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From: willem(a)mediamatic.hacktic.nl (Willem Velthoven)
Subject: Doors of Perception 2: '@HOME' Conference
Date: Mon, 05 Sep 1994 16:51:31 +0100
Doors of Perception 2: '@HOME' Conference
4+5+6 November 1994
RAI Congress Center Amsterdam
the Netherlands
*Doors of Perception* is an important meeting point for all
those interested in the design challenge of interactivity. The
first conference, in November 1993, was attended at relatively
short notice by nearly 700 people from 20 countries.
*Aim of the conference
The 1994 conference, which is organised by the Netherlands
Design Institute with Mediamatic Magazine, will further
develop discussion about culture, context and innovation. The
subject's importance was well put by Terry Winograd: 'major
leaps only happen when someone has a new insight into the
larger picture, and can escape from the old context'. That is
the aim of *Doors 2*.
Speakers will focus on a particular context, 'home' - as
market, as metaphor, and as myth. Industry has great
expectations for home as a site for new products, as an outlet
for entertainment and information services, and as a place of
work. But when a new technology enters a culture, the culture
changes. What does that mean for 'home'?
*Subjects
>From the multiple perspectives of marketing, technology,
design, philosophy, anthropology, and psychology, speakers
will consider the cultural impact of technology on work and
play, home and school, learning and entertainment. They will
compare the qualities of telematic space and domestic space.
They will talk about real nomads and telematic nomads. They
will analyse changes to our sense of place, both public and
private. They will look at the psychology of belonging - to a
family, group, or community. They will explore the
architecture of information, and the creation of shared
meaning, in virtual communities.
*Debate
The point of this debate is that uncritical assumptions, and a
crude use of 'real world' metaphors about the home, can
actually stifle innovation. Vast resources are being devoted
to digital versions of existing human activities -
teleshopping, video-on-demand, telecommuting; but attempts to
create entirely new uses for the technologies have been
unambitious, to say
the least. Doors of Perception gives equal emphasis to thinking
and doing. It is not a trade show - neither is it exclusive:
chief executives and young creatives are equally 'at home' at
this unique event.
*The organisers
Vormgevingsinstituut / Netherlands Design Institute Tel: +31
(0)20 5516500 Fax: +31 (0)20 620 1031
e-mail: doors(a)nvi.mediamatic.hacktic.nl
Mediamatic Magazine
Tel: +31 (0)20 6266262 Fax: +31 (0)20 6263793
To receive *Doors 2 electronic newsletter* send e-mail to:
listserv(a)mediamatic.hacktic.nl The message should mention:
'subscribe home'
*The Speakers
*Christopher Alexander
author of 'A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction':
After a ten-year silence, Christopher Alexander and his
colleagues at the Center for Environmental Strucure published
a major statement in the form of three books which will, in
their words, 'lay the basis for an entirely new approach to
architecture, building and planning, which will replace
existing ideas and practices entirely'. At the core of his
books is the idea that people should design for themselves
their own houses, streets, and com
munities. This idea may be radical (it implies a radical
transformation of the architectural profession) but it comes
simply from the observation that most of the wonderful places
of the world were not made by architects but by the people.
Also author of: 'The Timeless Way of Building': The theory of
architecture implicit in our world today, Christopher
Alexander believes, is bankrupt. More and more people are
aware that something is deeply wrong. Yet the power of
present-day ideas is so great that many feel uncomfortable,
even afraid, to say openly that they dislike what is
happening, because they are afraid to seem foolish, afraid
perhaps that they will be laughed at. Now, at last, here is a
coherent theory which describes in modern terms an architecture
as ancient as human society itself. Christopher Alexander
presents a new theory of architecture, building, and planning
which has at its core that age-old process by which the people
of a society have always pulled the order of their world from
their own being.
*John Perry Barlow
studied comparative religion, has been the lyricist for The
Grateful Dead since 1972, is an insightful writer, and
co-founded, with Mitchell Kapor and Stephen Wozniak,the
Electronic Frontier Foundation. The EFF pushes ethical and
political issues of the new media onto the international agenda
- freedom of speech, privacy, intellectual property, and other
social consequences of a network culture.
*Alfred Birnbaum
who was born in China and raised in Japan, is a noted
translator in Japanese (of such authors as Murakami), an
artist with the Kyoto-based performance group 'Dumb Type', and
a highly original researcher of diverse popular phenomena in
contemporary Japan, which he compares to deeply rooted Asian
cultural traditions.
*'Breaking stories, eye candy and mental muesli' as one
journalist described 'Doors 1', will again feature in this
year's conference. How is interactivity to be designed? What
methodologies and management skills are needed for what is, by
definition, a multi-diciplinary activity? A keen reader of
conference blurbs will also appreciate that this paragraph has
been added at artwork stage to replace the cv of a key
speaker, whose name begins with B, who has de-confirmed. But
we'll replace him.
*Amy Bruckman
a doctoral candidate at MIT, founded MediaMOO, a text-based
virtual reality environment designed as a professional on-line
community for media researchers.For her dissertation, Bruckman
is creating a MUD for children called MOOSE Crossing, designed
to be an authentic context in which kids can learn reading,
writing and programming. Bruckman will explain what MUDs and
MOOs actually are in her presentation.
*Florian Brody
who studied linguistics and computer science in Vienna,
investigates the relationship between computers, memory and
identity. He worked in the Austrian National Library on
automation management, and was technical director of the
'expanded books' project at Voyager Publishing in California,
before founding New Media Consulting. He teaches at Vienna
University, and he is president of the Austrian Society for
Virtuality, Telepresence and Cyberspace.
*David Chaum
is managing director of DigiCash, an Amsterdam-based company
that is a world pioneer in electronic cash payment systems. Dr
Chaum is also chairman of CAFE, the European Union research
consortium investigating the technical infrastructure and
equipment for electronic money in Europe. He took a PhD in
computer science at Berkeley, taught at NYU Graduate School of
Business, and founded the International Association for
Cryptological Research.
*Manuel De Landa
a New York-based artist, is also the author of 'War In The Age
Of Intelligent Machines'. From a vantage point at the
intersection of chaos theory and post-structuralism, De Landa
described how military technology has altered the relationship
between humans, their machines, and information. In his new
book Phylum: A Thousand Years Of Non-Linear History, De Landa
considers the cottage-industrialisation of the world, and the
global spread of a 'population of firms' .
*Thomas Dolby
is a pop-star-hacker-programmer who saw in immersive virtual
reality a new medium for musical expression. He created the
audio studio Headspace that allows the user to wander round a
classic string quartet as it plays. Currently working with Joy
Mountford's group at Interval Research Corporation in
California, Dolby is also developing an interactive version of
Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation which will be released
on CDRom.
*Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby
a research and design partnership based in London, explore the
inter-relationships between industrial design, architecture and
electronic media. Their recent work, which has focussed on
what they call the 'poetics of telecommunications', includes
the Fields & Thresholds project for the Netherlands Design
Institute, an investigation into communicative and design
implications of a 'virtual institute'.
*Lynn Hershman
is a Senior Professor at the University of California where she
initiated the IDEA laboratory devoted to electronic arts.
Among her award- winning videotapes and interactive
installations are The Electronic Diary and Virtual Love, the
latter a long narrative about breaking through the screen that
separates us from our media-derived fantasies. Hershman is
currently completing a sequel, The Twisted Chord, charting the
telephone from Bell through to the Internet.
*Peter Lamborn Wilson
was described by Erik Davis in the Village Voice this year as
an 'underground anarcho-Sufi scholar (whose) work explores the
historical and mystical dimensions of Sufism and Islamic
heresy, as in his latest book Sacred Drift. His surprisingly
virulent concept/buzzword 'temporary autonomous zones' spread
through the computer underground to Time magazine. His
lectures argue for the ultimate unity of imagination and
intellectual investigation'.
*Patti Maes
who received her PhD in computer science at the University of
Brussels, researches artificial life and artificial
intelligence, and recently produced 'Alive', an interactive
installation involving 'virtual pets', whose future in the
home she will explain to the conference.Maes has worked at
MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and more recently as
an assistant professor at MediaLab, since 1990. Her research
focusses on the modelling of all kinds of artificial
intelligence 'agents'.
*William Mitchell's
new book 'City of Bits': Space, Place and Infobahn, which
addresses central concerns of the Home theme,will be published
in 1995. Mitchell, who is Professor of Architecture and Media
Arts and Sciences, and Dean of the School of Architecture, at
MIT, conducts research in design theory, computer applications
in architecture and urban design. His other books include The
Reconfigured Eye which deals with the social and cultural
impact of digitally altererd photographs .
*Mitch Ratcliffe
as editor-in-chief of the influential industry newsletter
Digital Media, is well-placed to distinguish between hype and
reality, and to explain which technologies will actually work,
and when, on the infobahnen. He is the co-author (with Andrew
Gore) of Powerbook: The Digital Nomad's Guide and is now
completing a book on the World Wide Web which analyses the
economic, social and political implications of software agent
technology.
*Jeffrey Shaw
is director of the media institute at Karlsruhe Media Centre in
Germany. Shaw studied architecture in Australia, and art in
Milan and London, before working on interactive and virtual
space projects from a base in The Netherlands, where he also
taught at the Rietveld Academie. He has shown such
award-winning projects as TheLegible City, The Narrative
Landscape, and The Virtual Museum at festivals and workshops
throughout Europe, the USA and Japan.
*Marco Susani
is a teacher and researcher at Domus Academy, the research
centre and postgraduate design school in Milan. An expert on
the design of services, Susani explores the relationship
between dematerialisation - for example, of communications -
and scenarios for a sustainable economy in which radically
less matter and energy are consumed. His recent work focusses
on conviviality - the behavioural threshold that offers one
route for technology to enter the home.
*Philip Tabor's
doctoral thesis at Cambridge University concerned the limits of
'automated' architectural design. He co-founded the Centre for
Land Use and Built Form Studies (now the Martin Centre), and
the computer aided design consultancy, Applied Research of
Cambridge, which is now part of McDonnell Douglas. For ten
years a partner in Edward Cullinan Architects, specialising in
housing, Philip Tabor was until recently Director of the
Bartlett School of Architecture in London.
*Shin-Ichi Takemura
teaches anthropology, international affairs and cultural
design, including ethnic arts, at Touhoku University of Art
and Design. His trans-cultural analysis of communication
processes , media structures and design issues includes a
particular emphasis on an 'ecology of body and mind'. Takemura
is convenor of the Asian Cultural Design Forum and Human
Ecology Round Table. His team is also involved in planning
such public facilities as the proposed Eco-Aesthetic Museum.
*Pauline Terreehorst
in her recently completed book Het Boerderijmodel - 'The Farm
Mould' - argues that the new communication technologies may
help transform the home into a 'farm' again. Terreehorst also
speculates that the re-location of home as a focal point of
the electronic superhighway will and foster positive changes
in relationships between men and women. Home played such a
positive role before industrialisation forced people to
separate home from work.
*FURHTER SPEAKERS and presentations will be scheduled
continuously between now and the conference itself:
* SPEAKER UPDATE: Confirmed speakers at publishing date are
Hiroshii Ishi, and Stephen Perrella ('Architecture at the End
of Metaphysics' studio)
*Conference Programme
Friday 4 November
08:00-10:00 Registration
10:00-12:30 Plenary
15:00-18:00 Plenary
19:00 Reception
Saturday 5 November
08:30-10:00 Breakfast Round Tables
10:00-12:30 Plenary
15:00-18:00 Plenary
19:00 Reception
Sunday 6 November
08:30-10:00 Breakfast Round Tables
10:00-12:30 Plenary
15:00-18:00 Plenary
*Breakfast Round Tables
On both 5 and 6 November, about 25 different 'breakfast round
tables' will be held between 08:30-10:00. Each table will
consider a different topic or presentation - some programmed
in advance, others decided on the day. Many but not all the
discussions will be led by a speaker or a moderator. An extra
charge of Dfl 25 per breakfast is payable for participation.
Register now to participate. If that day is fully booked by
the time of your registration, we will book the other day and
notify you with your confirmation.
*Registration and hotel service
For more INFORMATION about REGISTRATION, plus details of HOTEL
service: Sonja van Piggelen
Tel: +31 20 61 70 390
Fax: +31 20 61 74 679
e-mail: modam(a)xs4all.nl
REGISTRATION FEES (in Dutch Guilders, or 'Dfl') exclude
accomodation but include attendance at all conference sessions
apart from the breakfast round tables. The fees also include
evening receptions, morning and afternoon tea and coffee, and
conference documentation. The conference sells out, and places
are limited, so please do not come without a reservation.
Applications are processed in order received.
*REGISTRATION FORM*
Name:
Company:
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PLEASE MENTION WHICH NUMBER (=OPTION) YOU CHOOSE: # ...
Standard rate to 1 October
1) Excluding breakfast round tables: Dfl 575,- 2) Including
one breakfast round table Saturday: Dfl 600,- 3) Including one
breakfast round table Sunday: Dfl 600,-
Standard rate after 1 October
4) Excluding breakfast round table: Dfl 625,- 5) Including
breakfast round table Saturday: Dfl 650,- 6) Including
breakfast round table Sunday: Dfl 650,-
Student rate to 1 October
7) Excluding breakfast round table: Dfl 225,- 8) Including
breakfast round table Saturday: Dfl 250,- 9) Including
breakfast round table Sunday: Dfl 250,-
Student after 1 October
10) Excluding breakfast round tables: Dfl 275,- 11) Including
breakfast round table Saturday: Dfl 300,- 12) Including
breakfast round table Sunday: Dfl 300,-
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f) (NL only): ABN Amro 43 36 80 407 o.v.v. DoP, of per giro
nr. 2391 van de ABN Amro t.g.v. 43 36 80 407 o.v.v. DoP
* PLEASE SEND an invoice (you will receive confirmation and
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CANCELLATION: refund in full only if you cancel in writing by
21 October
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