn-independent-television/caught-in-the-act http://blogs.poly.edu/bsww/2009/11/01/building_space_with_words-on-brooklyn-independent-tv/ I have mentioned several times the role of writing and the research we've been doing with Anca Metiu on the role of writing for knowledge sharing and the expression of emotions. Our argument is that a lot of the debates about online communication focuses only on the media, forgetting the ... http://blogs.poly.edu/bsww/2009/11/01/is-google-making-us-stupid/ As a follow up on Blum's article on how digital media might enhance our urban experience, adding social layers to it, I found the Museum of the phantom city  project by Irene Cheng and Brett Snyder as they offer people to walk in the city adding layers  to it -not ... http://blogs.poly.edu/bsww/2009/10/21/museum-of-the-phantom-city/ Here's an interesting series of seminar organized at Goldsmith College - at the intersection of two practices and two discourses, design and social science - with the "object" as the boundary... material object, object of interest ... -- The Objects of Design and Social Science Common to both design and (parts of) the ... http://blogs.poly.edu/bsww/2009/10/20/the-objects-of-design-and-social-science/ In the Wired UK edition from November, Andrew Blum wrote about the relationship between physical and virtual space in cities, how technology - social networking, mobile phones, etc. - are adding a layer to the physical cities. He argues that technology is not killing real communities but reshaping our interactions ... http://blogs.poly.edu/bsww/2009/10/17/in-cities-the-virtual-enhances-the-physical-andrew-blum/ I've just read about this installation which was exploring the relationship between the physical and the virtual space: Constellations is a network music installation by Atau Tanaka connecting the physical space of a gallery to the imaginary space of the internet through sound and image. Visitors in the gallery navigate an ... http://blogs.poly.edu/bsww/2009/10/17/connecting-the-physical-space-to-the-imaginary-space-of-the-internet/ Last summer I described my experience of "playing the building", an installation by David Byrne which was taking place in NY. When I moved to London this summer, as I was walking nearby Camden Town, I saw a big poster advertising "Playing the building". Byrne had revived his work in ... http://blogs.poly.edu/bsww/2009/10/09/playing-the-building-at-the-round-house/ A nice video done by Lily Henderson http://blogs.poly.edu/bsww/2009/09/11/a-video/ Please go and check an interesting project - exploring on how to reinvent office spaces in public spaces - in which Laura Forlano is involved. "This festival liberates workers from the traditional offices spaces and invites them to relocate their work in urban public settings, relying on three sets of tools: ... http://blogs.poly.edu/bsww/2009/09/09/break-out/ Last month when I was in Paris I went to see "Verticale Rouge, Paroles en l'air"(which you can translate Red vertical, idle words. Note that "paroles en l'air" means idle words or empty promises, "en l'air" also means in other context "up in the air"), the work of Brigitte Brandeau ... http://blogs.poly.edu/bsww/2009/08/20/verticale-rouge-paroles-en-lair/ As a follow up to my post on visualization, Tufte has explored ways to "embody", "materialize" his research work presented in an exhibition, Seeing Around, currently at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum: "Tufte’s monumental sculptures—including Larkin’s Twig, which stands 32 feet tall, and Rocket Science, which weighs 48,000 lbs—are partly a ... http://blogs.poly.edu/bsww/2009/08/18/from-visualizing-to-embodying/ I've just read an article in the Business Weeks on Data Visualization: Stories for the Information Age. Maria Popova, the writer argues that with the new technology and the abundance of information we have (e.g. the NY Times and the Guardian opening their archives) "artists and designers are turning to ... http://blogs.poly.edu/bsww/2009/08/17/visualizing-as-telling-a-story/ Just read this article on NY Times on John Adams' diary entries during his journey from Boston to St Petersburg in 1809 (Thanks Bojan for the link!) "The diary, which Adams maintained until April 1836, is a rarity among the many he kept, in that the description for each day is ... http://blogs.poly.edu/bsww/2009/08/06/twitter-telegrams-and-diaries/ I arrived nearly 2 weeks in London and was planning to get a phone fast but realized one needed a bank account to have one, and this takes some time. I could have taken a pay-on-the-go phone, but thought, "better just to wait, I can survive a few days without a ... http://blogs.poly.edu/bsww/2009/07/17/walking-in-the-city-unconnected/ Hello, I just read an interesting article by Elizabeth Cline titled "Building Without Walls" in SEED Magazine, and I wanted to share it with you since I think it is related to our discussions on objects, spaces, design, art and science. I've already read similar discussions on this blog, so maybe ... http://blogs.poly.edu/bsww/2009/07/14/building-without-walls-what-are-the-walls-of-this-space/ I heard, read and wrote  about The listening post by Hansen and Rubin but I never experienced it. Today I went to the Science Museum with my kids as we were wandering in London... and I noticed on the museum map: 1st floor, Listening Post. Could it be? There can't be ... http://blogs.poly.edu/bsww/2009/07/13/the-listening-post-by-surprise/ John Weeks just sent me a link to a great platform designed by The Economist:  http://thinkingspace.economist.com/#/explore I like the design - the general space, but also the pictures with the red dots that point to the evocative objects of the person thinking space. It reminds us the materiality of thinking.  It ... http://blogs.poly.edu/bsww/2009/07/10/thinking-spaces/ My friend Nicole was in Paris for the first time and sent me this clip (mostly audio though) that she recorded in a taxi. She wrote "It was on a late Monday night and the streets of Paris were very quiet." and she tried to capture "the sounds from that night ... http://blogs.poly.edu/bsww/2009/07/10/sounds-of-the-city/