Here is a quite sardonic description about the road to catastrophe, drawing from the experience suffered by Russian citizens after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Check it out! Orlov Five Stages
Beginning 2009
Learning something new is a good way to begin the year. So, from to January 5-9, I participated in the intensive workshop about physical computing at the School of Arts and Communication, K3 of the University of Malmö, Sweden. Malmö is a small and friendly city in the southern part of the country. It is a twenty minute train ride from Copenhagen.
David Cuartielles, David Sjunnesson, and other members of the Arduino team taught the course that entailed working with a diversity of software and hardware components, such as Processing, Pure Data, Arduino and XBee.
Here is a project that i realized during the 3rd day. It is a 5X4 matrix of LEDs connected in parallel to simulate a screen and an accelerometer used to sense changes in the position of the device. If the board is tilted sideways or upwards, the LEDs on that side will react by lighting up one by one. The matrix is connected to my computer via an Arduino board.
The course was a great experience and served as an introduction to this new area in computing and design. Getting over the usual thinking and conceptualizing design in terms of the screen was initially difficult. Once you are past that hangup, all sorts of possibilities open up.
I also had the opportunity of listening to a lecture by Durrell Bishop at the Copenhagen Institute of Design. Durell is a principal at LuckyByte, a product design firm based in the UK and tutor at the Royal College of Art. He spoke, among other things about the “physicalisation” of computing artifacts. Is it worthwhile to physicalise something? Why? How?
He also urged the students to think in terms of the properties of objects, since this strategy can be used to design behavior. This last point, reminded me of how, in the design research seminar at Media Lab, we use a modified version of the artifact analysis method in order to tease out the properties of artifacts/object. Check out his sketch where he presents a re-thinking of the artifacts used when interacting with a stream of video. The sketches also made me think of the work we did with performative research and scenarios for the HandsOn project.
Here is yet another sketch where he presents the difference between everyday interaction with objects in the physical world, and potential interaction via, presumably digital, button based mechanisms.
After the lecture, we went to a nearby watering hole for beer and tea. In the picture, from left to right: Heather Martin (our hostess from CID), Durrell Bishop, Fernando L. Barrajón and David Sjunnesson (from 1Scale1).
Sylvia Rexach
Se pudiese decir que la historia de Syvia Rexach ( 1922-1961) en Puerto Rico es similar a la de Badding. Una increíble compositora y poetisa puertorriqueña quien escribió canciones que hoy se consideran clásicas. Encontré un vídeo de Las Caribelles – un grupo vocal de cuatro chicas fabulosas – cantando un medley de las canciones de Sylvia. El final incluye unas lineas de su famosa composición, Olas y arena. (Si quieres saber más sobre Las Caribelles, pincha aquí.)
Rauli Badding Somerjoki
Bueno, me he pasado los últimos días escuchando la música de este cantante finlandés, Rauli Badding (1947-1987) que era fantástico y el cual desgraciadamente murió jovencito. Buscando en la red, me he encontrado esta versión en inglés de su canción Valot (Luces). ¡Gozenla!
Week 50
What a week! On Wednesday, Dec 10, I attended Paul Kahn’s lecture on Managing Everything: a new vision of the Digital Library. The lecture dealt with how the emergence of music – video – photo sharing sites, growing collections of digital books, national media archives and collaborative work spaces offer us a vision of a Digital Library in search of a user interface.
The lecture was part of Paul’s application for a docentureship at the Media Lab Helsinki. For the past few years Paul, who is An American Living in Paris, has been teaching information architecture at the University of Art and Design Helsinki.
On Thursday evening I had the good fortune, through the kindness of my colleague Mika Tuomola, to be invited to a performance of Kristiina Elstela and Juusi Tuurna’s cabaret act at Manari. You can see more information About the Performance here. It is a wonderful act and I thoroughly recommend it to everybody. You do not need to know Finnish to appreciate the talent of these two performers.
On Friday, the Media Lab Helsinki hosted the public defense of Koray Tahiroglu’s dissertation on Interactive Music Systems. The event, the featured Prof. Robert Rowe from the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University as Opponent. Here is a picture from our gathering after the karonkka at Belge’s kabinetti.
Karonkka tradition
“Dissertation karonkka is an old academic tradition. It is organized in honor of the Opponent. In karonkka, the Respondent also has the opportunity to thank her/his teachers, instructor and supporters for the help in different stages of the dissertation work. Karonkka is not a family festivity, although in addition to spouse, some close adult friends or relatives may be invited…” Read more
Here are a couple of photos from Paula Bello Aragana’s karonkka. Paula was awarded a Doctor of Arts (In Art and Design) for her thesis on the topic of globalization. For more information about her work see: Paula Bello’s dissertation, Goodscapes: Global Design Processes.
Una canción para terminar con uno y comenzar con otro…
Or “A song to end one and begin a new year”. Rock and roll has had a profound influence in different cultures throughout the world. The Latin American continent is no exception. Here is a live recording of the hit song, De pies a cabeza, by the legendary Mexican group, Maná. The song became quite famous, as it was used in the Spanish trailer of the Brazilian soap opera, Vampi. Dating to around 1993, this soap might be considered a precursor of the North American TV production of Buffy the Vampire. Here is a clip from an episode with the main character, Natasha, in Venice.
A clip from the great Venezuelan rock group, Desorden público: Truena, truena… In its simple but original use of editing and special effects, the video is a wonderful example of creative elegance.
Digital Matter and Intangible Heritage
Finally! The special double issue on Digital Matter and Intangible Heritage edited by Lily Díaz and Maurizio Forte and published in the International Journal of Digital Culture and Intangible Heritage (IJDCE) by Inderscience Publishers is online and with the printed version to follow shortly.(See post on August 3, 2007 for initial call for papers.)
The web pages of the journal, table of contents (ToC) for the issue as well as an introductory essay by the editors can be accessed here: IJDCE Special Issue: Digital Matter and Intangible Heritage.
The issue deals with questions such What is intangible heritage? What new developments does the digital dimension afford to the areas of Culture and Heritage? What new paradigms for interaction emerge from the combination of more traditional humanistic practices such as Archaeology, History, Museum Studies with the newly emerging digital practices?
It features contributions by leading experts in areas such as embodiment, user experience from an ecological perspective; virtual tourism, journey and destination in the virtual dimension; new notions of audience and economic models as well as the development of new practices.
The issue concludes with a showcase of works by students from the Media Lab Helsinki.
For more information please contact me.
“Cutting research is not the option”
Such were the words of Jorma Olilla, CEO of Nokia when speaking about the current global crisis and its effects on corporate revenue. According to Olilla this is the time to invest and develop new research ideas into innovations that can capture the market.
Citing from the experience of the recession in Finland during the early 1990’s Olilla pointed out that when the time came, Nokia was ready to take advantage and decisively deploy devices based on the new GSM standard.
Mr. Olilla spoke during the annual event of the Nokia Foundation. The event, that was held in the Vanha Ylioppilastalo was hosted by Mr. Henri Tirri, Head of Nokia Research Center. Approximately 250,000 Euros were distributed, mostly to young researchers.
Sampo Karjalainen, former colleague at the Media Lab and and his partner Aapo Kyrölä were given the Nokia Foundation Award for 2008 for their work as founders of Sulake and creators of Habbo Hotel.
Cromulence
Lily in Teotihuacan, Mexico, 1968.