blurred
replicant
but Wii?

Sensuous Gear
Kinetic Elite
Guilt
Ergonomics

I am addressing the topic of Second Life + Architecture in my seminar… so thank you A.W. for bringing this up: Archinect which goal “is to make architecture more connected and open-minded, and bring together designers from around the world to introduce new ideas from all disciplines” presents an interesting article on architecture and Second Life: Architecture’s Second Life… (Screenshot)

Une peau artificielle pour rendre les robots sensibles
LE MONDE | 13.01.07 | 13h35 • Mis à jour le 13.01.07 | 13h35

A Nagoya, au Centre de recherche sur le contrôle biométrique, dépendant de l’Institut Riken, des scientifiques travaillent à la mise au point d’une peau artificielle à appliquer sur une machine afin d’”établir le contact”, précise le professeur Toshiharu Mukai.

Ces scientifiques se sont inspirés de l’architecture de la peau des mammifères. La première peau prototype est constituée de deux couches, l’une dure, en plastique, l’autre souple, en éponge. Entre ces deux épaisseurs, une multitude de capteurs tactiles enregistrent les variations de pression à la surface.

NB: maybe there is an application for spaces | When the digital meets the ~bio | Informs my work with Cati on the Touch·Sensitive apparel:
Low-fidelity prototype #2

Watch the movie mentionned in the article: RI-MAN soft carebot. More about RI-MAN… (.jpg below from website)

The robot has 9 features:

• Feedback of force using tactile information
• Human-friendly soft body
• Small but powerful arms using coupled drive
• Motion simulation using an immersion-type 3D environment
• Decentralized control using small general-purpose controllers
• Sound localization using ‘ears’
• Tracking of a human face by integrating auditory and visual information
• Smell discernment by semiconductor gas sensor
• Computational architecture based on QoS

Il faudrait dire “hypersonnalisée” ! A lire dans Libé: Rencontre . Le consommateur est devenu critique et conscient de ses droits par François MUSSEAU | QUOTIDIEN : samedi 6 janvier 2007

Vicente Verdú économiste et journaliste espagnol, analyse notre société occidentale hyperpersonnalisée, consommatrice immédiate de marques et de multimédia, puérile et capricieuse. Sans pour cela porter un regard sévère sur cette culture contemporaine porteuse d’avenir.

Dans Moi et toi, objets de luxe, vous inventez la notion de «personnisme» pour désigner une révolution culturelle en marche en ce début de siècle. Qu’entendez-vous par là ?

Il s’agit d’une nouvelle étape qui fait suite à l’hyperindividualisme à tous crins de la fin des années 90. Le terme fait référence à une communication avec autrui plus extensive et superficielle. On y est arrivé, parce que l’accumulation d’objets a conduit l’hyperindividualiste à une impasse, puis à une recherche de «dégustation» des autres sujets, non pas en profondeur, mais en superficie. Comme l’illustre bien l’Internet, on a désormais une grande expérience de contact avec autrui, parcellaire et sans engagements.

Neo-nomad had 142.810 visits the past year! [1]

Neo-nomad is a research blog enabling the collection and organization of thoughts and findings, and the connection with researchers investigating the relationship between people, object and space, the digital, and mobility. In scrutinizing the neo-nomad ecology, the goal is to understand and develop theoretical frameworks, propose scenario of usages and work on implementing meaningful spaces and projects related to our contemporary sociality.

In 007, neo-nomad will initiate the NID, “Neo-nomad’s ID” tags, insightful dialogues with researchers and practitioners who experiment with and explore the production of spaces in the age of multiple mobilities!

Forthcoming event, the 4th Monday of January, video-conference discussion on the impact of mobility Between Dr. Ben Croxford, Lecturer MSc Environmental Design and Engineering, and me; intended to students enrolled in the Master of Science Adaptive Architecture and Computation program, Digital Space and Society module taught by Ava Fatah gen. Schieck, The Bartlett, London, UK. The event is hosted by Critical Digital at Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

I look forward to a fantastic year!

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See below what happened in 006, the milestones and achievements:

March. I invite Adam Greenfield to give a talk and present his book Everyware, the Dawn of Ubiquitous Computing at Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

I have met Adam Greenfield at the Digital Civilization Forum 2005; the Digital Civilization Forum was “dedicated to the future of the digital revolution and designed to evaluate its social, cultural, and economic impacts”. We were both invited experts at Ci’Num 2005.

April. I write a short essay, via Chronos, for JCDecaux, Mobilités: la Clé des Villes (St-Amand-Montrond, Clerc: 2006) p. 98-99

May. I am now a Doctor of Design, Graduated from Harvard University Graduate School of Design (DDes 2006).

At Harvard, I have researched the identity of contemporary spaces in the Digital Age. I focused on how these neo-nomads, digitally geared people on the move, reclaim a sense of belonging to places in the age of multiple mobilities, mental, physical and digital.

July. I team up with Cati Vaucelle, PhD student at the MIT Media Lab, Tangible Media group, to work on a touch-sensitive wearable for massage and sensory therapy.

September. I teach a Design Studio at Wentworth Institute of Technology (Sophomore, first studio) and a World Architecture History class at Northeastern University (Freshmen, Honors students).

I invite Carlos Cardenas, DDes candidate at Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and Sotirios Kotsopoulos, PhD, MIT Design and Computation, Professor at the Boston Architectural College for the Design Studio reviews.

For the first project of the semester, students abstracted design principles from a quilt and produced a model exploring a ‘dynamic’ aperture. Here is an example: (student: Tony Nguyen)

For the second project students produce an interactive site analysis of Chinatown and a Performance Space. Below is Sara kanoo’s proposal for the third project of the semester, a Sacred Space on the Wentworth Institute of Technology campus:

For the World Architecture History class, at Northeastern University, I give students hands-on projects to augment their learning experience. One project concentrates on the making of a set of flash cards around the theme and material of their choice. Below is the set of flash cards that Christa Heffron produced. The theme is “light”:

Dankwa Osseo-Assare, March I at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design gives a presentation on Earth Architecture. Dankwa has build a “mud house” in Ghana and traveled extensively in India. Professor Robert Cowherd, PhD, MIT, currently faculty at Wentworth Institute of Technology offers an insightful lecture on Critical Regionalism. Prof. Cowherd has spent 4 years in Java studying architectural hybridism.

September. Women in Mobile # 16. Interviewed by Rudy De Waele for m-trend
I owe Rudy the inspiration for the NID (Thank you Rudy!)

October. I team up with Miranda McGill, User Experience Designer at Oracle to work on the HOmeTEL project.

November. I give a presentation to students enrolled in Digital, a class taught by Michael MacPhail: at Wentworth Institute of Technology.

November. Not yet in its finalized form, neo-nomad.net goes live…

December. I am writing an article for a European journal. The title in French is: Environnements néo-nomades, système écologique?

[1] webalizer: “log file analysis program,” I note that “Visits occur when some remote site makes a request for a page on your server for the first time. As long as the same site keeps making requests within a given timeout period, they will all be considered part of the same Visit. If the site makes a request to your server, and the length of time since the last request is greater than the specified timeout period (default is 30 minutes), a new Visit is started and counted, and the sequence repeats. Since only pages will trigger a visit, remote sites that link to graphic and other non-page URLs will not be counted in the visit totals, reducing the number of false visits.” Summary Period: Last 12 Months Generated 31-Dec-2006 21:18 CET

Clip/Stamp/Fold
THE RADICAL ARCHITECTURE OF LITTLE MAGAZINES 196X–197X
NOVEMBER 14, 2006 – JANUARY 31, 2007
STOREFRONT FOR ART AND ARCHITECTURE / 97 KENMARE STREET / NEW YORK CITY

Not so long ago design magazines defied conventions. Merci Thomas for the info!

Architectural Design, June, London

Diffuse romantic lighting sets the tone of Adrian George’s cover art for Architectural Design’s June issue on Osaka Expo ’70—two robots go at it on a leopard print bed, ecstasy writ large on closed eyes, privates tastefully shrouded in darkness. The promise of Expo’s architecture and media spectacle prompted editor Monica Pidgeon and Technical Editor Robin Middleton to send critic and AA graduate Martin Pawley to the front lines of Osaka. Pawley returned, pitting architecture against the movies, form versus content, asking of the impending technological revolution or apocalypse (your choice): dancing android or tomorrow’s slave? The monsters featured on the front page of Pawley’s article encapsulate the heart of the mythic cum futuristic Osaka phenomenon, as Daiei Motion Picture Company’s Gamera, a mutant turtle character created to rival the success of Toho Studio’s Godzilla, battles Monster X on the grounds of the Expo. Dissecting the Expo giant, Pawley calls out nine notable Japanese pavilions: the most magnificent, the most grandiloquent, the most cumbersome, the most disappointing, and so on, in effect creating a phenomenological diary of affects. The monthly section “Cosmorama” greets readers with a blue monochrome Japanese crowd at Expo waving hands, mouths open wide in joy, welcoming the world and heralding the new Japan. Assuring the full AB to Z of the Expo, Britton Harris and J. B. McLoughlin write on such topics as “I” for inflatables, “K” for Kurokawa, “O” for opposition, and “T” for time capsule. “Y” for yesterday juxtaposes an orange mushroom cloud rising in the background with a blue row of smiling Expo Flowers (pavilion hostesses) lined up in front, their matching outfits, down to the handbags and gloves, providing a glimpse of the mechanized and harmonious future in absolute counterpoint to the brutal toll of yesterday’s apocalypse. SC

In my e-mailbox today, the MIT alumni Association Tech News… an article about an “eco-friendly plane”… certainly I have thought of the relationship between “mobility” and “green.” I had found “advices to reduce our impact while on the move.” I researched the concept of frugality in my thesis, the relationship between the neo-nomad and his environment: how he uses it when he needs it, and how technology may participate in a smarter management of the land. BTW I keep on hearing to publish that thesis: I swear, I am working on it (though sometimes I feel like the inventor of the post-it)! However, and for my friends, the long awaited TAXI-TOXI-CITY .pdf (English), short essay I wrote for JCDecaux, Mobilités: la Clé des Villes (St-Amand-Montrond, Clerc: 2006) p. 98-99 (Thank you Bruno!)

Few articles to read…

REAL TIME
By JASON FRY
Traveling Without Leaving
The Computer and Cellphone Were in Chicago, But the Virtual World Was Perfectly Familiar | Wall Street Journal Online

Excerpt:

Arriving at my downtown hotel, I dropped my bag on the other bed, dumped everything out my pockets, looked out both windows (an airshaft and a level of a parking garage, respectively), plugged my cellphone in to recharge, hooked up the spool of Ethernet cable the front desk had lent me and fired up my laptop. […] After settling in, I wrote and edited and emailed and sent IMs as always, but twice had to explain, in the middle of perfectly ordinary conversations, that I was 700 miles away from where I normally was. That startled the person I was IMing with — and truth be told, it surprised me a bit too. Because as long as I was staring at the screen, the only substantive difference between my Chicago hotel room and my New York office was the chair. Wasn’t I in the same place I always was? After all, my work habits, conversations with people and even my morning perusal of favorite personal links were the same. It was only when I disconnected my New York desktop that things seemed odd — I’d look around the hotel room like someone waking up in a new place and think, “Oh yeah, Chicago.” This curious sense of dislocation isn’t just a function of computers.

Thank you Becca + Dave for the info!

Also (in French):

Le temps de survie des objets errants
Impondérables.
Laurent Wolf
Mardi 24 octobre 2006 | Le Temps

Excerpt:

Il y a des trottoirs inspirés sur lesquels apparaissent des objets divers, certains en parfait état. […] Certains objets ont une longue survie urbaine. Ainsi ce sommier apparu aux environs du 15 septembre et qui a tenu un mois. Armature de métal, lattes de bois, modèle standard, posé sur la tranche contre la vitrine de l’opticien voisin qui s’est empressé, dès l’ouverture, de le pousser vers la vitrine d’à côté. Le sommier n’a pas excité la convoitise, si ce n’est qu’il a perdu une latte par jour jusqu’à n’être qu’une armature de métal traînant sa langueur de long en large. Car le voisin de l’opticien l’a poussé vers le bord du trottoir, d’où un automobiliste l’a délogé pour parquer son véhicule. Il est ensuite allé de droite à gauche, d’abord devant un guichet automatique de banque, ensuite au milieu d’un parking de motocyclettes, puis à 2 mètres d’une terrasse de bistrot où il faisait mauvais effet, pour finir près d’une barrière de chantier.

Thank you Nicolas!

Presenting: Jonah Brucker-Cohen; The woman in the front row is Anne Galloway…
(Excuse the low quality of the moblog: cell phone picture was taken on ‘night mode.’ If you are interested in sponsoring a new cell phone… GREAT ;)

Great venue, and speakers, fantastic organization and much food for thoughts… I liked the fact that you could ‘react’ online, by sending text messages to feeback@situatedtechnologies.com, or by commenting online while the debate was proceeding (seen before, but still… I am curious to study what it brings to the debate; it helps keeping the ideas we have on the fly; but we do, when taking notes in a traditional way, discard some of them, ‘curate’ our thinking. Sometimes we hope some of these comment and ideas on the fly do not appear. I think it would be useful to TRACE at which exact moment they have been posted, SO TO RELATE them to the context, i.e. maybe record the voice, and see the reaction at the moment in time, reacting to a word or sentence… Another project to work on with Cati ;). I had left my computer at my HOmeTEL for a change. Questions have shown that there is a need for more of these events to update the public about contemporary thinking and research. My point of view (regarding some questions): categorization and sticking to boundaries of disciplines do not advance debates on digital culture and the urban environment.

Some notes, en VRAC:

Anne Galloway > The more mobile, the more controlled: individuals become dividuals. Pet = “non-human companion.” rfid-cat = human-machine, organic subject, free to roam the world and completely controlled [doesn’t it ring some bell?]… Deleuze said: “They become nomads because they don’t want to disappear.” We create certainties in time of uncertainties, and ‘techno’-social assemblages that manage these risks.
Jonah> shows as example of information overload the rsstroom reader… Interested in displacing information and context; how does a website relates to a physical space? Shifting methods of network representation. [Jonah’s work recalls Nam June Paik’s]