I&IC design research at “Bot Like Me” conference, Centre Culturel Suisse, Paris

Note: At the invitation of Sophie Lamparter (Swissnex San Francisco) and Luc Meier (EPFL ArtLab), we had the pleasure to present the current process and outcomes of our joint design research project in Paris, at Centre Culturel Suisse (CCS). This helped us collect meaningful impressions and comments about the ongoing work.

The conference was given last Friday and Saturday (02-03.12) in the company and attendance of an excellent line up (!Mediengruppe Bitnik, Nicolas Nova, Yves Citton, Tobias Revell & Nathalie Kane, Rybn, Joël Vacheron, Gwenola Wagon, Hannes Grasseger, I&IC’s research assistants Lucien Langton & Léa Pereyre,  so as many others!)

Together with Nicolas Nova, we presented the almost final state of our joint research project Inhabiting & Interfacing the Cloud(s), at a time when we are entering the prototyping of the final artifacts (deliverables).

 

Via Centre Culturel Suisse (in French)

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Du vendredi 2 au samedi 3 décembre 2016

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Bot Like Me
interventions en anglais

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A l’occasion de l’exposition de !MedienGruppe Bitnik, et avec la complicité du duo d’artistes zurichois, Sophie Lamparter (directrice associée de swissnex San Francisco) et Luc Meier (directeur des contenus de l’EPFL ArtLab, Lausanne) ont concocté pour le CCS un événement de deux jours composé de conférences, tables rondes et concerts, réunissant scientifiques, artistes, écrivains, journalistes et musiciens pour examiner les dynamiques tourmentées des liens homme-machine. Conçues comme une plateforme d’échange à configuration souple, ces soirées interrogeront nos rapports complexes, à la fois familiers et malaisés, avec les bots qui se multiplient dans nos environnements ultra-connectés.

Tweetbacks (“Twitter feedbacks”) of SDN Unfrozen Conference

Feedbacks “on the go” of the SDN 2016 Research Conference — to which we took part last week presenting I&IC, all three of us: Nicolas Nova, Christophe Guignard and Patrick Keller — can be read and seen (lots of images as well) on the SDN Twitter account at the following address and/or with the #unfrozen2016 hashtag.

 

I&IC at Unfrozen, Swiss Design Network 2016 Conference

Christophe Guignard and myself will have the pleasure to present the temporary results of the design research Inhabiting & Interfacing the Cloud(s) next Thursday (28.01.2016) at the Swiss Design Network conference.

The conference will happen at Grandhotel Giessbach over the lake Brienz, where we’ll focus on the research process fully articulated around the practice of design (with the participation of students in the case of I&IC) and the process of project.

This will apparently happen between “dinner” and “bar”, as we’ll present a “Fireside Talk” at 9pm. Can’t wait to do and see that…

 

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The full program and proceedings (pdf) of the conference can be accessed HERE & the conference can be followed at a distance on Twitter with the #unfrozen2016 hashtag.

 

As for previous events, we’ll try to make a short “follow up” on this documentary blog after the event.

I&IC at Renewable Futures Conference in Riga

The design research Inhabiting and Interfacing the Cloud(s) will be presented during the peer reviewed Renewable Futures Conference next week in Riga (Estonia), which will be the first edition of a serie that promiss to scout for radical approaches.

Christophe Guignard will introduce the participants to the stakes and the progresses of our ongoing work. There will be profiled and inspiring speakers such as Lev Manovitch, John Thackara, Andreas Brockmann, etc.

 

rixc_conference

 

Poetics and Politics of Data, the publication

Note: we’re pleased to see that the publication related to the exhibition and symposium Poetics & Politics of Data, curated by Sabine Himmelsbach at the H3K in Basel, has been released later this summer. The publication, with the same title as the exhibition, was first distributed in the context of the conference Data Traces. Big Data in the Context of Culture and Society that also took place at H3K on the 3rd andf 4th of July. 

The book contains texts by Nicolas Nova (Me, My cloud and I) and myself (Inhabiting and Interfacing the Cloud(s). An ongoing Design Research), but also and mainly contributions by speakers of the conference (which include the american theorician Lev Manovitch, curator Sabine Himmelsbach and Prof. researcher from HGK Basel Claudia Mareis) and exhibiting artists (Moniker, Aram Bartholl, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Jennifer Lyn Morone, etc.)

 

pbl_32a_2015

The book serves both as the catalogue of the exhibition and the conference proceedings. Due to its close relation to our subject of research (the book speaks about data, we’re interested in the infrastructure –both physical and digital– that host them), we’re integrating the book to our list of relevant books. The article A short history of Clouds, by Orit Halpern is obviously of direct signifiance to our work.

Inhabiting and Interfacing the Cloud(s) – Talk & workshop at LIFT 15

Note: Nicolas Nova and I will be present during next Lift Conference in Geneva (Feb. 4-6 2015) for a talk combined with a workshop and a skype session with EPFL (a workshop related with the I&IC research project will be finishing at EPFL –Prof. Dieter Dietz’s ALICE Laboratory at EPFL-ECAL Lab– the day we’ll present in Geneva). All persons who follow the research on this blog and that would be present during Lift 15, please come see us and exchange ideas!

 

Via the Lift Conference

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Inhabiting and Interfacing the Cloud(s)

Workshop
Curated by Lift
Fri, Feb. 06 2015 – 10:30 to 12:30
Room 7+8 (Level 2)
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Architect (EPFL), founding member of fabric | ch and Professor at ECAL
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Principal at Near Future Laboratory and Professor at HEAD Geneva
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Workshop description : Since the end of the 20th century, we have been seeing the rapid emergence of “Cloud Computing”, a new constructed entity that combines extensively information technologies, massive storage of individual or collective data, distributed computational power, distributed access interfaces, security and functionalism.

In a joint design research that connects the works of interaction designers from ECAL & HEAD with the spatial and territorial approaches of architects from EPFL, we’re interested in exploring the creation of alternatives to the current expression of “Cloud Computing”, particularly in its forms intended for private individuals and end users (“Personal Cloud”). It is to offer a critical appraisal of this “iconic” infrastructure of our modern age and its user interfaces, because to date their implementation has followed a logic chiefly of technical development, governed by the commercial interests of large corporations, and continues to be seen partly as a purely functional,centralized setup. However, the Personal Cloud holds a potential that is largely untapped in terms of design, novel uses and territorial strategies.

The workshop will be an opportunity to discuss these alternatives and work on potential scenarios for the near future. More specifically, we will address the following topics:

  • How to combine the material part with the immaterial, mediatized part? Can we imagine the geographical fragmentation of these setups?
  • Might new interfaces with access to ubiquitous data be envisioned that take nomadic lifestyles into account and let us offer alternatives to approaches based on a “universal” design? Might these interfaces also partake of some kind of repossession of the data by the end users?
  • What setups and new combinations of functions need devising for a partly nomadic lifestyle? Can the Cloud/Data Center itself be mobile?
  • Might symbioses also be developed at the energy and climate levels (e.g. using the need to cool the machines, which themselves produce heat, in order to develop living strategies there)? If so, with what users (humans, animals, plants)?

The joint design research Inhabiting & Interfacing the Cloud(s) is supported by HES-SO, ECAL & HEAD.

Interactivity : The workshop will start with a general introduction about the project, and moves to a discussion of its implications, opportunities and limits. Then a series of activities will enable break-out groups to sketch potential solutions.