Social Spaces

Hack-a-thing workshop

Katrien — Tue, 15 May 2012 14:56:53 +0000

Ligt jouw oude Nintendo DS stof te verzamelen in de kast? Slingert je moeders kapotte haardroger rond op zolder? Of heb je nog een oude broodrooster gevonden in de garage? Neem ze dan mee naar FabLab Genk en blaas je overbodige rotzooi nieuw leven in!
Tijdens een tweedaagse workshop hacken we je alledaagse spullen. Dat betekent dat we van je broodrooster een elektrische tandenborstel met sms-functie gaan maken of de oude haardroger van je moeder in een robot veranderen die je haar kan vlechten. Je kunt het zo gek niet bedenken! Je krijgt eerst een introductie in elektronica en technologieën als Arduino en lasercutting. Dan gaan we zelf aan de slag in FabLab Genk om te zien wat jij, in een weekend tijd, met jouw oude spullen kunt maken. En, zijn jouw gehackte oude spullen tof geworden? Dan verdienen ze misschien wel een plek in de tentoonstelling die door “The Machine” georganiseerd wordt in het C-mine Designcentrum.
Dus ben jij 16 tot 26 jaar en heb je interesse in elektronica, technologie en het hacken van alledaagse spullen? Mis Hack-a-thing dan zeker niet!
Waar? FabLab Genk Media, Arts & Design faculty (campus C-mine) C-mine 5, 3600 Genk
Wanneer? Zaterdag 7 en zondag 8 juli, van 10.00u tot 17.00u
(Je mag je brooddoos thuislaten, want lunch/drank is voorzien)

Inschrijven is gratis en kan je hier. Wacht niet te lang, want vol = vol!
En wil je meer?
Kom dan ook zeker zaterdag 15 en zondag 16 september terug naar FabLab Genk. Dan zijn de experten in hacking er om samen met jou verder te werken aan je gehackte broodrooster, Gameboy of haardroger.
Oh ja, ‘zware’ kennis van elektronica is zeker niet nodig: wel veel goesting…
Hou onze websites in de gaten! Voor meer informatie kijk je op FabLab Genk , The Machine of op onze Facebook pagina.

Call for papers about Media Aesthetics: ZfM

Rosanne — Fri, 11 May 2012 10:38:59 +0000

“The aesthetic power of feeling”, wrote the late Félix Guattari, seems to be “on the verge of occupying a privileged position within the collective assemblages of enunciation of our era.” In discerning a “new aesthetic paradigm” he was not anticipating something along the lines of the primacy of the institutionalised arts within the social field, but rather a kind of “proto-aesthetic paradigm”, traversing all universes of value and existential territories, from the arenas of science and the ethico-political, to the modalities and practices of subjectivation. This general aestheticisation which Guattari had in mind at the end of the 1980s may be regarded as one of the first descriptions of a fundamental upheaval in the history of technology and sensation, a change taking place during the second half of the twentieth century, but especially since the 1990s, and one which potentially shifts the meaning of aesthetics as such: under the new media-technological conditions we observe a proto-aesthetic dressing of the present.

This special issue of ZfM sets out to clarify the historical-systematic contours as well as the political implications of the new aesthetic paradigm. This necessitates focusing on the key technical-medial scenes of the current sensorial caesura, outlining the associated conceptual challenges and issues of politics of terminology, in order thereby to contribute to the redescription of media-aesthetics under technological conditions, in particular those of the new era of social and mobile media in the network age.

Text submissions (around 25,000 characters, notes and spaces included), by the end of August 2012, to: erich.hoerl@ruhr-uni-bochum.de

This special issue of ZfM will be published in April 2013. The language of publication is German. Papers are accepted in German, English and French; papers will be translated after peer-review and acceptance.

http://www.zfmedienwissenschaft.de/index.php?TID=71

Participatory design for users with impairments @PDC 2012

Niels — Mon, 07 May 2012 12:11:00 +0000

At the Participatory Design Conference (PDC) Social Spaces is organising a workshop on participatory design for users with impairments (well, full title is Participatory Design for Users with Impairments Affecting Cognitive Functions and Communication Skills.

This workshop aims to exchange experiences with participatory design techniques that were designed for, or adapted to people with impairments. Since many of these techniques are highly focused on specific target groups, a further aim is to extract general principles and to generate guidelines for involving users with impairments in the design process.

We want to bring together researchers, designers, thinkers & tinkerers who have worked with this specific target group and wish to share experiences. You can find more info and register at the workshops blog.

We organize this workshop together with IDStudioLab (TU Delft), SMIT (VUB) and CUO (KULeuven)

Future Formers Free Festival

Sandy Claes — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 11:51:51 +0000

The Future Formers project will have a final showcase of the five resulting artworks (see this previous post for more information) on Saturday May 5 at Kolonel Dussartplein in Hasselt. To celebrate the end of the project, they also organize a free festival on the same day! Check http://www.facebook.com/events/350821154970618/ for a detailled program of the day.

Photo: work in progress of the showcase installation (by Daan Gielis)

[Dutch] Sociaal Innovatie Lab: technologie en armoede

Niels — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 08:24:33 +0000

MadFaculty/Social Spaces participeert in de organisatie van Sociaal Innovatie Labs. Het doel van deze labs is om technologie en innovatie te linken aan de sociale sector. Thema van dit jaar is armoedebestrijding.

Het Sociaal Innovatie Lab zal 6-maal plaatsvinden doorheen Vlaanderen en houdt op 22 mei halt in Genk (namiddagsessie in MAD-Fac, avondsessie op andere locatie op C-mine).

Voor dit Sociaal Innovatie Lab zoekt men dus programmeurs, grafisch vormgevers, product designers, fotografen,… en mensen uit de social sector.

Inschrijven en meer info via http://www.sociaalinnovatielab.be

[Dutch] 31 mei – Happy technology makes happy patients

Niels — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 14:31:54 +0000

In het kader van 75 jaar Wit Gele Kruis in Vlaanderen wordt er op 31 mei een event georganiseerd rond “goede” technologie. Happy Technology Makes Happy People brengt praktijkvoorbeelden en reflecties over het inzetten van technologie in zorgomgevingen. Het vertrekpunt van dit event is de relatie tussen mens en technologie: hoe kan technologie ingezet worden om de zorgverlener te ondersteunen een meer patiëntgerichte zorg uit te voeren; hoe kan de technologie “enablend” werken en de zorgbehoevende helpen zijn zorgtraject mee in handen te nemen?

Vanuit Social Spaces presenteren Andrea & Niels (samen met Karin Slegers van CUO) het werk dat ze uitvoeren in het ATOM-project.

Meer info en inschrijven via de KHLIM.

e-Book Dat is design

Jessica — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 16:25:04 +0000

On March 1^st the e-book Dat is design (This is design) was launched. The book is a collection of essential writings concerning design reflection. It follows the concept of the book Dat is Architectuur (This is architecture) that was published in 2001. 150 texts of the 21^st century, starting from 1850, are presented in chronological order. The texts are categorized in 15 themes, namely triviality (alledaagsheid), canon, consumption, digital, function, tool, identity, critique, art?, literature, machine, research, beauty, sign (teken) and responsibility. The MAD-faculty, and more specifically researchers from Social Spaces, developed the themes digital and research.

Dat is design is a collaboration between the design institutions of the KULeuven Association. The professional bachelor program Interior Design of the group Design & Technology (Lessius Mechelen) initiated and coordinated the development of the book. In this phase the book is only accessible for the institutions of the KULeuven Association. However, the book will be published later. Visit the website for more information (it is in Dutch however).

Reading Urban Cracks: new book & website

Marjan — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 19:28:07 +0000

New publication, as the result of a practice-based research project in Ghent:

Riet Steel, Elly Van Eeghem, Griet Verschelden & Carlos Dekeyrel, Reading Urban Cracks: Practices of artists and community workers, a publication of Hogeschool Gent & MER. Paper Kunsthalle, 2012.

+ the launch of a new digital platform for the mapping of ‘localised artistic practices’, as from 9 March: www.locart.be

Mapping experiment

Ben — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 13:26:57 +0000

As part of my (Ben Hagenaars) research project Cultivating Communities, I organised a workshop at the NME seminar (Natuur en Milieu educatie dag) in Brussels last week. 25 stakeholders within the field of environment and education participated in the workshop. The aim was to visualise a fictional map of a network between different schools. I used the MAP-it toolkit – developed by social spaces – which normally uses sticker icons to visualise a map. However, I made some alterations since I wanted to add some extra features like building blocks to make the map more tangible. This idea originates from a presentation I took part in during the Sustainable Summer School organised by REcentre last summer. For this presentation we didn’t want to use PowerPoint to visuals our concept – a food system for the city of Maastricht – but we built a miniature city out of materials we could scavenge in the surrounding area. This made it really easy to talk about the food systems with local famers, citizens and other stakeholders. It enabled us to work out a scenario of our concept, but more importantly it enabled other people to ad ideas of their own to the existing map. A fragment of the presentation can be found in this video by REcentre (starting from minute 7:41).

For last week’s workshop, I’ve tried to merge the MAP-it toolkit with some tangible elements. The participants where divided into three groups, each group was accompanied by a moderator who used scenario cards to guide the session. Structural elements like building blocks, link materials like ropes, and pens to add extra information could be used to build up the map.

The participants had to map a fictional network of school ‘laboratories’, which made the workshop a bit more challenging. The laboratories could be defined as spaces where school communities can experiment and come up with solutions to environmental issues. At the start of the workshop, ideas of networked school ‘laboratories’ emerged: schools that experiment with renewable energy, a network that uses bike messengers to transport materials, self-sufficient water laboratories, …

Halfway through the workshop, the groups switched to another map. After a short presentation of the map, the new group could ad remarks, brake down structures and build new structures. This generated interesting discussions about the importance of spaces where people could gather and share ideas. The spaces weren’t necessary physical structures as they could also be digital or even hybrid structures.

Call for papers: Digital Creativity – Special Issue on Design Fictions

Rosanne — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 09:47:22 +0000

This special issue of the journal invites papers, projects and reviews exploring and developing the notion of Design Fictions. One of the early proponents of Design Fictions, the author Bruce Sterling, said that design: “seeks out ways to jump over its own conceptual walls – scenarios, user observation, brainstorming, rapid prototyping, critical design, speculative design” (Sterling, 2009). Despite the current burgeoning of this field and its various histories and antecedents, the coming together of design and fiction, as ‘design fictions’, remains relatively underexplored.

Design Fictions might also be sensed as a ‘speculative turn’ in design practice, founding a new engagement in ‘prototyping’ conjectural projections of designed futures. In the context of ever-present near futures, projected as scenarios that threaten radical ruptures of the real, digital creativity expands into a post-digital cybernetics. Design Fictions speculative design methodologies take their cue from science fiction, Sterling however would also have it the other way around, saying that: “design and literature don’t talk together much, but design has more to offer literature at the moment than literature can offer design” (Sterling, 2009).

This issue seeks to put design and literature into conversation. The journal wishes to ask how Design Fictions and related methodological work have mutated or glitched across art, design and architecture, for example in response to ‘design fictions’ (Nokia/Bleecker); in ‘critical design’ (Dunne & Raby); in speculative and visionary architecture (Spiller); in science fiction as prototyping (Intel/Johnson); and in ethnographic work on design and prototyping (Kelty).

Deadline for extended abstracts: 5 March 2012
Website: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/NDCR

Publication about this call in Wired: http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2011/12/design-fiction-digital-creativity-special-issue-on-design-fictions/