[artinfo] Design Documents

[matthew fuller]

Design Documents

symposium:  mapping communication in interdisciplinary and 
anti-disciplinary work
with media, software and society

date: 13 October 2005
location: V2, Eendrachtstraat 10, Rotterdam
time: 10.00-17.00
entry: 10euro, (korting: 5euro)
reservations: Recommended. Please reserve places at, gaby AT v2.nl

McKenzie Wark
Victoria Donkersloot
Dennis Kaspori / Jeanne van Heeswijk
Nina Wakeford
Herve Paraponaris
Kristina Andersen
Rolf Pixley


How do interdisciplinary teams communicate in media design and
electronic art? If they do communicate well, what are the ways that
artists, designs, programmers, engineers, and those they work with, such
as users, discuss their ideas, clarify problems, and find results that
enhance their work?

In the developing area of social software for instance, how could a
social network draw up a brief? How does media design itself create
tools and materials for such work? Are there new opportunities for the
creation of design documents that come out of networked and
computational digital media? How do the cultures of open and distributed
creativity and production experienced in Free Software and other areas
allow us to see other forms of collaboration?

Key to the theme of the symposium is the discussion of boundary objects
within projects, devices, documents, sketches, plans, briefs, models,
prototypes, mock-ups, experiential accounts and so on. Under the
magnifying glass: examining existing design documents; creating
typologies; vocabularies, in-project vernaculars; boundary or shared
objects such as drawings, diagrams; in-code comments; divisions of
labour; designing speculative research; mapping interactions; resisting
or working with multiple economies of time and resources.

Bios and links

Kristina Andersen works with sensors and sensuality, with performers and
circuit hacking. http://www.lockergirl.com/ http://www.tinything.com/

Herve Paraponaris considers himself first a citizen, then an artist.
With his work he approaches multi-layered society in all its economic,
political, cultural and media facets with a stereoscopic view. He is
deeply concerned with the restructuring of public spaces and the
politics surrounding them. His site specific proposals can take on many
forms, ranging from traditional art exhibitions, designs for urban sport
equipment, music editions, propositions for social gatherings, even to
co-op business developments. http://www.ussr.coop/
http://www.herveparaponaris.net/

Victoria Donkersloot is a media designer from Rotterdam. She recently
worked as the interface designer for the cultural file-sharing
application Apnaopus, http://apnaopus.var.cc/

Rolf Pixley is a programmer, designer and artist based in Amsterdam.
With interests ranging from Cybernetics to Fluxus he has designed and
built bespoke display and interaction systems for himself and numerous
clients across europe.

Nina Wakeford Director of INCITE in the Department of Sociology,
University of Surrey. Along with colleagues at INCITE she is interested
in the ways in which collaborations can be forged between ethnographers
and those from other disciplines, such as engineering and computer
science. She asks how critical social and cultural theory can play a
part in the design process, including the challenges which feminist and
queer theories pose to collaborative projects between designers and
sociologists, as well as technology studies. http://incite.surrey.ac.uk/

McKenzie Wark is Professor of Cultural and Media Studies at Lang
College, New School University. He is the author of several books, most
recently Dispositions and A Hacker Manifesto. http://www.ludiccrew.org/

Dennis Kaspori / Jeanne van Heeswijk are collaborators on a unique
spatial and social planning project, Face Your World. Using
sophisticated custom software, children are engaged in a serious process
of social-spatial decision making. Most recently, Face Your World has
been a six month project to design a park in the Sloterplaas area of
Amsterdam. http://www.faceyourworld.net/ http://www.themaze.org/