hello. :: architecture

A Public Inconvenience

Johanna Brewer sent this to me. Looks like a fun workshop, I wish I could go.

A Public Inconvenience
The 3rd workshop in the in-between-ness series.

Subterranean, ceramic-tiled bathrooms, plastic temporary urinals or compact, metallic washrooms in transit spaces; public toilets are an often-overlooked space in our urban environment. Technologies designed for the city often try to abstract away from the inconvenient necessities which our bodies require; or, when they are designed explicitly for public toilets, the focus is on supporting the cultural values of hygiene and privacy. What do we miss by ignoring the fact that public toilets are also the site for a variety of social practices?

‘A Public Inconvenience’ will explore the experience and affect of public toilets in an urban environment, in this case Amsterdam. Through observation and engagement we will consider how public toilets are shaped by, and themselves shape, cultural practices, values, and attitudes. And further, how this essential part of the urban fabric contributes to the everyday experience we have of our cities.

‘A Public Inconvenience’ is the third in a series of workshops exploring in-between-ness in urban environments. That is, the places and times that are often on the periphery of everyday life - the journey to work or the time spent queuing in a shop.

To be considered for participation, researchers and practitioners are invited to send us a compelling public toilet story (see The Stories section of the website for inspiration), an optional toilet photograph, a brief biography, and a short rationale outlining your interest in the workshop. This document should not exceed two pages.

Submissions:
Send to karen.martin@ucl.ac.uk by 21st September 2007
Acceptance Notification is 28th September 2007

Further Information:
http://www.inbetweeness.org/apublicinconvenience/

Place and Time:
26th & 27th October 2007
Waag Society, Amsterdam

Organisers:
Arianna Bassoli (The London School of Economics)
Johanna Brewer (University of California, Irvine)
Karen Martin (Bartlett School of Graduate Studies)
Valentina Nisi (Fattoria Mediale)
Martine Posthuma de Boer (Fattoria Mediale)

Technorati Tags: cities, conferences & workshops, design, environment

2007 09 09

architecture
environment
equity
interaction design
networks

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Ruth Ron

Ruth Ron has done a number of interactive installations bridging telecommunications technologies and architecture, many of which are focused on dematerializing architectural structures — walls into windows, windows into views into remote spaces, and more.

Technorati Tags: architecture, networked objects, networks, video

2005 08 27

architecture
networks

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Experiments in Art & Technology

There are a few major landmarks in digital art; EAT is definitely one of them. This biographical note from the Getty site, which details the project well, explains it in a nutshell:

“E.A.T., an organization devoted to promoting the interaction between art and technology, developed from the philosophies of Marshall McLuhan and Buckminster Fuller. E.A.T. founders, Billy Klüver, Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Whitman and Fred Waldhauer, believed that artists and scientists working together would greatly benefit society as a whole. The organization was created after the landmark event “9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering, ” 1966, and sought to continue the artist/engineer relationship forged during those performances. E.A.T.’s primary goal was to give artists access to new materials, such as plastics, reflecting materials, resins, video, and technologies, such as electronics and computers, which would have been otherwise inaccessible. Staff and participants explored or experimented with these and the precursors of many technologies that are now commonplace: chat lines, fax machines, lasers, cable television, and digitized graphics.

“By the early 1970s, E.A.T.’s artist and engineer matching service, called the Technical Services Program, boasted 6, 000 members. Through this matching system approximately 500 works were created, the most effective being in the areas of sculpture and performance. E.A.T. considered the collaborative process between artist and engineer of greater import than the aesthetics of the end result. Additionally, E.A.T. helped to organize many exhibitions in order to display the finished products of collaborations. Other E.A.T. activities focused on educational programs designed to inform the public about new telecommunications technologies. Research was conducted in order to locate inexpensive equipment and methods with which to bring TV programming to wider audiences, including underdeveloped countries.”

Technorati Tags: architecture, art, electronics, mechanics