Monthly Archives: October 2009

Design Fiction in the Science Gallery

From Bruce’s Beyond the Beyond: Design Fiction in the Science Gallery: “ *Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby carry on for over an hour about their practice of ‘critical design.’ What a class act these two are: like Robert Louis Stephenson … Continue reading →

© 2009 Julian. All rights reserved.

Design Fiction Chronicles: Star Trek's Historical Time Line

Historical diorama of the Space Shuttle Enterprise alongside of the next significant space vehicle in the evolution of, you know — space travel — Zefram Cochrane’s Phoenix. A curious shift within the setting of an exhibition of many things from the … Continue reading →

A synchronicity: Design Fictions for Asynchronous Urban Computing © 2009 Fabien. All rights reserved.

A synchronicity: Design Fictions for Asynchronous Urban Computing

This just in: A Synchronicity: Design Fictions for Asynchronous Urban Computing — Nicolas Nova and myself conversing about what we’re calling asynchronous urban computing — has been released by the Architectural League of New York. It’s a dialogue on an … Continue reading →

© 2009 Julian. All rights reserved.

SXSW 2010 Design Fiction Panel

Bird Puppet, in Linz, Austria. It’s so far away I can barely see to it, but at SXSW 2010, in March a bunch of us will be doing a panel called Design Fiction:Props, Prototypes, Predicaments Communicating New Ideas. I managed … Continue reading →

© 2009 Julian. All rights reserved.

Innovation and Design

Roberto Verganti’s Design-Driven Innovation, a business book on how “firm’s” can participate in larger networks of design discourse in order to achieve radically innovative stuff. Mostly an argument with a three-step “how-to” addressed chiefly to executives. An intriguing argument with … Continue reading →

© 2009 Julian. All rights reserved.

Props, Prototypes and Design With No Spec: Notes on Heliotropic Smartsurfaces

It was working, and it will again. And even in a mode of very temporary failure, the design happens. Here, some students assembly their assemblage for demonstration of their material-semiotic reflection on heliotropic smartsurfaces. What did I learn from visit … Continue reading →

Nokia N900 Hacks

Nokia is a gigantic battleship, and in some of that ship’s little corners, quite intriguing things happen that are quite consistent with the sensibilities of play, exploration and making new meanings, and especially inverting existing assumptions or retracing histories. I … Continue reading →

© 2009 Julian. All rights reserved.

Design Fiction Chronicles: Urgency and Emergency, Notification and Warning

Tsunami Evacuation Route on Washington Boulevard at the border — basically 60 degrees North-North-East, directly opposite the coastline in the other direction, but essentially only a few meters above sea-level for a good couple of miles. Last week, when there was … Continue reading →

© 2009 Julian. All rights reserved.

Textual Landscapes at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery

It’s the “how’s it work?” gesture — one of the Top 15 Criteria of Interactive Media Art — so it must be interactive media. Jim Campbell’s work of low-res video illuminations. Again. These are of Grand Central Station looking unusually … Continue reading →