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Tamar Kasriel is a futurologist. She'll explain to you why you'll be wearing tinfoil within 20 years. Or why you won't. And during her visit of our department last thursday, she even talked about how to earn money with all this. Wandering around in the corporate world called powerpoint for too long, she gave us a very natural and beamerless talk, how's that for the future?
As part of the professional practice lectures series in our department, she came to talk about how she makes money out of doing what she wants to do. She told about her work at the Henley Centre and how it helps to stand on the shoulder of a giant when you just start in business. But she also explained how those big companies are interested in growth and how that can kill creativity. Despite the smart tricks and wise words in her very amusing talk, it didn't give me any clearer idea on my future...
A few weeks ago, we did a short project in collaboration with the SAID Business School at Oxford University. Culture shock for both us and the friendly MBA students who enrolled in the "Design Leadership" elective. The starting point for both groups was to analyse a cult, for us to find out how belief systems can translate into products, rituals or services and for the MBA students to look at the business-side of something beyond the regular multinational. It was brilliant to experience how this clash of different thinking can yet be so inspiring for both sides.
Lucy Kimbell, tutor at the SAID business school, artist, consultant and previous tutor at our department, together with our own Nina Pope, managed to guide us just enough to make it an interesting 3 weeks, including a trip to oxford and inviting the SAID people over in London. For me, the project resulted in the creation of business models for life, something which needs a bit more processing before it will end up on this website.
I'm on a short visit back to Belgium for a scholarship interview: I asked the kind gentlemen of Rotary Club to support me throughout my next year. Last week, I presented some of my projects at the local Rotary club in Leuven. I was a bit scared meeting the people I always had thought of as a strange club of old men smoking cigars. The contrast with reality couldn't have been bigger and it was a very interesting night, meeting people from such a variety of backgrounds that it could have been the title of a Greenaway film: the consul, the director, his doctor and a goldsmith.
Evidence Dolls by Dunne and RabyEaster holidays: two weeks away from college, a week away from London and what do I do? I visited an exhibition from our tutors: "How is that for dedication, meneer?" I took advantage of my visit to Belgium to drop by Z33 in Hasselt, where the exhibition 'Designing critical design' shows work from Dunne & Raby [Tony and Fiona, our head of department and tutor], Jurgen Bey and Martin Guixé.
In Belgium, not exactly the first place where you would expect an international, high profile exhibition on design, let alone the town of Hasselt. Yet Designing critical design succeeds in bringing together the work of four designers with international reputation. Their experimental and hypothetical projects offer an alternative vision on technological development, social processes and the role of design.
Set-up as three solo-parts, containing a vast amount of existing work and even new creations, the exhibition shows the designers' different angles of approach and yet makes you feel their similar attitude. For me, the video interviews tied the different parts even more together, giving an insight in the designers' thoughts and doubts.
Free entry and on till 3rd of June: definitely homework for everyone living within 200 km! Many thanks as well to Jan Boelen, director of Z33 for a really interesting discussion afterwards.
image by C. ReasToday we had a really interesting lecture from Casey Reas, an LA based artist, professor, programmer. Through software, he explores how differences in wiring and basic rules affect behaviour, resulting in prints, animations and interactive installation. He calls it "processes" and explains them in human language first. And although not really a fan of the visuals, I thought that was the money-bit. He explores systems, systems of rules, of laws and their effects but it is by communicating the invisible underlying processes of these systems that the results become truly interesting.
And if that isn't enough mister Reas initiated Processing, an open source programming language and environment for programming images, animation, sound... Candy which shook the world of visual and interactive art.
In the meanwhile, not too much processes going on on this website, although I added some links [friends]. Expect a few updates on my projects soon [I made a short film about a man and a washing machine] and I really have to write that 'about' bit. [Yes Tuur, who are you, tell us...]
And all of a sudden you find yourself in Tokyo, where you can't blow your nose in public but it's perfectly normal to read pornstyle manga in the subway. Fasten your seatbelts and prepare for culture-turbulences. In a week time, we visited artists, designers, companies and research-labs. Definite highlight was Maywa Denki , the friendly artist/designer/performer and inventor of the nonsense machines. During the week he welcomed us in his workshop, showed us around and explained a lot on how he worked. A few days later, we saw his amazing music-machine performance. If there would be a Nobel Prize for poetic craziness, he'd be my nominee.
Other visits were to the Philip Starck of Japan: Naoto Fukasawa, the Computer Science Lab of Sony and the Sony's design Lab. The last two were a bit disappointing in the way they were still so technology-focused and their lack of vision on the relevancy of those technologies. Although even noticing that can be very inspiring. Furthermore, we explored the city at day and night, leaving us with enough crazy impressions to think about for a while: impressions of maid café's, geek town and lovehotels.
...was conceived in Tokyo in 2003 as an event for young designers, architects and photographers amongst others to show their work in public. But as Mark Dytham, inventor of Pecha Kucha, puts it: "Give a microphone to a designer, especially an architect, and you'll be trapped for hours." The key to Pecha Kucha is its patented system for avoiding this fate: each presenter is allowed 20 slides, each shown for 20 seconds, without control.
Now a worldwide concept for presentations amongst the creative scene, a few of us got the chance to present their work at the very roots of Pecha Kucha, in club SuperDeluxe in Tokyo. Four students shared two slots, giving me 10 slides and 200 seconds to present my latest project to the audience, 400 artists and designers from different backgrounds. It was an amazing experience, certainly when Steve managed to crash the system for the first time in 4 years of Pecha Kucha. Mark knew why [You shouldn't be talking about God] and bought us beers.
Regine from we-make-money-not-art came to visit our interim show and along with a few other projects, she wrote a post on mine. The posts provoked an interesting discussion on the new direction of Design Interactions.
Tuesday night was the private view of our Work in Progress Show. There were real people and designers, drinks and friends and it was fun. Soon more on it but now for something completely different: our school-trip to Tokyo. See you in a week.
In times where avatars use as much electricity as Brazilians and even refrigerators are connected to the internet, I am very pleased to announce that from now on I will be online. It's official. I have a website and you're looking at it. Relax, enjoy, have a look around. Of course, not everything will be working as it should and there's still some stuff that needs to be added. Consider this version 0.0 and make sure you come back from time to time to check for exciting extensions.
