Artists in Labs: Participatory Design at Eyebeam
Eyebeam Art & Technology Center provides a fertile context for creative collaboration and the cross-pollination of ideas and practice. Our lab environment is a lively incubator of creativity and thought, where at any given time, there are up to 20 resident artists and fellows onsite at our 15,000 square-foot facility, developing new projects and creating work for open dissemination through online, primarily open-source, publication. During this panel, five of Eyebeam's fellows will discuss their work, specifically how they blend creative strategies and technology to build communities, share information, and create spaces for play and participation.
Kaho Abe will present her work with designers, artists, engineers and teens to demystify the black box of consumer electronics and create their own custom interfaces for games and play. Jon Cohrs will share insights into his work combining tactical media, software and DIY interventions with location-based experiences to engage participants in meaningful dialogue about social issues. Fran Illich will talk about his work with virtual communities to reverse engineer the global marketplace as a site for new forms of cooperation, digital labor and prosperity. Nova Jiang will present recent projects that leverage individual desire with risk and reward to create a low barrier for entry and increased participant investment. Brooke Singer will share her work designing platforms for sharing data as a relatable and actionable experience.
Presenters
Fran Ilich is a writer and media artist working in creative practices of hacktivism, investment banking and narrative media. He is currently a Fellow at Eyebeam Art and Technology Center in New York. Ilich is the creator and CEO of the cooperative media conglomerate Diego de la Vega, which includes the virtual community investment bank Spacebank, a community newspaper and cultural space in Tijuana, initiatives in sustainable energy, the Brooklyn Stock Exchange, a publishing house, among other enterprises. Ilich is the author of the novels Metro-Pop (1997), Tekno Guerrilla (2007) and Circa 94 (winner of the bi-national Mexico-USA “Border of Words” award in 2010); and Otra narrativa es posible (2011), which is forthcoming in English as Another Narrative is Possible: Political Imagination in the Internet Era from the Institute of Network Cultures. He is also the creator of many works of net.art and audiovisual and literary works made for the internet. He was the editor at large of Sputnik Cultura Digital magazine, screenwriter for Interacción (Discovery Channel), researcher at Centro Multimedia del Centro Nacional de las Artes in Mexico City, and manager of the literature department of Centro Cultural Tijuana. His work has been presented in such venues as the Berlinale Talent Campus, Documenta 12, Transmediale, MIT Media In Transition, the Walker Art Center, the Economist 2011 Conference in Mexico City, and the EZLN’s Festival Mundial de la Digna Rabia (by personal invitation of Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos). He also directed the festivals Cinemátik 1.0, (MOCA and CalArts), and founded and directed Borderhack.
Kaho Abe's research and work falls at the intersection between Media Art, Technology and Game Design. She builds games that utilize technology to bring people out of isolation and encourage face-to-face interaction. The games are spectator-friendly, physical and are meant to be played at an event or in a public social context. As a Fellow at Eyebeam, she was not only able to develop her projects but also to share and discuss relevant work with the public in the form of workshops and other educational programs.
Her work has been shown in New York, Boston, Detroit, San Jose, Japan, the UK, Greece and Beijing, and has appeared in various publications and media such as KillScreen Magazine, NY Times, CNET News, I.D. Magazine, and NY1.
Nova Jiang’s current projects focus on sharing the tools of artistic production as well as methodologies for creative thinking. Her projects are open systems that explore new forms of participation and the uncommon connections between different fields of cultural production. She was born in Dalian, China, in 1985 and is currently based in New York. She holds a MFA from the Design Media Art Department, University of California, Los Angeles. She is the recipient of an Eyebeam Fellowship, a Skowhegan Fellowship, a Black Rock Arts Foundation Grant, a Sculpture Space Grant and a Wave Hill Van Lier Visual Artist Fellowship. She has exhibited at Sundance, 01SJ Biennial, MediaLab Prado, Sonar, Glow, TEDActive, Japan Media Arts Festival, Milan Public Design Festival and Transitio_MX.
Monday, March 12
