Curating Media and Design

This paper offers a theoretical discussion of how immateriality can be conceptualized as a matter of aesthetics in the face of the challenge that digital artifacts pose to the role and understanding of materiality in design objects.

Access article here, open access, go to page 139.

Author: Mads Folkmann, Associate Professor in Design History, Syddansk Universitet, Denmark.

Published in Design and Semantics of Form and Movement

ABSTRACT - The paper is a philosophical-theoretical contribution to the conceptualization of the span of material extension and immaterial impact in artifacts employing digital technology. Using the smartphone as an example of a widely distributed type of material artifact that operates with immaterial structures of information, the paper offers a theoretical discussion of how immateriality can be conceptualized as a matter of aesthetics in the face of the challenge that digital artifacts pose to the role and understanding of materiality in design objects.

The paper proposes a framework of aesthetics that describes sensual, conceptual, and cultural levels of meaning in and through the object. Further, the paper discusses how this connects to a notion of possibility in design. Thus, the paper contributes to a discussion of the sensuous character and impact of artifacts that are on the verge of immateriality. The relevance to design practice is motivated through the discussion of central concepts of design ontology and the proposal of a framework of aesthetics that in its discussion and structuring of levels of meaning in design can inform the process of developing design.

Keywords: Aesthetics, materiality, immateriality, design ontology, digital artifacts, smartphones.

The environments we inhabit contain a growing number of networked, interactive products. User interaction is changing from interaction with single products into interaction with a larger system of products. In this article, we introduce an interaction paradigm where we view smart environments in terms of connections and associations between the actors and artefacts within the environment.

Access here, open access, go to page 18.

Authors: Bram van der Vlist, Gerrit Niezen, Jun Hu, Loe Feijs, Department of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology.

Published in Design and Semantics of Form and Movement

ABSTRACT - As the environments we inhabit contain a growing number of networked, interactive products, both users and designers need a better understanding of how these products can potentially work together. User interaction is changing from interaction with single products into interaction with a larger system of products. This trend faces designers with a challenge: to create meaningful interactions for users to deal with the complexity of the larger ecosystem of technologies users function in. In this article we introduce an interaction paradigm, where we view smart environments in terms of connections and associations between the actors and artefacts within the environment. In this notion of Semantic Connections, meaning is pivotal. We report on a search for a theoretical foundation for our approach in existing semantic theories. We attempt to use and extend these theories beyond their traditional focus on the appearance of objects and interaction with them in isolation, towards designing for systems of interoperating products. We illustrate our contribution by providing examples of products and design prototypes that implement our ideas. Although our research is ongoing and the theory unfinished, we believe that sharing our work can fuel the discussion on how designers may deal with the challenges in contemporary interaction design.

Keywords: Product semantics, interaction design, smart home.

How can public innovations be understood in terms of the need for linking capacities in order to create meaningful interactions between the government, the market and society? That is the first question this book tries to answer.

Edited by Victor Bekkers, Jurian Edelenbos and Bram Steijn, Professors of Public Administration, Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Access the book in full here.

QUESTION 2 - What role do ‘milieux of innovation’ play in the development and implementation of innovations in the public sector, what are the relevant mechanisms, and how does the specific institutional setting of the public sector influence the functioning of these milieux?

QUESTION 3 - How can the process and outcomes of innovation in the public sector be assessed, given the need for government to act efficiently and appropriately?

This article is about how radical and sustainable innovation can be brought about. It also gives an overview of the concept of Enabling Spaces and of the design process leading to such spaces.

Authors: Markus F. Peschl, University of Vienna, Austria; Thomas Fundneider, tf consulting & theLivingCore, Vienna, Austria

Published in Journal of Organisational Transformation and Social Change.

Full access to article here.

ABSTRACT - Innovation has become one of the key drivers for growth. However, how do we bring about innovation which is both radical and respects the limits of the world? One of our key assumptions is that we have to take into consideration the epistemological and cognitive processes leading to (radically) new knowledge first. We propose an approach that establishes spaces enabling such processes of knowledge creation – we refer to them as Enabling Spaces.

This article is concerned with the question of how innovation, and more specifically, profound, radical and sustainable innovation can be brought about in a more qualitative manner. What are the necessary concepts and attitudes which facilitate the processes of innovation? The notion of enabling as opposed to ‘managing’ or controlling innovation is to be developed. Furthermore the concept of  situated/extended cognition is discussed as a key ingredient for Enabling Spaces.

The second part gives an overview of the concept of Enabling Spaces and of the design process leading to such spaces. Finally the concrete case of a knowledgecreating university is discussed.

The aim of InMedia is to study the media and media representations in the English-speaking world. The journal focuses on the press, photography, painting, cinema, television, video games, music, radio and the Internet among other fields of study. It provides a multidisciplinary approach and comparative perspectives. Contributions are welcome from many research areas, including history, economics, political sciences, sociology, aesthetics, anthropology or science and communication studies.

http://inmedia.revues.org/

First issue - Table of Contents

Global Film and Television Industries Today: An Analysis of Industrial and Cultural Relations

• Global Film and Television Industries Today: An Analysis of Industrial and Cultural Relations
• Global and Local Hollywood
• The Impact of Runaway Productions on Hollywood Labor Organizations
• The Limits of Control (Jim Jarmusch, 2009): An American Independent Movie or a European Film?
• Sharing the Joke? ‘Britcom’ Remakes in the United States: A Historical and Socio-Cultural Perspective

Over the last decade, artists have taken the engines and cultures of digital games as their tools and materials. This book looks at how artists and designers have challenged the norms of both game and art worlds.

Editors: Ruth Catlow, Marc Garrett, Corrado Morgana.

Purchase book: http://www.furtherfield.org/researchpublicatios/artists-rethinking-games

ABOUT - Digital games are important not only because of their cultural ubiquity or their sales figures but for what they can offer as a space for creative practice. Games are significant for what they embody; human computer interface, notions of agency, sociality, visualisation, cybernetics, representation, embodiment, activism, narrative and play. These and a whole host of other issues are significant not only to the game designer but also present in the work of the artist that thinks and rethinks games. Re-appropriated for activism, activation, commentary and critique within games and culture, artists have responded vigorously.

Over the last decade artists have taken the engines and culture of digital games as their tools and materials. In doing so their work has connected with hacker mentalities and a culture of critical mash-up, recalling Situationist practices of the 1950s and 60s and challenging and overturning expected practice.

This publication looks at how a selection of leading artists, designers and commentators have challenged the norms and expectations of both game and art worlds with both criticality and popular appeal. It explores themes adopted by the artist that thinks and rethinks games and includes essays, interviews and artists’ projects from Jeremy Bailey, Ruth Catlow, Heather Corcoran, Daphne Dragona, Mary Flanagan, Mathias Fuchs, Alex Galloway, Marc Garrett, Corrado Morgana, Anne-Marie Schleiner, David Surman, Tale of Tales, Bill Viola, and Emma Westecott.

To what extent can independent artists and artists’ groups retain their critical practice and values in a globalized, cultural and economic crisis? Researcher Marc Garrett is doing a series of articles/interviews for Furtherfield relating to Art & Hacktivism and also a series called Art & Freedom.

If you are interested in contributing, you can send a short bio & info about your work or projects directly to the researcher: http://www.ietm.org/?p=information&q=newsdetail&id=677

The main questions are:
To what extent can independent artists and artists’ groups retain their critical practice and values in a globalized, cultural and economic crisis?

If we are submersed within frameworks and protocols, designed by a neo-liberal elite for a generic consumer class, how can art practice offer any ‘authentic’ depth, meaning or integrity, other than what is prescribed top-down? And if there are individuals and groups out there asking similar questions in their work; who are they, and where are they?

This thesis aims to investigate where these art communities are located and what resources they provide for an imaginative and genuinely cultural autonomy. Who are the individuals and groups forging alternate routes? Can we learn from them and collaborate with them to bring about new territories for exploration beyond the limiting reductionism of de-regulated global corporatism? In what ways can art be critically minded and progressive, in order to contribute, reclaim and (potentially) build productive actions and routes that point towards social and cultural strategies opposed to the dominant paradigm?”

Via @tess_y

The central form of communication on social network sites is the communication with and through images. This book studies images and image-based communication on social network sites such as Facebook.

Table of contents and introduction

ABOUT - First, the authors analyze the two central image categories in depth – profile images and photo albums. What follows is the portrayal of dramaturgical and staging strategies of the (semi) professional photography on the nightlife platforms, which leads to an evaluation of the importance of the international glamour photography as a parameter of private photographic self-expression.

Other questions that the authors ponder in the volume are: Which functions and meanings do images have for the communications between users on social network sites? To what extent could certain design characteristics in the image-based communication on sns establish themselves as prototypical staging patterns? Which staging traditions are followed thereby? Which staging strategies are followed on different online platforms by the users’ (self) visualizations?

Purchase the book on Amazon

This conference aims to explore the relations between MAKING and CRITICAL REFLECTION, and how these enable artistic and designerly practices to be characterized as art and design, or artistic or designerly research.

Abstracts due June 10, 2012.

November 28-29, 2012. Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture; Helsinki, Finland. http://designresearch.aalto.fi/events/aor2012/

ABOUT - While the power of artistic imagination is widely recognized, the exploration of artistic and designerly methods of knowledge acquisition underway in academia has only just become accepted by other professional communities of researchers and practitioners inhabiting the academy. Building on contemporary discourse regarding notions of practice-led research, the Art of Research Conference 2012 aims to explore the relations that can be constructed between making and critical reflection, and how these enable artistic and designerly practices to be characterized as art and design, or artistic or designerly research. Given how different fields of creative practice may be constructing these relations in different ways – e.g, in methods, tools and skills — the main aim of the event is to explore how these fields might relate to and influence each other.

This aim is guided by following questions:

• How do different art and design practices utilize artistic and designerly methods in practice-led research?
• How do artistic and designerly approaches to knowledge production enrich or impoverish the professional art and design-related practices of those who engage in them?
• How are  artistic and designerly processes of critical reflection and intervention be productively synthesized in practice-led research?
• How can different forms of art, craft and design contribute new knowledge and understanding and how do they function in the distribution of knowledge?
• How can critical reflection be interpreted and understood as embodied in practice-led research?

Read the full call on Fil Salustri’s DesignCalls blog.

This paper presents an attempt to combine gaming and reading. We want to achieve an expansion of a story-world by transmitting the sensual, emotional and cognitive expression of the book into a tablet game.

Authors: Jos Van Es, Lisbeth Bomberg and Christian Olin, Master students at IT-University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Download full article: http://www.cse.chalmers.se/research/group/idc/ituniv/sider12/wp-content/uploads/van-es_et_al_paper.pdf

ABSTRACT - This paper presents an attempt to combine gaming and reading. We want to achieve an expansion of a story-world by transmitting the sensual, emotional and cognitive expression of the book into a tablet game.

The paper presents a prototype implementation of an augmented reading experience for children in which a physical copy of the book ”The Little Prince” is tagged with QR codes. When scanning these codes using an iPad 2, a series of mini-games, that relate to the corresponding narrative in the book, can be played The main focus of the paper is to reflect upon our transmission of the story-world of the book into a series of tablet mini-games, and how the game interactions reflect back on the users perception of
the story.

This is a contribution to understanding the history, the current context, and the future of the social economy in Canada. It also provides examples of participatory action research and community university partnerships–solidifying the social economy as an area of important academic study, building research capacity amongst practitioners themselves, and moving this work out into the community where it may find wider application to support community development and building a people-centered economy.

Authors: Matthew Thompson and Joy Emmanuel, University of Victoria, Canada.

Table of Contents

1. Mapping the Social Economy: How Do We Know Thee? Let Us Count the Ways
2. Social Enterprises and the Social Economy
3. Co-operatives and the Social Economy
4. The Social Economy and Indigenous Peoples
5. Organizational Governance and Capacity
6. Financing the Social Economy
7. Enabling and Enforcing the Social Economy through Public Policy
8. Conclusion

View the full report: http://dspace.library.uvic.ca:8080/bitstream/handle/1828/3879/au_book_final_April122012.pdf

This paper argues that without engaging data users in open-data policies effectively, little positive development is likely to be achieved in terms of applicability of data. Open data only has value in its use, and at the moment it seems that the most efficient way of facilitating that use is to: a) Provide more education on the data society, b) Further engage those that are already empowered, c) Encourage third-party sites and initiatives.

Author: Antti Halonen, The Finnish Institute, London.

View full report here CC:BY-SA.

In this publication, long distance goods transport and strategies for green corridors through the Øresund and Europe are studied, multi-criteria models for analysis in transport and infrastructural planning are tested, City Logistics and the challenges within urban areas are scrutinised, challenges for fossil free transport systems are analysed, and mobility management in municipalities and use patterns in leisure travel are considered.

Editors: Carl-Magnus Carlsson, Tareq Emtairah, Britta Gammelgaard, Anders Vestergaard Jensen, Aake Thidell

View full report here: http://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/o.o.i.s?id=24732&postid=2429902

This paper deals with the assumed relationship between social trust and co-production, and gives a brief overview of the literature and provides a definition which emphasises co-production of clients at the stage of service delivery.

Author: Joost Fledderus, MSc (PhD student) Institute for Management Research Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

Paper presented at XVI IRSPM Conference, Rome 11-13 April 2012.

Download full paper here.

ABSTRACT - This paper deals with the assumed relationship between social trust and co-production. Co-production refers to the involvement of clients in the provision of services. The concept has received much attention lately because it is considered to be a promising and innovative approach to public service delivery. Several scholars have argued that this form of client participation could lead to more trust and cohesion among citizens. The paper gives a brief overview of the literature and provides a definition which emphasises co-production of clients at the stage of service delivery. Then two perspectives on co-production are described, distinguishing an approach that emphasises service improvement and one which focuses on the change of client behaviour and values. Finally, three mechanisms are proposed which may explain the relationship between trust and client co-production. Several factors that are important to consider in an analytical framework are also made explicit.

This festival will be looking at the value that can be generated by opening up knowledge, the ecosystems of organisations that can benefit from such sharing, and the impacts that transparency can have in our societies.

Proposals due April 20 (1st round) and June 1 (2nd round). Open Knowledge Festival, Sep 17-22, 2012, Helsinki, Finland.

Submit proposals here: http://okfestival.org/call-for-proposals/ and have a look at this etherpad for the collaborative planning of the festival and its themes.

TO STAY UP-TO-DATE TO CALLS LIKE THIS, SUBSCRIBE TO THIS BLOG!

ABOUT THIS FESTIVAL - This festival will be looking at the value that can be generated by opening up knowledge, the ecosystems of organisations that can benefit from such sharing, and the impacts that transparency can have in our societies. What kinds of new professions, ideas and community initiatives can emerge within our governments, markets, networks and neighbourhoods as a result of these engagements?

The exploration of this theme will not only be visible in the festival’s content, but also in its implementation as the first global event of its kind. At OKFestival, we will experiment with pioneering new forms of collaboration, new workshop formats and new forms of participation. We will highlight the diversity of Finland’s open knowledge communities, encouraging the participation of representatives from Nordic nations. We will bring together civil society representatives, programmers, data wranglers, designers, students, members of government, local communities and citizens for a week of building new things and sharing great ideas.

http://okfestival.org/

Hat tip to Anna Seravalli for spotting this.

The paper examines the role of EU cohesion policy in the field of human resources development and improving conditions for employment. The main objective of the analysis is to present a comprehensive picture about funding opportunities in connection with financing the activities of organisations of the social economy.

Author: Ákos Kengyel, Associate Professor, Corvinus University of Budapest, Department of World Economy.

View the full report: http://unipub.lib.uni-corvinus.hu/581/1/Kengyel_wp2012b.pdf

The study will be published in 2012 by Routledge as a chapter in the book  “New Forms of Organization in Knowledge-Based Societies – Social Innovation, Non-Profit Organization and Social Entrepreneurship” edited by Carmen Ruiz Vinals.

“Frugal innovation” is the idiom applied to a sweeping revolution in public service design and delivery. The term is used in India and other developing economies to describe innovatino that minimises costs by creating frugal solutions to deliver improved or previously non-existent public service.

Authors: Shalabh Kumar Singh, Ashish Gambhir, Alexis Sotiropoulos and Stephen Duckworth.

Published by the Serco Institute that aims to foster the development of sustainable public service markets through an outward-facing programme of research and communication.

View the full report here: http://www.serco.com/Images/FrugalInnovation_tcm3-39462.pdf

“For insights important to Western economies gleaned from the new perspectives developed by Indian Social Enterprises”

The publisher Routledge is opening access to 30 of their most popular articles on media and cultural studies from journals such as Cultural Trends, Journal of Children and Media and Cultural Studies.

The articles will be available until the end of June 2012 (eh, why lock them once they have been opened up?).

A full table of contents is found in this beautiful pdf: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/explore/mcs-citations.pdf

This book addresses several issues of research collaboration from the multiple perspectives of institutions, projects and individual researchers.

Edited by Marilyn Deegan and Willard McCarty. Purchase the book here: http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409410683

About

Collaboration within digital humanities is both a pertinent and a pressing topic as the traditional mode of the humanist, working alone in his or her study, is supplemented by explicitly co-operative, interdependent and collaborative research. This is particularly true where computational methods are employed in large-scale digital humanities projects. This book, which celebrates the contributions of Harold Short to this field, presents fourteen essays by leading authors in the digital humanities. It addresses several issues of collaboration, from the multiple perspectives of institutions, projects and individual researchers.

Balancing philosophical reflection with empirical analysis, this book examines the specific contexts in which place and mobile technologies come into focus, intersect, and interact.

Find the book here: http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415889551/

Edited by Rowan Wilken (Swinburne University of Technology) and Gerard
Goggin (University of Sydney).

About

An international roster of contributors come together in this comprehensive volume to examine the complex interactions between mobile media technologies and issues of place. Balancing philosophical reflection with empirical analysis, this book examines the specific contexts in which place and mobile technologies come into focus, intersect, and interact. Given the far-reaching impact of contemporary mobile technology use – and given the lasting importance of the concept and experiences of place – this book will appeal to a wide range of scholars in media and cultural studies, sociology, and philosophy of technology.

Themes

• Theorising Place & Mobiles
• Media, Publics and Place-Making
• Urbanity, Rurality, and the Scene of Mobiles
• Bodies, Screens, and Relations of Place