ok, just one more…..
Design and Social Sciences
A new seminar series for 2007-2008.
It has become increasingly apparent that there are many points of contact between design and social science disciplines. In many respects, these have arisen in an ad hoc fashion, and there has been relatively little sustained reflection on what broader lessons can be drawn.
The CSISP seminar series on ‘Design and Social Science’ aims to explore these points of contact through a range of discussions that address such key topics as theory, practice, research, user, object, product, audience etc. Though the immediate objective is to enhance mutual understanding across disciplinary practices, it is also hoped that this series can serve as a platform for opening up interdisciplinary research futures. All seminars will take place in room 1204, Warmington Tower.
Wednesday 3rd October | 4.00-6.00pm
Brief Introductions: Mike Michael and Bill Gaver muse on Design and Social Science
Wednesday 17th October | 4.00-6.00pm
Nina Wakeford, ‘Experience, Models and Translation’
Wednesday 31st October | 4.00-6.00pm
Terry Rosenberg, ‘Criticality and Practice’
Wednesday 21st November | 4.00pm-6.00pm
Tobie Kerridge, ‘Designers as Naive Polyglots?’
Wednesday 5th December | 4.00-6.00pm
Bill Gaver and Mike Michael, ‘Where Next? Reflections on the futures of “Design and Social Science” ‘
Add comment October 3rd, 2007 kat
Filed under: events, design
Free Symposium on home interaction, participative design + DIY culture.
Not that this blog should just be a noticeboard of things coming up but this looks great.
Free Symposium on home interaction, participative design + DIY culture.
Not In The Manual: Inquiries into open-ended and user-based design interventions in and around the home.
Monday 12th November 2007
Inaugural symposium from the Home Interaction Research Cluster at the University College for the Creative Arts at Farnham
Farnham Maltings, Bridge Square, Farnham, Surrey, GU9 7QR
Symposium Details
The symposium explores just how individuals are participating in the design of their immediate environment and what influence this might have on the shape of design. What can we learn from these ‘amateur’ interventions? How can professional design harness the creative potential of user participation? What services and products may emerge from this DIY ecology? What new methods of interaction are being offered? What is this sense of ‘home’ that is being created?
The symposium is the first event hosted by the Home Interaction Research Cluster at Farnham and includes papers and presentations from academics within the group, as well as contributions from peers in social sciences, design history and computing.
This symposium will be of value to anyone with an interest in DIY cultures, co-creation, user-modification, personal agency and well-being within (and around) the ‘home’ setting, from disciplines such as design history, sociology, product design, interactive design, human-computer interaction.
Papers & presentations include:
- From Blog to Blogue: Personal media and life politics
- Making Space & Telling Stories: Homes Made By Amateurs
- Making Time: Interrogating the experience of the amateur maker
- Single Lives, Personal Spaces: Autoethnography and design for solo living
- Objects for Peaceful Disordering: Indigeneous Designs and Practices of Protest
- Warranty void if removed: modern day tinkering.
Outline Schedule
9:30 Coffee and Registration
10:00 – Keynote: Dr Tim Dant, Reader in Sociology, University of Lancaster
11.00-17.00 – Papers & Panel Discussion
17.30-21.00 – Drinks & Evening Meal
*Please note that the Symposium is free (including refreshments), but you must register in advance*. Places are strictly limited. To register a place or for any enquiries, please email with your full name, job title/position, organisation name, contact email address, contact phone number and any professional/personal web address. You will receive a confirmation of your booking soon after.
Add comment October 3rd, 2007 kat
Filed under: visual research, events, design
Howard Becker: Telling About Society
Tuesday 18 September, 2007, 5.30-7pm
Cinema (Small Hall), Richard Hoggart Building, Goldsmiths.
The first Annual Methods Lab Lecture, organised by the Methods Lab, Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London.
Admission free – booking essential.
The Department of Sociology at Goldsmiths is pleased to welcome Howard S Becker to discuss his latest publication, Telling About Society (The University of Chicago Press). This is the third book in Howard’s bestselling series of writing guides for social scientists; it explores the ways knowledge about society can be shared and interpreted through different forms of storytelling. Fiction, films, photographs, maps, and even mathematical models can be powerful tools in sharing knowledge—and yet many of these models remain outside the boundaries of conventional social science.
Eight cases studies, including Walker Evans’ photographs, George Bernard Shaw’s plays, the novels of Jane Austen and Italo Calvino, and the theories of Erving Goffman, provide convincing support for Becker’s argument: that every way of telling about society is perfect—for some purpose. The trick is, as Becker notes, to discover what purpose is served by doing it this way rather than that. With Becker’s trademark humour and eminently practical advice, Telling About Society is an ideal guide for social scientists in all fields and for anyone interested in communicating knowledge in unconventional ways.
Howard Becker lives and works in San Francisco. He is the author of many books, including Outsiders, Writing for Social Scientists and Tricks of the Trade, the latter two published by the University of Chicago Press. See more information about Howard Becker.
Booking is essential to attend this lecture
Add comment September 12th, 2007 kat
Filed under: Methods, events
Photographs in Common
Oh, I’m also going to be in Philadelphia in early October at the American Studies Association annual conference, doing something like this. Anyone else going to be there? Anyone want to come? America was once British.
I hate the genre of the paper abstract. When am I going to figure out how to write one that I like?
Add comment September 10th, 2007 kris
Filed under: Uncategorized, Art, Media, Internet
I guess you could call it old
I ran into this the other day (thanks Lauren): Josephine Berry Slater’s Phd thesis on net art. It’s good. One of the best things I’ve read on media arts. She frames her discussion with the concept of site-specificity. And if you want to know what else is going on these days with that concept, look . Kwon’s book, and Slater’s thesis, do the brick by brick historical and conceptual work you want them to do, but then open the concept up to address new work and new conditions. Useful. I didn’t mean that to come out sounding like a book review.
Add comment September 10th, 2007 kris
Filed under: Uncategorized, Art, Media, Internet