Can Printed Electronics Save the Music Industry?
We’re going to debate and show prototypes of how printed electronics could save digital music in the context of connecting communities to record labels and artists.
Printed Electronics is an emerging technology with the potential to change how we interact. We can now reliably print basic electronic components onto paper and card; and when connected to conventional electronics, has the potential to re-connect digital to physical for album covers, fanzines, merchandise, and getting new music heard.
We will bring physical prototypes as props in a discussion of what this technology could do and collaborate with the audience to test reaction and potential through hands in thinking.
Raising questions of what does digital mean to independent hyper-local record labels that want to connect with their community and how bespoke digital printed electronics on paper could achieve this and alter the future of digital music and how artists can connect to people.
Presenters
I am excited about making the web physical.
Why? Because there is only one universal platform for the web and it's not this one you're reading my bio on - it's the one that you're sitting, standing or possibly floating in.
I am lecturer (associate professor) in product design at the University of Dundee in Scotland where I am part of a research group exploring social uses of digital technology. The research group has a bunch of makers doing PhDs, a masters programme, research fellows, interns and people that just want to join in with what we do.
My values are in social innovation and I believe that we need to work with people who are often ignored because of their social or economic backgrounds.
I live by the sea and can often be found in the café of Anstruther’s National Museum of Fisheries – a great place to visit and talk to me about making the web physical!
I describe myself as a creative scientist, I founded Novalia to explore print as a manufacturing process to create electronics, and discovered how amazing it is to combine traditional print with conventional electronics. Printing and converting are efficient mass manufacturing processes that do not require lots of people at workstations to create millions of wonderfully interactive paper based products. I've become quite obsessed with this whole thing and believe that interactive products can be manufactured in the local markets where they will be used without high tooling costs. I believe that one day all the obvious electronic products around us will disappear into all the everyday objects that naturally surround us, the interactive elements will be there for us to choose to use, or just ignore.
Pete is the Futures Director at Uniform, a Brand Communications agency he co-founded in 1998. He directs Uniform’s research and development platform, ULAB, in this capacity he oversees a broad portfolio of research and innovation projects in order to better understand how design and technology can amplify the conversations between brands, customers and users.
Pete’s role is to explore how user-led design methods can engage people to uncover unique insights, needs, and desires, and then to work out if, how and when emergent digital technologies can respond to them.
ULAB’s most recent project, Sweet Tweet, a playful Cuckoo Clock that dispenses sweets in response to Uniform gaining new followers on Twitter, has been featured across the world, most notably by Wired, Fast Company, AdWeek and PSFK. Over the last 5 years Uniform has consistently appeared in the Design Week Top 100 Consultancy Survey which lists the UK’s most successful Design Agencies.
Since founding Uniform, Pete has held a number of lecturing positions in universities across the UK. He continues to lecture on Design throughout the UK and is a visiting lecturer on the MSc Digital Product Design programme at the University of Dundee.
Pete continues to be over excited by design and creating great experiences. When not designing, he’s happiest drawing, thinking, listening to people tell stories and walking on the beach with his wife and kids.
Based in Edinburgh, Scotland, Tommy Perman is an artist, designer and musician who works in a variety of media including drawing, printmaking, sound and music. He has a particular interest in combining new digital technologies with traditional techniques. Tommy is also a member of the artist collective / band FOUND.
FOUND are perhaps best known for their 'autonomous emotional robot band' Cybraphon which won the 2009 BAFTA Scotland award for Best Interactive. Since its unveiling at the Edinburgh Art Festival, Cybraphon has been featured in national newspapers across the world (e.g. China, Brazil, Holland, Italy, Spain, UK), made the top story on the homepage of WIRED.com and has been covered by CNN and TV networks internationally including the BBC’s primetime arts show The Culture Show.
Tuesday, March 13
