From the multiple perspectives of marketing, technology, design, philosophy, anthropology, and psychology, speakers will consider the cultural impact of technology on work and
Forwarding mail by: HRL@PSUVM.PSU.EDU (Howard Ray Lawrence 814 238 9535) on ------------------- - - The original note follows - - From: willem@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 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@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@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@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. 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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,- *I HEREBY REGISTER and pay via: #... a) Diners Club b) Visa c) Eurocard/Mastercard d) American Express e) JCB Credit card No: Expire Date: Card holder's name: Card holder's address: Zipcode: f) (NL only): ABN Amro 43 36 80 407 o.v.v. 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