Interview in my favorite blog!

For Valentine's day, Régine Debatty offered me an interview in her super blog!

Via We-Make-Money-Not-Art

The influence of biotechnologies

Elio Caccavale is a product and interaction designer who explores the relationship between biotechnologies and our reactions to the "transhuman". He developped a series of toys that symbolize the emergence of biological hybrids.

MyBio bunny, MyBio glowing fish and MyBio jellyfish glow bright green when illuminated with a UV light, demonstrating how scientists have used GFP as a fluorescent indicator for monitoring gene expression in living organisms; MyBio reactor cow shows how cows produce proteins in their milk for pharmaceutical drugs (this is symbolized by the "milk thread" attached to the cow's udders); MyBio goat has a spider web attached to the udders demonstrating one animal making the natural product of another.

As Nicholas Negroponte said in Wired, beyond Digital, 1998: "The decades ahead will be a period of comprehending biotech, mastering nature, and realizing extraterrestrial travel, with DNA computers, microrobots, and nanotechnologies the main characters on the technological stage. Computers as we know them today will a) be boring, and b) disappear into things that are first and foremost something else: smart nails, self-cleaning shirts, driverless cars, therapeutic Barbie dolls, intelligent doorknobs that let the Federal Express man in and Fido out, but not 10 other dogs back in. Computers will be a sweeping yet invisible part of our everyday lives: We'll live in them, wear them, even eat them. A computer a day will keep the doctor away."

Now that the new technological stage described by Nicolas Negroponte is prominent, I study the materiality perceived through these technologies. I believe that this modification of our perception of the environment is developped through our experience with the digital.

Intelligent materials

The company SensiTile has developed a series of interactive materials that respond to motion, light and color. SensiTile proposes translucent polymer, cast concrete, cast resin tiles.

Apparently a lot of designers have started using the material in their concept, such as Zaha Hadid Architects in their winning proposal for Boulevard Der Stars Competition. The tiles are inserted within the pavement which glow and ripple in the day and night against the light and the shadows created by the pedestrians.



Boulevard Der Stars proposal

Touch · Sensitive Apparel at CHI 2007

Touch·Sensitive is a work-in-progress to develop a series of haptic modules that allow computational massage therapy to be diffused, customized and controlled by people on the move. Our current prototypes succeeded in defining a flexible structure, a mechanism of diffusion, and a feedback system for alerting and comforting the user through haptic means.

Touch · Sensitive Apparel work-in-progress 6 pages paper has been accepted to CHI 2007. Come see Yas and I in Saint Jose from April 28-May 3 2007!

Abstract
Touch·Sensitive is a haptic apparel that allows massage therapy to be diffused, customized and controlled by people while on the move. It provides individuals with a sensory cocoon. Made of modular garments, Touch·Sensitive applies personalized stimuli. We present the design process and a series of low fidelity prototypes that lead us to the Touch·Sensitive Apparel.



Download pdf of the paper

Sensory experiences

Today I watched Signers Koffer by Peter Liechti (1995, 81 min.), a movie on action sculptures made by the Swiss artist Roman Signer. Signer uses common household objects sometimes in addition to his own body to create a combination of explosive, compressed and released sculptures. He plays with compression and expansion such as in a harm stretch that gives a sense of pleasure. He works on the ideal speed. He uses his body in extreme conditions to engage in a personal discussion with nature. He borrows activities that use nature, readapt nature, and destroy nature. He re-instantiates the viewer shock that can happen facing consequences of natural catastrophes, and this within his action sculptures. He collects and revisits specific polish toys, toys that are charged with a period, a sense of magic. He describes their form, their functions in relation to their history and sometimes misery.

I had difficulty finding media about his work online, however a german band called Blumentopf borrowed and recompiled visuals of the movie.
Sequences from the Movie.

The sculptural actions of Roman Signer reminds me of the Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa.

Taking nothing seriously and recognizing our sensations as the only reality we have for certain, we take refuge there, exploring them like large unknown countries. And if we apply ourselves diligently not only to aesthetic contemplation but also to the expression of its methods and results, it's because the poetry or prose we write - devoid of any desire to move anyone else's will or to mould anyone's understandng - is merely like when a reader reads out loud to fully objectify the subjective pleasure of reading.

A walk in the Duchamp Outpatient Clinic

Basketball Drawing, 2001, Harlem earth on paper, found suitcase. Bouncing a basketball on this 10 feet tall sheet of paper, covers it with dirt from Harlem.

A little more on David Hammons

David Hammons was born in 1943 in Springfield, Illinois. An African-American, he is a conceptual installation artist using his found-object media as a platform for Dadaist social commentary, primarily on racial themes. Hammons places himself as an artist between Arte Povera and Marcel Duchamp. He has risen to prominence while at the same time consciously avoiding the attention of critics, galleries, and museums, preferring to do things in the street.

David Hammons has been inspired by the Arte Povera, Art which is not an impoverished art, but an art with an emphasis on materials and processes. He also thinks the art audience is the worst audience in the word: "it's overly educated, it's conservative, it's out to criticize not to understand, and it never had any fun. Why should I spend my time playing to that audience?" - Interview with David Hammons by dept of Modern culture and Media at Brown.

Today I read The Walker by Peter Schjeldahl Rediscovering New York with David Hammons Issue of 2002-12-23 and 30. Having extensively studied in Paris contemporary aesthetics and philosophy of art, at some point in my life I felt a bit brain-washed by this idea that any form of expression must be controlled while 'passion' and 'feeling' should not drive any parts of the conceptual work. Reading this article was refreshing for that reason. I picked my favorite part from the article:

I didn't ask him what it's like being black in a profession that remains overwhelmingly white. But he volunteered, "It's like being a white man in the jazz world, like Chet Baker or Gerry Mulligan. They had confidence. I feed off the confidence of jazz greats like them." He disparaged the academic ironies of younger artists, including blacks, who pose as subversives. He said, "I'm the C.E.O. of the D.O.C.—the Duchamp Outpatient Clinic. We have a vaccine for that smartness virus that's been in the art world for the last fifty years." The cure may be expressive activity that is streetwise, heartfelt, and utterly matter-of-fact.

... so refreshing!

Painting Pixels

The pixel roller, from 2005, is to me another take on how technology influenced the creative process, and in this case the printing process. The combination of digital and a new materiality expressed with the digitial is impressive.

Made by rAndom International at RCA

PixelRoller is a paint roller that paints pixels, designed as a rapid response printing tool specifically to print digital information such as imagery or text onto a great range of surfaces. The content is applied in continuous strokes by the user. PixelRoller can be seen as a handheld “printer”, based around the ergonomics of a paintroller, that lets you create the images by your own hand.

Web Site for PixelRoller including press material and a superbe video!



Pixels are everywhere, from dishes to architectural home structures.
This series from Remake Design reminds me of the Tetris video game.

A usb key that can blow up

There is a tone of usb keys that are invented now. I chose this one for its potential to blow up.
The idea behind this usb key is that the size of the device changes depending on the data it contains. My main question is can the usb key actually blow up if there are too many data?

Made by Dima Komissarov.

Jabberstamp

I team up with Hayes Raffle to work on his invention Jabberstamp a tool that allows children to synthesize their drawings and voices.

Jabberstamp is the the first tool that allows children to synthesize their drawings and voices. To use Jabberstamp, children create drawings, collages or paintings on normal paper. They press a special rubber stamp onto the page to record sounds into their drawings. When children touch the marks of the stamp with a small trumpet, they can hear the sounds playback, retelling the stories they have created.

Children ages 4+ can use Jabberstamp to embed names, narratives, characters’ voices and environmental sound effects in their original drawings. Children’s compositions help them communicate their stories with peers and adults, and allow them to record and situate stories in personally meaningful contexts to share with others, before they have mastered writing.

Update about Jabberstamp ...



Jabberstamp's video

From Rubix cube to pixel picture

When the product meets the digital, a multitude of Rubix cubes becomes a mario brother pixel picture ...


By space-invaders

Process ...