Event: Designing for Immobility – Amsterdam & on-line, January 21, 20.30 CET - fabric

Tuesday, January 19. 2010

Event: Designing for Immobility – Amsterdam & on-line, January 21, 20.30 CET

The world-wide mobility explosion is an enormous challenge for designers. How can we convince people that current forms of continuous mobility are no longer ecologically sustainable? Should mobility simply be made unaffordably expensive? Or can we design viable alternatives

As a prelude to the ElectroSmog festival De Balie in Amsterdam will present a showcase of design proposals, practical projects and design-ideas that should persuade us to start moving less.

With on-line and on-site contributions by among others:

John Thackara, director of Doors of Perception, the international conference and knowledge network which sets new agendas for design, will highlight design projects that try to tackle the question of mobility reduction.
www.doorsofperception.com

Stefan Agamanolis, director of Distance Lab, Dublin, will present the specific focus of his organisation on networking rural and remote area’s. The relevant question for the ElectroSmog festival is whether we can live in a sustainable way in the green and still connect to the rest of the world, culturally and economically?
www.distancelab.org

David van Gent is a managing consultant for IBM on Learning Strategy & Technology, Virtual Worlds, Serious Gaming & Web 2.0. He will talk about and demo the Virtual Offices project of IBM, using open SIM technology (similar to second life):
( See for instance this CNN item )

The Medialab Prado, Madrid will present their recent project “In the Air” (tbc); “a visualisation project which aims to make visible the microscopic and invisible agents of Madrid´s air (gases, particles, pollen, diseases, etc), to see how they perform, react and interact with the rest of the city.
(..) The project proposes a platform for individual and collective awareness and decision making, where the interpretation of results can be used for real time navigation through the city, opportunistic selection of locations according to their air conditions and a base for political action.”
www.intheair.es

Eric Kluitenberg, head of the media department of De Balie and initiator of the ElectroSnog festival, will present the concept behind the festival. Besides exploring the critique of mobility theoretically, ElectroSmog will also address the issue practically. All international presentations in the festival will be realised by means of tele-connections between the different international locations.
www.electrosmogfestival.net

This program will be streamed live on the internet – for details please refer to:
www.debalie.nl/live

datum | Thursday 21 January, 20.30 hrs.
language | Engels
entrance free entree

www.debalie.nl/media

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Via The Mobile City

Personal comment:

Shall we start to move less? This question will be asked (and answered?) during this coming event in Amsterdam. Some names to follow here (like John Thackara).
For my part I would rather say "move more sustainably", "move with purpose(s)" and somethimes "move in a mediated way", mix all those approaches, because I believe mobilty will increase in the future rather than the countrary.
Besides, mobility has brought a lot to the transformation of societes. In good and bad ways of course. Experimenting more with the ones that have some potential (like mixing of cultures while keeping differences or on the other side interbreeding, hybridations, some side of tourism --a tiny part--, creation of abstract and interferential environments and experiences --planes, trains, -- global spatial experiences --airports, branded hotels--, ...) would also be an interesting path to experiment while keeping a critical look to it.
One can hardly deny the fact that mobility has created new spaces (and paved the way for globalization, unsustainable at this stage) that have some potential (hybdrids, interferential, ex-dimensional, etc.). These environments add themsleves to the already existing "local spaces", that won't and shouldn't disappear. Mobility is in fact an old dream (even an old utopia from the 60ies) that is coming to reality in its own way. It's time probably to architecture this mobility and this global scale with sustainable and contemporary concepts that look further than just mere economics, profits or functionality!

Posted by Patrick Keller in Architecture, Culture & society, Design, Sustainability at 11:23

Defined tags for this entry: architecture, culture & society, design, energy, globalization, interferences, mobility, pollution, sustainability, tele-

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fabric | rblg

This blog is the survey website of fabric | ch - studio for architecture, interaction and research.

We curate and reblog articles, researches, writings, exhibitions and projects that we notice and find interesting during our everyday practice and readings.

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Event: Designing for Immobility – Amsterdam & on-line, January 21, 20.30 CET

fabric | rblg

Tuesday, January 19. 2010

Event: Designing for Immobility – Amsterdam & on-line, January 21, 20.30 CET

fabric | rblg

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