Laura Cinti and Howard Boland's experiments and artistic projects explore critical and contemporary amalgamations of bio and electronic art. The aim of c-lab, their art/science studio lab, is to produce what the artists call "cultural holes" that allow artistic exploration of meaning and idiosyncrasies that focuses on life – organic, artificial and otherness.

Laura's art pieces (in particular her "hairy cactus") has been featured all over the media. She also works commercially as researcher and interactive designer on art/science projects. Currently she is furthering her practices in bioart through her PhD at University College London. She has a First Class Honours degree in Fine Art and Distinction in MA Interactive Media.

Howard's work spans across electronic media and he is currently leading producer and programmer for HSBC global campaign yourpointofview.com. He has degrees both in Mathematics and Software Systems for the Arts and Media. He has Distinction in MA Digital Practices.

Both have lectured and exhibited internationally.

You both seem to have different backgrounds and expertise. How do they complete each other?

Laura comes from a fine art and interactive media background where her works focused on cloning then later genetics. Howard comes from a background in mathematics that later branched into electronic media. We join up through critical theory and a desire to explore works on various forms of ‘otherness’ and adventures in science (and humour).

Experiments: Tissue culturing

What can an artistic approach bring to issues raised by the advances in genetic technology?

This is an interesting question on a broader scale and is actually a critical point in a current online symposium [Virtual Symposium On Visual Culture and Bioscience]. Here, Suzanne Anker prompts the notion that the biosciences may be considered to be experiencing a “golden age,� the arts on the other hand, struggle not with public consumption, but with a more profound challenge to intrinsic identity and history. However, a few examples of what has been raised might be in place, such as Tissue Culture & Art Project, showing the “failure� of the technology (tissue engineering) by playing with utopian concepts by reflecting on technological zeitgeists. Joe Davis, a research fellow at MIT, takes a different route by attempting to use biotechnologies to open spaces between different scales, one such example is his audio microscope another is his paramecium fishing contraption. Artistic approaches can serve to contemplate how the media informs the public on matters of technology, there are also practices that take place in the labs that are being reflected upon by artists and contextualization on what is being produced by labs in broader cultural terms. It is clear to us that organisms produced routinely in labs, methodologies and ideas are far more radical than many of the ideas from the surrealist movement and these practices radically transforms our culture.

Experiment: DNA extraction

I usually associate biotech art with Australia or the US, how's the London scene on that regard? Is there a community of artists and researchers with similar interests in London and the rest of the UK?

Your association is completely granted seeing that most radical and important works in the bioart genre is coming from these two countries. The London scene has a different focus and may be divided into two camps which fall slightly outside what we today may associate with bioart. On the one side there is the “communicating science� in artworks which are collaborative projects mostly focusing on the human body and medical imaging technologies and on the other there is the britart movement which follows in the trails of Damien Hirst and the likes. Its variation may also be a result of UK’s more embedded art and design education. Art agencies like the Art Catalyst have in the past brought in artists/researchers working with bioart such as Oron Catts and Steve Kurtz (though more art-activist than bioartist) offering talks and workshops in London. Still it remains a problem that there are no constant body that offers artists to practice in labs. The UK has however had a few practicing bioartists in the past such as Martha De Menezes who worked out of the Imperial College of London. Another issue that may be raised is that funding is now being picked up by scientists to communicate science projects as art – again this falls in under “communicating science� rather than digging into the complexity of contemporary art and theory (knowledge). London bioart scene is still far from hosting environments such as SymbioticA (Australia), MIT (US) and Ectopia (Portugal).

The Cactus Project is probably your most iconic work. Do you feel that the audience and the media understood its meaningfulness? Do you find that people are usually keen on looking beyond the spectacular aspect of an art piece like the Cactus?

The Cactus Project began in 2001 as a collaborative bioart project resulting in cacti’s expressing human hair. The plants were displayed publicly during a short period (and transported for private views) however the aim was not to generate overt attention, but rather see what happened when a challenging idea hit the culture softly. Genetic engineering – particularly transgenics, may be seen as something anti-sexual or asexual in that its manipulation directly interferes with the natural reproductive process and transfers genetic material from one specie to another. It reverses the sexuality and propagation associated with living entities into something asexual. Transgenesis significance is enmeshed into our existence both presently and in the future.

The project has curiously captured a much larger interest from scientists than artists.

Finally it must be mentioned that “the public� or “the publics� are fairly well informed in terms of modern science but unfortunately poorer informed with regards to contemporary art. This can be observed by looking at the amount of analysis and press today’s science receive compared to contemporary art. Also in education, contemporary art forms a smaller section compared to contemporary science.

Similarly, do you know how the scientific community approaches your work? What is your relationship with them?

It varies but overall the scientific communities have been the most active audience, perhaps because they have a (surprisingly to me) better layered reading of The Cactus Project than artists.

How do you manage to have access to the technologies you use to develop your works?

Apart from what we can do by ourselves, we try to build relationships and find alliances with scientists but these are not always successful. Before approaching a project we try to establish a good background idea, informing ourselves scientifically as well as artistically and try to understand the research of the people we approach or that approach us. Many of the technologies are unavailable to a general consumer and collaboration is needed. Even if technologies are available the Steve Kurtz case demonstrated the sensitivity around working with these technologies outside specific frameworks.

Can you give us more details about The Mexico Project :: An Ecological Invasion? What motivated your decision to "set them free"? Do you know how the plants are coping over there in the wild?

The project in which two genetically modified cacti were transplanted into two different domains of ‘natures’ inside Mexico was a bio-invasive work whose extensive journey entailed one transplantation in the north amongst its large family of cacti’s and the other in the south of Mexico, Oaxaca, on a hill overlooking its transgenic cousins (the transgenic corn landraces).

The Mexico Project explores ideas of belonging, constructions of nature and wilderness through releasing novel species. The two transgenic cacti originated from The Cactus Project.

In the first transplantation, the transplantation into the desert, we were seeking the raw pristine nature, the virgin landscape untouched by man. Discourses emerged of wilderness, hybridism, bio-enrichment and belonging.

In wilderness with its pristine-ness and embodied otherness we find nonhumaness – untouched by man. Yet, this otherness’ construction is built by man’s desires and nostalgias, rejecting his own place. In between, the transgenic cactus in all its otherness – is still cactus but touched by man. Part man, part cactus – a new otherness whose semantic orgy – an orgy in nature – penetrates wilderness.

Though the plants are infertile the sexual layered semantics of the journey is part of our reading of the meeting points between the types of ‘nature’ colliding.

The second transplantation intersects stories of GM contamination in an area where local landraces were found contaminated. In a year of poor yield local farmers purchased US imported GM corn (unbeknownst to them) at local discount stores intended for direct food consumption but found they could regenerate these and that these new lavishing plants thrived better than their own – however, surprisingly for one season only. Here enters The Mexico Project into a 'nature' amongst domesticated plants genetically ‘contaminated’ both by sexual promiscuity of plants and intervention of man (unintentional and intentional). In the hierarchy of contamination/purity, contamination is rock-bottom; however ideals of ‘nature’ with large ripening fruits and vegetables for the benefits of supporting our ever growing population and bettering our environment through decreased use of chemicals – these ideas are abroad. The transgenic cactus left on a hill in Oaxaca does none of this. It did not need to be created (in terms of the above mentioned regime) but it is there overlooking its transgenic cousins, a non-serving perversion.

The transgenic cactus was planted. The hole was filled covering the roots of the ‘organic dildo’. Its phallic stem firmly erected and flickering hairs blowing in the wind. Three large butterflies (herbivores) flutters by. They spiral around the cactus and then head for the large white cross, not far away, it’s wonderfully beautiful and resonating, for here is the pristine again, three beautiful butterflies of nature (an aesthetic construction that preserves) but pests in the eyes of agriculture. The fields below hybridizing its Bt toxin immunizing and producing the image of re-resistant butterflies in feedback loops of evolution. The transgenic cactus reminds us of another regime that is less aimed at spiralling into these constructions. In this environment, it is but a dildo.

After arriving back from Mexico, where all thoughts, ideas and manifestations of the project re(in)versed. Setting free from what? Where do they (really) belong? Hence, opening discourses of belonging. This transgression propelled discourses of 'nature/wild' as a social narrative rather than the ingrained metanarrative. Hence leading to series of questioning what 'nature/wild' is? And with that, it's being further de(re)miraged by (bio)technological accelerations.

We have not had a chance to visit the cacti. Our thought, ironically perhaps, is that the transplantation in the north (Desierto Sonorense) is perhaps less successful (in the long term due to the harsh weather conditions of the desert) than the transplantation in the south (Oaxaca).

Did you need some special authorisation to transplant them in Mexico? How did it go?

The focus of this work, its legal implications although discussed, lies implicit in the project. The book in particular will help elaborate the many issues we set out to explore. A text only version can be read here.

Are you still working on a "Martian Rose"? Which challenges did you meet while developing the project?

The Martian Rose chamber

We are currently working on The Martian Rose. This project will be exhibited in Spain – BIOS4 and UK – Milton Keynes Science Festival - this year.

The initial proposal for The Martian Rose involved genetically engineering a rose for stress tolerance in extreme environment. Part of the research revolves around alienisms, symbolism, ornamentation and culture. Dreaming of a Martian rose is a rather naïve delve into symbolic and perhaps visual imagery, but it doesn’t offer any consolation in terms of beauty – it’s poetic imagery merges with the harsh conditions of its destination (Mars) and the alien is created. The Martian Rose exhibit shows the first part of this research/journey by opening avenues for interaction with a terrestrial rose pre-subjected to proxy Martian parameters.

The Martian Rose attempts to stay within the framework of botany and intends to look at reconstruction of life for extreme conditions which would include the potential aesthetic breakdown through genetic conditioning (i.e. no flowering) as well as carrying a romantic idea of giving a rose for Mars. Discussions around the project led us to reformulate to its future stand – which considers more suitable biological specimens - extremophiles. This is perhaps less romantic but allows us potential habitational environments (ecologies). A proposed avenue is to alter the actual planetary parameters in order to find abstract zones or spaces where life can exist and to investigate what extent this life becomes otherness. As an artistic research the aim is not to produce new scientific knowledge but to open artistic areas in primarily scientific spaces and to address cultural aspects and experiences that also take place. Our overall aim will attempt to explore strategies of engagements, experiences and interactions with live biological specimens within a biochamber initially conditioned to a Martian environment.

As the project is still in process, we will publish the experiment details (which will take place at the Mars Simulation Laboratory in Denmark) on our site, prior to the exhibitions.

What are you working on these days?

Current projects looks at how our relationship with nature changes through the use of living material as interactive sensors in which the objective involves producing plants with biosensors. It places itself within the artistic discourses surrounding plants perceptual response to mechanical stimuli and explores areas of human-plant interaction and our changed perception though such interaction. It springs out of protocols in producing plants with biosensors and takes into account the narratives that emerge. This research is also part of Laura’s PhD at UCL.

Could you name us 3 "biotech" artists whom you think should get more attention from the public?

There are many bioartists that should get more public attention. For many artists it is difficult to get involved with what remains “unavailable technologies�. Perhaps more than this it is not just the access to the technology but more often the challenge of understanding the processes underlying. You have to align yourself to use it; so it’s an ethical problem and may venture into righteous materialism.

Thanks Laura and Howard!

Otto von Busch might very well be the most interesting person i've met over the past few months.

He is an artist, activist, fashion theorist, designer, a PhD-candidate in critical fashion design at Göteborg University (Sweden)... he is active in so many fields that i'll just focus on two of his current works. One is self_passage that engages with social and subversive fashion design. >self_passage< takes a critical and political look on design and in particular on the fashion system and its networks. By organizing workshops and distributing booklets, the project tries to demonstrate in a very approachable way how to critically hack and re-formi the operating system of modernity and the industrial modes of production.

He is also collaborating with Evren Uzer, an Istanbul-based urban planner and a PhD candidate, on roomservices, a series of practical research projects that explore urban and rural issues and transgress the borders between urbanity, social reorganization, design co-location, applied socio-geography and social art work. With the roomservices projects they experiment with ‘tools’ for providing a different viewpoint or just celebrating the differences in everyday life by revealing their varied shades under new light.

How does one become a fashion renegade?

I call the marginal actors in the fashion field “fashion renegades� since they often use unconventional strategies in the subversive or “subconstructive� techniques in relation to fashion. They use techniques similar to hacking from my point of view. Modifying and breaking into systems to alter them, injecting micropolitical will into the channels and flows of the system. But they do not oppose the inherent power or code processing of that system. This is what makes hackers similar to heretics; they oppose the hierarchical role of the interpreter, administrator, or author, but not the power itself – code or faith. The heretic is not an atheist, but someone hacking the institutional and hierarchical interpretation of the faith. Like the hacker, modder, or tinkerer the heretic is keeping the power on, not renouncing or opposing the core or energy of a system. Using faith for liberation and empowerment.

>self_passage< Italyan Avlusu in Istanbul

This approach can also be taken in fashion. Not boycotting fashion or scorn it as “the emperors new clothes�, but instead celebrating the magic and desire flowing through that system, reconnecting it to empower instead of regarding it as an enslaving culture. So being a fashion renegade is more about an approach than a specific training or skill.

You're developing the self_passage fashion projects. The Dale Sko hack workshop, for example, made fashion designers work together with local shoe workers on the design of shoes. How did they manage to collaborate together? How was the exchange? Which influence did each one have on the other?

The Dale Sko hack was a project trying to get designers to not only engage in the forming of products but also in the software of industrial production. The designers were collaborating with the producers and workers to explore how machinery could be “misused� and skills be used differently, going beyond a fordist linear mass-production mode, to use more of the potential of the manual steps in production. It is absurd that we still operate fashion production in a way where a designer gives a technical drawing to a factory and say, “produce 10.000 exact copies of this�. In this mode we just see manual labor as a step in production waiting to be replaced by machines. Instead we must find ways to use the existing manual craft skills better in the design, find non-linear ways to operate production that creates more interesting results and narratives. This was the core of the shoe hack and it worked out very well. The designers explored various ways to distribute the design tasks as well as engage more in how production processes can change the designs underway. The results have been shown at several or the big fashion events and also the Dale shoe factory is reforming their production now.

In the Dale Sko Hack book (downloadable as a PDF), you refer to William Morris and the Art & Craft movement. Which similarities did the Dale experience have with the A&C movement? And where are the dissimilarities?

The A & C movement was similar in a way of cherishing the work of the hand and also engage in the craft skills of the workers. But as I see it the main difference is that the A &C still was very elitist in the way that the designer was still the creative “god� at the top of the pyramid and the craftsmen realizing the dream image of his genius mind. The shoe hack is operating inside mass production, inside a linear factory but trying to renegotiate the interfaces between design and production. In the compilation phase of design so to say. Between the writing of code (by the designer) and execution of code (in the factory). As such the shoe hack is about exploring the protocols of design practice.

What are the potentials of hands-on hacking experiments like the one you organized in Dale Sko? What can they teach us? How can they inspire new modes of production?

I think the great potential is to look differently on the interface between design and production. This can open new action spaces for design with more participation and deeper engagement and thus rethink parts of how we perceive mass-production. Hopefully it can also revalue what we have left of industrial production in the post-welfare state. By emphasizing the local distribution of also the design process we might find specific qualities in local production.

The first results of the Dale Sko workshop appeared on the catwalk of the London Fashion Week in Fall 2006. What was the feedback of the press and of the audience?

Dale Sko factory has appeared on the fashion map. Not as an anonymous production facility but as an experimental platform for new shoe design. The project has got quite some press and also the designers have now continued to work with Dale Sko for their new collections. That is very good feedback for a first time experiment like this.

I'd like you to tell me more about the "roomservices" urban interventions. The booklet Adventures in Local Knowledge Production (download it as PDF) presents the "low-level networks of pro-ams, prosumers, producers and other co-creators." Could you explain us briefly who are these people? How important is their contribution of Pro-Ams to cultural, economic and social life or even to research?

roomservices is run by my partner Evren Uzer and me and in the Adventures in Local Knowledge Production we mapped the low level knowledge production in Innsbruck, Austria. We focused on all small actors not appearing in the yellow pages or entrepreneurial maps, but instead engage in very lose and informal networks. People and places of huge creative potential but that do not appear in our current organization of society. These are serious hobbyists and professional amateurs. We created a simple classifying system for understanding how they operate in the city, connect to each other and to other systems, focusing on three aspects of actors in the low-level networks; archetypes, hubs and channels. Traditionally these are poets, discussion circles, small bands, hobby modders, rehearsal studios, squats, pirate radios etc.

There has lately been a lot of talk about “creative industries� but it will be a serious mistake to consider these activities as industries or even production facilities. We instead tried to see them as co-creators as at this level much is very collaborative and society still struggles to get a grip on what this really is. This level of society is not fitting to our entrepreneurial models but we need to rethink our economic operating system in many ways if we want this low-level to blossom and be the ground for a “new economy�. The copyright and music sharing debates we see now is only the tip of the iceberg of this change we think.

It is also important to state that it is not a question of including all spare time activities into economic systems or transactions. Hobbies and recreation must still be a free zone for play, relaxation and leisure too. The question is if we can find ways to survive of our pro-am interests and not see all work as necessarily alienating.

Which conditions ensure that a lively network of pro-ams can thrive?

Our purpose was not so much to look at the fertilizers of pro-ams or “creative industries and creative class� as in the works of Richard Florida for example. Evren and I tried to find way to map the so far unexplored correlations between these networks and actors. But the sharing and spreading of new ideas is central, not only through the Internet, but socially. Various platforms, amplifiers and scenes are central for the sharing of knowledge at this level and this is actually something that can be supported beyond the “recreation� or “hobby� level it is perceived as today.

But understanding this level of society is only in its cradle. We have spent centuries optimizing industrialism and institutional capitalism and we still lack models and maps for the low-level knowledge production.

How can an expertise raised on non-profit and democratic principles meet with capitalistic modes of production?

Well this is something that we need time to understand and experiment with and social entrepreneurship, activist business, and anti-preneurship are just a first wave of experiments. Perhaps we need to once again look seriously at local currencies and other means for exchange that can operate on levels where global capitalism does not fit. We need more tools to see how this works, it is apparent that there is no longer ONE public and ONE market but multitudes of publics, markets, levels and networks in society, and most probably we need several models to see them all. Not one theory will explain it. Not one ring will rule them all.

Any upcoming projects you could share with us?

Selfpassage has a new collection out, a cookbook to inspire and help you re-sew your old garments into new ones. This autumn I will work with an exhibition in Istanbul on “Hackers and Haute Couture Heretics� exploring the interfaces between high fashion and the fashion hackers and craftivist.

Evren and I will hold a summer course on social entrepreneurship and small change methodologies. We will also arrange a workshop on the connection between rural and urban modes to organize creative endeavors.

Everything we do is published in PDF-format and in copyleft so get inspired and co-create - keep updated on the selfpassage and roomservices sites!

Thanks Otto!

Additional note: Otto has recently published a new book together with Karl Palmås: Abstract Hacktivism: the making of a hacker culture (available at Amazon or you can download it for free in PDF format.)

Photos of the Dale Sko Hack: Bent Rene Synnevåg.

Julian Bleecker is a well-known man to the Internets – my search on Flickr for a portrait of him yielded over 500 results (photo snatched from Ti.mo's photostream).

This might be because of his manifold activities in the realm of electronic media, including teaching at USC's Interactive Media Division, blogging at Techkwondo, writing manifestos about Why Things Matter, lecturing about the CO2 production of avatars, researching the near future with accomplice Nicolas Nova or his stereoscopic collection of funny bikes.

Time for an interview to find out about the bigger picture and where it all might lead to in that near future.

Julian, what does a blogject do differently from an object?

Well, a blogject is like an object with social tendencies, worldly. It wants to be more than inert, more than a physical object. It has a tendency to be unique and contribute to conversations in specific, situated contexts. And they do this because they are net-savvy, and know all about the latest and greatest of sharing and circulating information in the connected world.

Objects — the more inert cousin of blogjects — aren't necessarily net-savvy. They certainly are social in lots of meaningful ways. You can get an object that inspires very social action, conversations or activities — a board game or well-designed chair, for instance. Blogjects can be as socially engaged as objects, only they do so with the full-force and power of what digital content dissemination techniques provide — feeds, aggregation, tagging, etc.

Blogjects are social in the way they address topics of concern. They're clever machines, but not artificial intelligences. They're like a lens on the physical, 1st life world, taking advantage of the wonderful world of sensor technologies. Blogjects are objects for wired, digitally networked societies. Over time, they'll become responsible for laminating 1st life and 2nd life in meaningful ways. And I think the ultimate responsibility is to force awareness of life- and world-threatening issues. At their best, blogjects make us aware of the unfolding tragedies that surround us everyday. And their power comes from the ability of their insights to circulate at the speed of the network.

Laminating the lives is an interesting point. Let's look a bit more closely at the current interactions between those worlds: so we have objects with social qualities, thanks to their net-savviness. On the other hand – so it seems – there's a movement to create the virtual realities we had been told about for decades, with Linden Lab's Philip Rosedale talking about "digitizing everything". Are those two discrete notions, or are they part of one process and if so, what kind of reality would it possibly lead to?

I think this notion of digitizing everything is a bit misguided. It presumes that most everything should be digital, without consideration as to what it means to have particular human experiences or activities transferred into digital form. It's a kind of digital-era imperialism or evangelization of the database gospel — "if it can be structured as data, put it on the Internets" — or something. It has so many things wrong about it, beginning with a lack of any sort of critical inquiry as to what it means, or why one would think it worth while, for instance, to have make digital shopping malls in Second Life.

The (always deserted) American Apparel store in SL

If the project of the digital age is to make everything that we have in "1st life" available in 2nd life, then I think we're on the wrong path. Laminating 1st life and 2nd life isn't about creating digital analogs. It's about elevating human experience in simple and profound ways. This blogject project is an early manifestation of what I think we will start seeing as clever tinkerers experiment with creating meaningful bridges between 1st life and 2nd life in which ethics precedes doing something "just 'cause" it's possible. And those bridges come firstly in very simple expressions of 1st life activity in 2nd life, or 2nd life activity in 1st life.

Bruce Sterling has a great turn-of-phrase I once heard him speak — "we will get the future we deserve." And in this case it means if we want Gap Stores, shopping malls and advertising signage in Second Life, that's what we'll get. But I think many people want something that will yield more habitable worlds, not more efficient ways to market and get people to buy crap. We could create impacts and shape thinking and behavior with digital networks, particularly ones that speak to 1st life. We can create bridges that capture, share and disseminate the current, day by day state of the thinning northern ice cap. We can create a 1st life / 2nd life bridge that makes this condition as present, as impactful and as resonant as a dripping faucet in the next room, rather than an abstraction only occasionally brought to our mind through a newspaper article or cocktail party conversation.

But couldn't it be that one of the "simple expressions" of the 1st life that first bridge over, might be shopping? No capitalism-bashing intended here, but isn't it just astonishing to what extend the simple fact that every object in SL is also a potential commodity seems to boost the attractiveness of the system for very different groups of users?

Yeah, not really astonishing — expected is probably the more precise description. Most digital network participants are well-rehearsed when it comes to circulating culture through commodity exchange. But we see so many other forms of making culture online that take advantage of the Internets' capacity to be a relatively safe zone for grand-scale social experiments — like the fascinating experiments that I barely understand in which digital kids acquire as many possible social network friends as possible. That's an experiment in acquisition — a kind of accumulation of social capital, I suppose.

It's possible to imagine that what was really going on 10 years ago with the Internets was a desperate attempt to orchestrate a new social experiment — one that could take our clunky, dinged, sputtering, oil-spewing, blood-soaked attempt at Enlightenment via Democracy and become humanity's last bid at forming a more playful, life-affirming world. The Internets went askew as soon as they got turned into a capital accumulation experiment, which fracked us all. It's the deadly "quarterly results" myopia of corporations that limited the foresight to see what the Internets could have become. To have ended up with shopping carts, a collapsed ecosystem and Fox News Online is pathetic. Certainly there are pockets of activity where experiments continue to explore how free-trade in culture can yield more habitable worlds. Time is short, though, and there are plenty of bottom-up culture haters out there who would like nothing more than for the MPAA and Rupert Murdoch to take over and define what the Internets become.

The experimentation part is a really interesting one. Both individuals and companies seem to use the "Internets" to experiment with possible 1st life schemes. Then you have weird 2nd life things like the copybot happening, a digital paradigm applied to the digital simulation of a physical world which caused quite a drama. Could you imagine other forms of possibly equally playful interactions between the lives?

Finding compelling ways to make 1st life legible and meaningful in 2nd life is probably one of the most fascinating, provocative experiments of the digital networked era. Social networks, meet-up sites, match making online — these are just Proterozoic experiments that take existing social practices and make them network-enabled. I want to find experimental vectors that move towards a set of experiences and provocations that link 1st life and 2nd life so that there is a kind of effortless divide, so that it is possible to occupy both simultaneously. Not by having a connected phone so that you're wandering down a gorgeous, baroque alley in Vienna while staring at your mobile screen, trying to get Google Maps to figure out where you are — I imagine something much more translucent and less literal.

Battleship: Google Earth, a 1st/2nd-life mashup

For instance, mobile computing as it's presently conceived makes a rather literal representation of 2nd life in 1st life. The canonical "mobile email" is just such a knee-jerk bridge. We know all about email in 2nd life. How do we make it part of our mobile life? Make a software email client for the mobile phone. From the perspective of innovation and creativity, I think that is pragmatic, convenient, practical rubbish. It's one of the cruel jokes of the mobile phone carriers, to say that we're going to live untethered lives.

The kinds of experiments that will help us imagine and create a more habitable, playful world are far more provocative than what anyone trying to make their quarterly numbers will offer. These experiments must question conventional assumptions, find ways to encourage and appreciate whimsy, and recognize that pragmatism got us the world we have now. By experiment I mean a kind of serious, creative endeavor that is technoscientific in spirit. By experiment I also mean that I'm trying to find a way to tell a story about possible near future worlds, or create imaginary worlds through technological instruments. Filmmakers have been telling visual stories about imagined, fictional worlds for a century — and the best of these stories help us think through worlds we presently occupy, and help us make meaning about the condition of certain corners of life. In the very, very best of films, they help us to find the courage to make manifest changes to our worlds so as to make the world a more habitable, life-affirming place. Science-fiction literature does this as well, of course. Something I learned while pursuing my master's in engineering and doctorate was the ways in which technologies are instruments for making meaning — they're fully social and cultural. In this way, they can be used to make and circulate culture by their very design. Discovering that you can make a technology that helps author an imaginary, near-future world was the first page of a new chapter for me. I'm much less interested in experiments that tell stories about world's with e-mail on a mobile phone, so I stay away from those practicalities. The kinds of experiments I do are ones that tell stories about worlds that may be, or world's I wouldn't mind occupying myself, or cautionary stories about possible near futures that make me nervous. If I could write or make film, that may be the way tell these stories. I'm an electrical engineer and have a fluency with the idioms and grammars of computer science, so I make devices to articulate aspects of these near-future worlds.

Sketch for Near Future Lab's project Flavonoid

I'm elbow deep in a set of experiments of the non-pragmatic, non-practical variety, but one's that I hope can be understood to evolve and shift the relationship between 1st life and 2nd life, creating new lenses through which each is represented within the other. One experiment I'm conducting with my good friend Nicolas Nova through our earnest Near Future Laboratory project is to turn critters — specifically, in this case, a pet dog — into interaction partners in digital worlds. We're imagining what a near-future would be like if the partners with whom we interacted were the other occupants of our world, such as pets. We're making a dog toy for a friend's one-eyed dog that will manipulate the actions of a Dwarf in World of Warcraft. So there you would have a somewhat playful provocation — pets playing in World of Warcraft. The experiment is less about actually creating a pet playable version of that very complex online game — we don't suppose for a minute that a dog can play World of Warcraft in the sense of pursuing the goals of the game or comprehending the through-line. But certainly a dog can control a WoW character to the same degree that they can control and manipulate a favorite rag-doll chew toy. This is a test balloon, floated to begin imagining-through-construction a context of participation between pets and humans in the new networked age.

So you have an almost social approach to the technoscientific projects you're creating in the way that you want them to have a certain impact on our imagination. How does this position relate to the notion of critical design? And, since you mentioned the power of fiction, how important is it for you that designs and devices actually exist and work in order to be powerful statements?

I've learned a lot from Tony Dunne and Fiona Raby's work. The most important lesson is finding out that it is okay to make objects and devices speak with a critical voice, or to have some say over their conditions of use. I have spent years developing the knowledge to construct technological instruments while doing my undergraduate studies in electrical engineering and building hardware and software as a professional engineer. And then many more years in graduate studies learning how to think and write about how technologies are imbricated with culture. What critical design allows me to do is construct technologies that help me, and others I hope, see just how thoroughly technology is culture. And of course once you can appreciate that you can recognize that technology is mutable and doesn't have to be the way it is. This is more apparent today, particularly with the energy behind this latest wave of DIY sensibilities.

Related is this idea of the theory object as my colleague Tara McPherson has taught me — an object through which one can come to understand what the object is here for, how it works, how it can work differently. This is much like Rich Gold's Evocative Knowledge Objects. So, not only is the finished, designed object of interest, but so too is the process of its construction, which you must ruthlessly capture and document because every step of the process has something important to say that's part of the critical voice of the design — from the initial sketches, to choosing parts, to accidentally bricking an expensive component. For me, there is a critical voice both in the completed design and in the craft work of construction. I think it's important to avoid opaque design. As a consequence, I perhaps make others suffer because I tend to over-document my construction projects and designs. But, I think the craft work illuminates the process in a really valuable, authorial way. It's like hearing the voice of the designer figuring out what they're doing, how they're doing it, and then why they did it in both practical terms as well as design and cultural theoretical terms. And of course actually constructing the design is crucial — you can't just have a theory without going through the trouble of working from your intuition or dreams, through the hands-on execution and craft work, to the point where you decide to put a bit of punctuation on it and call it done. It's fun to take an idea and then actually realize it — it's like making little mini-dreams come true.

Documenting the often tedious process of how ideas become reality

Where is the ideal place to live for those creations so that they can reach and touch many people? Is it in the form of some sort of product (which may also be re-built DIY-style using your documentation) or in the context of exhibitions or festivals? At Transmediale, Olia Lialina brought up the notion that being featured on blogs like this one might sometimes suffice and, in a way, even become one goal in itself. How would you like your projects to be received?

The ideal place would be as close to the imagination as possible, because what I feel art-technology does best is encourage stories about near future worlds that we may actually want. Sometimes those stories evolve from ironic devices that remind us about aspects of the networked age that are not so fantastic. Most ironic device art really only can exhibit in design galleries or as part of the art-technology festival or blog circuit. But as DIY sensibilities take hold more firmly, it's possible to imagine that there might be an audience who want to own what they see at festivals or read about in a blog, so they can live with what they were only able to imagine.

Dear Julian, thanks for the interview.

Recently i stumbled upon a survey in some posh English art magazine. The journalist was asking readers whether they had already travelled only to see an exhibition in a foreign country. As you can guess i ticked the box "Yes, at least once a year." If there had been a question asking "Have you ever travelled just to see one single piece in an exhibition?" I would have answered "Yes, i did that once." It was in 2005, i took the plane to Paris just to see one work in the exhibition D.Day Modern Day Design at the Centre Pompidou. It was Fiona Raby and Tony Dunne's Evidence Dolls. The dolls are hypothetical products that could be used by single women to store DNA samples from potential partners, gaining thus an increased sense of control in the dating game. Any reason to go to Paris is always welcome anyway.

If you follow the blog, you must be familiar with the work, and writing of Dunne & Raby.

Dunne is the Head of Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art in London. As demonstrated during the recent Work in Progress Show of Design Interactions students, the focus of the department is shifting. While electronics and computing remain essential elements of the course, his students are also exploring how design can connect with other technologies, such as biotechnology and nanotechnology. The result is a wide range of projects, often speculative and critical, which aim to raise the debate on the human consequences of different technological futures.

I actually first thought this interview for World Changing (where it's been posted... with a less lazy introduction) and i realize now that if i had prepared the piece for wmmna, the questions would have been slightly different. But mister Dunne is a busy man, i couldn't ask him to face two interviews, could i?

Placebo: The Electro-draught Excluder and the Nipple Chair

Your works express the belief that design shouldn't just be used to turn technology into something eye-pleasing, sexy and easy to use. What other role should design play then?

It could make us think and encourage us to ask more from industry! There is no need to rush into the future frantically styling up new technology and getting it to market as fast as we can. We need to reflect a bit more and ask some questions, I know this is completely at odds with the industrial system we have today, but I think as a profession we could take on more social responsibility and use some of our time, resources and know-how to explore alternative ideas about everyday life to those put forward by industry.

I think there is a real need for design to address the public as well as industry, and to explore new ways of getting discussions going about what people really want and how industry can help us achieve it, rather than the other way around.

Teddy blood bag and Meat eating products

Your installation about future energy sources at the Science Museum in London is extremely surprising. The scenarios you picture there are deeply grounded in scientific research, yet they are miles away from our dreams of solar-powered cars and hydrogen-based cities: "poo" is envisioned as a resource, a radio is fuelled by blood kept in cute teddy-shaped pouches, and churches, school, even families are developing their own energy brand. Why didn't you follow the trend and show more positive and bright visions of the future?

The exhibit is aimed at children between the ages of 7 and 12. Everywhere they look they will see images showing how bright our technological future will be once we embrace new energy sources like Hydrogen. But things are not so simple, with every new technology there are of course other consequences -- economic, cultural and ethical. With this project we wanted to encourage children to think about the implications of 3 different technologies, all real, but some more likely to happen than others. The first is Hydrogen, here we wanted to deal with economics by portraying a scenario children could relate to -- having to produce a certain amount of hydrogen in order to get their pocket money. Human Poo as energy was about a major cultural shift where something once thought of as dirty would become valuable, so people would want to keep it, disconnect themselves from the sewage system and even offer it as a gift. And with the blood scenario, we wanted to show that often, reality is stranger than fiction, there is a growing area of research looking at how microbial fuel cells can be used to make self-sufficient robots and other products; pacemakers that run on the blood in our own bodies for example. In this case we wanted children to think about ethics: where would the blood come from? Of course we slightly exaggerated everything to make them more engaging.

Why do you think that biotechnology, synthetic biology or nanotechnology, like electronics, are areas in which design should play a role?

All of these technologies, separately, and in combination, are going to have a huge impact on our lives in the near future. I think it’s important that designers, start thinking about how to get involved. It's not just about new skills or a new medium, but very different ways of thinking. What does it mean to design living or semi-living materials and products? It's important too that design, with its powerful visualisation skills, makes abstract concepts tangible and discussable. It can help us debate different futures before they happen. Otherwise the 'future' is just going to happen to us and the products and services we get will be driven by economic and technological factors rather than human needs, let alone desires.

I think it would be a great shame if designers stayed on the margins while these technologies begin to shape the world around us. The time it takes for science to turn into technology and then products is speeding up. There is no comparison with the trajectory electronics took so we need to start getting involved now and exploring what impact these new technologies will have on our lives.

Interaction Design grew out of the meeting of digital and cultural worlds and the need to make computers more useable, it will be interesting to see what other forms of design will emerge over the coming years.

Can you give us one example of a student(s)' project that best represent the "design for debate" approach?

I think the best example has to be Tobie Kerridge and Nikki Stott's Biojewellery, partly because it has evolved so much over the last 3 years. They started it in response to the first bio brief we set at the RCA in 2003. Later, with bioengineer Ian Thompson, they followed it through to a really impressive level. I particularly like some of the documents they produced on the way exploring the ethics of the project and whether or not it would be OK to operate on someone for basically poetic reasons. The project has generated debate and discussion throughout its life at all levels -- aesthetics, practicalities, business, design, methodology ... I don't think all projects need to reach this level of resolution to be successful, but it's a good example of what's possible.

Test samples and Previous prototype of a ring using a combination of cow marrow-bone and etched silver

Two years ago, you showed Evidence Dolls at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The plastic objects were created to provoke discussion amongst a group of single women about the impact of genetic technology on their lifestyle. Can you tell us more about that project?

What was the impetus for this project?

Valerie Guillaume, a curator at the Pompidou Centre was very keen to have something about critical design in an exhibition she was curating so she commissioned the project. We had already sketched out the idea in BioLand and we thought this was a nice opportunity to take the idea further and also explore how it could be used to produce some new insights.

In the projects we ran with students about biotech, there would always be something to help men avoid leaving DNA behind so that they wouldn't be implicated in future paternity cases. We, well Fiona, thought the woman's perspective should be represented too. We were inspired by the story of a famous English actress who hired a detective to rummage through an ex-lover's bin looking for material that could be analysed for DNA and used to prove he was the father of her baby. The detective found some dental floss and it provided enough DNA to prove he was the father. Fiona thought this process should be made a little easier. The doll is effectively a storage device for DNA from a woman's various lovers. It would be collected in the form of toenail clippings, hair and other bodily materials. Later, if necessary, they could be analysed. The material is stored in a S,M or L penis drawer. The dolls can be personalised to represent each lover. For the exhibition we worked with ÅBÄKE who interpreted the interview transcripts through drawings on each doll. the interviews with the women were included in the exhibition.

And how did the women understand, react to and welcome this unconventional project?

This was all done behind closed doors. As you can imagine, the conversations were quite intimate as each woman spoke candidly about her past lovers. But most of the women reacted to it as something they could imagine using, I found this strange to believe myself, but that was the reaction. The project was not about whether they would want or even use one, it was more about finding a way to explore the impact a new technological possibility might have on ideas of love, romance and dating.

Anxious Times: Hideaway Furniture, Huggable Atomic Mushroom

You're now Head of the department of Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art in London. A year ago, the department was still called Interaction Design. What motivated such change?

The name interaction design is beginning to mean something quite specialised and focussed on designing interfaces for electronic and digital products and systems. This is probably a very good thing if you are trying to establish a discipline or a group within a company, but it’s not so good if you are interested in pushing boundaries and exploring new ways designers can make technology relevant and meaningful to everyday life. Designing better interfaces is one way of doing this but not the only way.

I think originally, the interesting thing about interaction design was the emphasis on designing interactions rather than things. We changed the name of the department around to emphasise this. But by changing the name we also hoped to decouple interaction design as a design approach, from purely digital and electronic technologies, and to allow it to continue to mutate and evolve in relation to design challenges created by a whole range of other technologies like bio- and nanotech as well as new social and cultural developments.

Our intention is to broaden the technological focus of the department so that new design contexts, methods and roles can begin to emerge, and possibly, even provide new perspectives on how we design interfaces for digital technologies.

To work in such and open space can be quite challenging and students need to have a very strong sense of self, but we think that ultimately, this will prepare designers for working at the cutting edge of a very fluid and exciting area of design.

Your students work closely with people outside the College, some of them are scientists. Or do these scientists see this "intrusion" of designers into their own sphere of research?

This is something we are still evolving. The scientists we have met so far are all dedicated to engaging with people outside science and have been very enthusiastic about student work. I’m sure there are scientists who would see us as intruders, but I doubt we will meet them very often, I think we are moving in different circles and networks.

Which (work) future do you see for students who want to fully engage in "design for debate"?

Often, when I give a lecture and show work from the design for debate projects, designers find it a bit too weird and extreme or try to label it as art rather than design (to defuse it), but always, there are people in the audience who come up afterwards to talk about commercial possibilities and see it simply for what it is, a way of getting a discussion going about the impact technology might have on everyday life by imagining positive and negative future scenarios.

The Design for Debate project is only one of 6 we run in first year each exploring different design approaches, roles and contexts but it produces some of the most striking results. I think for most students it’s an interesting learning experience, but I'm not sure how many of them plan on taking this approach further when they graduate. For those who do, I think there are several possible directions. The most natural is the exhibition route, showing in various venues and crossing between art and design worlds. But other possibilities are emerging.

Last summer, two of our students did internships in the Department of Trade and Industry's Foresight Group working with scientists and civil servants on a project about obesity. The students enjoyed it and the DTI wants more this year. So there also seems to be a place in organisations, government or otherwise, for this kind of design. Companies like Philips are very interesting, they have a small group looking at the cross over between biological and electronic systems in relation to new products and interfaces, and I could see possibilities there which I guess are more research orientated. They do projects called probes which are intended to provoke and open up new possibilities, design for debate projects would prepare students well for this role. And then there are all the yet to be discovered possibilities.

ARK-INC installation at the 2006 RCA Summer Show

Last year, at the RCA Summer show, one of your students presented a project that i liked a lot, it was called Ark Inc. Jon Ardern looked at our ineffectual attempts to live a truly sustainable life. His project suggested that we adapt our life style to life "after the crash", to the time when our actions have exhausted the resources of the Earth upon which we depend. Can you comment on this particular project?

Only that I really like it. I think it's very interesting to design organisations as well as systems and services and Jon worked hard to avoid the usual forms of 'evidence' these projects can generate. One thing we struggle with is how to communicate work like this in a show with 200 other designers. Having said that, you found it and enjoyed and I know many others who did too, but it would be good to reach a wider audience with work like Jon’s. We have two students this year building on Jon's approach one is looking at "11 solutions to an impending apocalypse", and the other is designing communication and other systems for a group of extreme eco-guerillas that places the survival of the planet above all else.

What are you working on now?

Well the new course is taking up a lot of my time, but besides that we are working on a few new things. We did a small project for an exhibition at the Science Museum about spying which we enjoyed working on, Noam Toran, Troika, and Onkar Kular did some work for it too.

We're working on a collection of electronic prototype products with Michael Anastassiades that extends the Fragile Personalities project into the electronic realm for an exhibition in October, and we've just finished some work for an exhibition at z33 in Hasselt, called Designing Critical Design that’s just opened. We are showing with two designers whose work we really like, Marti Guixe and Jurgen Bey. It consists mainly of existing work but the curators have commissioned some new work as well which I will say a little about as we really enjoyed doing it.

After a trip to Tokyo in November we became very interested in Robots and developed some conceptual products for the show, as well as a video with Noam Toran and some sounds with Scanner.

All the robots (Image by Per Tingleff)

Robots are destined to play a more significant part in our daily lives over the coming years. But how will we interact with them? What kind of new interdependencies and relationships might emerge? The objects we developed are meant to spark a discussion about how we’d like our robots to relate to us: subservient, intimate, dependent, equal? We presented 4 ideas.

Robot 1: This one is very independent. It lives in its own world getting on with its work. We don’t really need to know what it does as long as it does it well. It could be running the computers that manage our home. It has one quirk; it needs to avoid strong electromagnetic fields as these might cause it to malfunction. Every time a TV or radio is switched on, or a mobile phone is activated it moves itself to the electromagnetically quietest part of the room. As it is ring shaped, the owner could, if they liked, place their chair in its centre, or stand there and enjoy the fact that this is a good space to be in.

Robot 2: In the future products/robots might not be designed for specific tasks or jobs. Instead they might be given jobs based on behaviours and qualities that emerge over time. This robot is very nervous, so nervous in fact, that as soon as someone enters a room it turns to face them and analyses them with its many eyes. If the person approaches too close it becomes extremely agitated and even hysterical. Home security might be a good use of this robot’s neurosis.


Robot 3 and Robot 4

Robot 3: More and more of our data, even our most personal and secret information, will be stored on digital databases. How do we ensure that only we can access it? This robot is a sentinel, it uses retinal scanning technology to decide who accesses our data. In films iris scanning is always based on a quick glance. This robot demands that you stare into its eyes for a long time, it needs to be sure it is you.

Robot 4: This one is very needy. Although extremely smart it is trapped in an underdeveloped body and depends on its owner to move it about. Originally, manufacturers would have made robots speak human languages, but over time they will evolve their own language. You can still hear human traces in its voice.

During this project we also became very interested in microbial fuel cells that use bacteria to break down ‘food’ such as slugs, meat, rotten apples and flies. In the future, some robots will have stomachs. How will the way we interact with them be affected when we have to feed them rather than recharge them?

And finally, I think our big interest right now is exploring how a critical design approach can be applied to future scenarios and emerging technologies in relation to public engagement and debate, this work is more theoretical and ongoing, and hopefully, will eventually result in a new book.

Many thanks for your time, Tony!

You're welcome, and thank you for your questions.

Images from the websites of Raby & Dunne, Design Interactions, Jon Ardern, pictures of the robots by Per Tingleff.

Look out for their books:
Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects by Fiona Raby and Anthony Dunne (UK - USA)

And the recent re-edition of Anthony Dunne's Hertzian Tales - Electronic Products, Aesthetic Experience, and Critical Design.

This year, Turbulence is celebrating its 10-year anniversary. Over the decade, the New York-based organization has commissioned over 110 pieces ($450,000) and exhibited and promoted artists' work through its Artists Studios, Guest Curator, and Spotlight sections. As networking technologies have developed wireless capabilities and become mobile, Turbulence has done a fantastic job by commissioning, exhibiting, and archiving the new hybrid networked art forms that have emerged.

I came to discover Turbulence through their blog networked_performance run mostly by Jo-Anne Green (her bio). As everyone who's involved at some point in new media art follows the blog religiously, i asked her to tell me more about the Turbulence organization, how it works, commissions, and, well... how it is financed.

Turbulence is 10 years old. How did it start? With what objectives?

Helen Thorington, founder of Turbulence, came to the net via radio. She was the founder and executive producer of New American Radio (NAR), a series of over 300 experimental sound and radio art works commissioned over an 11-year period (1987-1998). Although some of its programs where aired in Europe and Australia, NAR was primarily dependent on the American public radio system for distribution. Within months of receiving a major grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the series was subjected to a focus group, where its unfamiliarity proved detrimental. Labeled “minority� programming and criticized in advance for its inability to draw a large audience, it was aired by only a small number of public radio stations. While it remained on air for over ten years, and was loved and respected by stations committed to arts programming, the pressure placed on public stations to increase their audiences eventually lead to a decrease in air time for all arts programming and the suppression of the programming it was intended to support--“programs of high quality, diversity, creativity, excellence and innovation,� not feasible in a commercial system.

The Internet promised a free, open, and participatory distribution mechanism. In 1996 Helen began making NAR available to audiences world-wide via http://somewhere.org. During the process, she and her colleague Harris Skibell began exploring the creative possibilities of the net and Turbulence was born. The continuity of Helen’s sound/radio interests is evident in many of the early works and continues to this day.

ASCII BUSH

Do you feel that the public is more open to the kind of art work Turbulence is supporting than it was 10 years ago? How about the art market? How do you see the situation evolving over time?

It’s difficult to grasp who exactly Turbulence’s “public� is. Our public is dispersed across the globe and ranges from geeks to activists, music aficionados, literary enthusiasts, mathematicians, and painters. Some come to Turbulence via slashdot and digg, others from the Whitney Museum of American Art or other net art portals like Netbehaviour, New Media Fix, Neural, Noema and Rhizome. They are in Brazil, Iceland, Korea and South Africa. While mainstream art world demographics can be similarly diverse, museum and gallery audiences tend to (have to) have some knowledge of art. This has presented a problem for many “ivory tower� institutions—the Guggenheim in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. It’s evident in the motorcycle and fashion shows they produced to bring non-art audiences into their buildings (for which they have been heavily criticized by the art world). Ironically, these types of shows raise the question “is it art?�, a question very familiar to net artists.

There’s a very broad spectrum of art on the net, ranging from easily accessible works to others in the “insider,� “art for art’s sake� vein, and still others that are very technically challenging. While net art is still marginalized as far as the art world is concerned, it’s actually quite accepted by internet savvy audiences. Art history and appreciation are not a pre-requisite for meaningful experiences. In fact, many net artists themselves do not have arts backgrounds. Rather, their skills are grounded in computer hardware and code and they’re often unaware of the contiguous, art historical precedents their work references. This is not necessarily disadvantageous. There’s something to be said for traveling light.

I see “the public� and “the art market� as different entities that occasionally converge. When you consider the mainstream art market and the relatively narrow public it serves, juxtaposed with the promise of the Internet—bottom-up, participatory, low cost distribution mechanism—net art is accessible to a far wider audience. Yet, many feel that without the legitimacy afforded by traditional art world establishments—museums, galleries, collections—net art cannot survive. As things stand, I don’t see how these two worlds can ever merge. The art world still wants art stars and still needs physical objects that can be bought and sold. Who would want to invest in an art work that cannot be preserved, or that has no original and possibly infinite copies? A lot of networked art is about experiences not things. It is unpredictable, in flux, open to input, and dependent on its users. It will always need its own funding mechanism—grants, residencies, live events. Why even attempt to fit a square peg into a round hole?

Knitoscope Testimonies

I'm sometimes told that art organizations have it easy in Europe. I don't know how much it's true. How do you finance your activities, commissions and the people who work for Turbulence?

We also have that sense, though it’s a particularly bad time in the United States. Beginning with Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, the rising neo-conservative wave that has carried the US into its current era of pre-emptive war and imposed “democracy� has hampered creativity and innovation at home. Like the CPB, the National Endowment for the Arts has been held hostage by conservative ideology and fear of the unpredictable. Conservatives are also responsible for greatly diminished regional social and education programs and that, coupled with cost of waging war, has resulted in drastic reductions in support for people in positions like ours. We’re a tiny organization. It’s just Helen and I, and our very part-time system administrator, Jesse Gilbert. So, we’re struggling and have been for several years. We don’t know whether we’ll be around from one year to the next. That’s not to say we do not get support from the NEA and many other foundations. It’s just that when the NEA stopped funding individual artists in the early 90’s, it fell upon organizations like ours to fill that void. We spend a lot of time writing grant proposals but, when they succeed, most of the money goes towards our programs. This is, indeed, part of our mission: to support emerging and established artists. But, there’s an expectation that we can do this without putting bread on our own table and having basic tools like computers and software.

html_butoh

Can you tell us a few words about the latest works you commissioned? Which criteria guided the selection?

Turbulence’s strength is the diversity of its commissioned works. Helen’s background is in literature and sound. Mine is in the visual arts (I was a printmaker, then a painter and book artist). We both have a deep connection to dance; Helen has composed for it and I grew up watching it. And we care deeply about human rights and political activism. This definitely influences our choices, but there are other criteria we look for as well. How effectively does the work make use of networked and database technologies? How open is it to user participation? What type of experience will the user have? That said, we are not solely responsible for choosing the works we commission; we often have juried competitions. For instance, the juried international competition currently underway -Mixed Realities— has five jurors. This is the second competition we’ve run where the commissioned works are exhibited in both physical and virtual space. Rather than looking for work for the Internet we’re asking practitioners to consider how a piece might function in various spaces, and to make the piece with those parameters in mind. Mixed Realities calls for projects that can be exhibited in three discrete spaces: Turbulence (an Internet gallery), Ars Virtua (a Second Life gallery), and Art Interactive (a physical gallery).

Recent examples of commissioned work include Cell Tagging by Brooke A. Knight which employs the cell phone as a digital graffiti tool for marking and remembering personal space (image on the right); html_butoh by Ursula Endlicher, an open database of user-performed HTML code; and Gothamberg by Martin Wattenberg and Marek Walczak which weaves a web of connections—passageways, hallways, stairways--between contributors through their personal stories about living in an apartment.

Let's talk about one of Turbulence most visible projects: the networked_performance blog. It started with the aim to uncover commonalities in network-enabled works. That was nearly 3 years ago. Did see some commonalities emerge? If yes, which ones?

I think the strongest connection between much of the work is how much the roles of “artist� and “audience� have shifted. Because so many networked pieces rely on the people formerly known as the audience to “complete� them, there’s a level of performativity—or user action—required, whether users are playing mixed reality games, or adding their stories to a database of hundreds of others’ stories. There’s a level of physical engagement—from the miniscule click of a mouse, to drawing and typing, to the choreography of full-bodied movement—that has turned the paradigm of solitary digital immersion and disconnection on its head. In fact, networked art experiences can be far more connected and “real� than traditional art ‘experiences’. Sure, paintings elicit visceral and deeply emotional responses, and to some extent allow the viewer to complete them. But those experiences are often intensely private and self-contained. Watching participants draw together in public or jump up and down to effect an installation, you cannot help but be aware of how categorically social networked art can be and just how strong the desire to connect with other people is. People want to feel like they’re making a difference and that there’s a role for them to play. Digital networks are making this possible.

Gothamberg

Are there art projects from the past that keep having an influence on today's art projects? How do you explain their lasting influence?

One can definitely trace much of today’s practice to Marcel Duchamp/Dada, John Cage, Alan Kaprow/Happenings, Fluxus, and the Situationists (and many more). The shift from passive audience to engaged participant, non-linearity, chance and randomness and the question “what is art?� all derive from these artists and movements. Ironically, these user-centric precedents—you, afterall, can be an “artist� too—have historically alienated traditional art audiences. For centuries, the western artist was elevated above society (Martha Woodmansee’s 1994 study, The Author, Art, and the Market: Rereading the History of Aesthetics, provides a detailed analysis of how changing market conditions in the eighteenth century facilitated the development of a romantic view of authorship), perceived as the solitary genius whose objects are eventually valued beyond almost anything else in western culture (from an investment standpoint). After many years, the sudden shift to urinal–as-art was an enormous affront to the public. Even though the every day is far more accessible and inclusive than the rare, extraordinary gifts of the few, the public quickly became more comfortable with “experts� telling them what is and is not art. There are strong human tendencies toward the dissolution of the boundary between art and life, but art institutions are clinging to their privileged place in our culture. Networked technologies are revolutionizing society. It’s impossible to predict where they will take us, but clearly, our way of life is going to radically change. Hopefully, the art world will change too.

What's the biggest challenge that the Turbulence organization has to face these days?

Making a living so we can keep on keeping on.

Do you think that the future of network-enabled art is bright? Will it merge one day with the "traditional art" world?

The future is very bright as long as the Internet does not wind up in the hands of corporations and/or micromanaged by governments. Net art’s greatest asset is that almost anyone (with access to a computer and the Internet) can create experiences and share them with the public. Turbulence may not last, but there will always be other Internet portals.

Thanks Jo-Anne!

Last image of the interview is Allan Kaprow, "18 Happenings in 6 Parts", 1959.

Alejandro Tamayo is an artist-engineer and a teacher working in the intersections of design, art and new technologies in a country that is often seen as the land of wild cartels, coffee, futbol, the terribly boring Fernando Botero (i'm quoting you here, Alejandro!): Colombia. I discovered his work by chance. He had emailed me to say that he wished i'd cover more of the Latin American art scene. That's something i'd love to do but i wouldn't know where to look for information about what's going on up there (although i read Spanish). Then i realized that the best way to start was to ask a few questions to Alejandro about the lab he's currently directing in Bogota.

The v*i*d*a lab, part of the Aesthetics Department at the Javeriana University, is focusing on the development of new design products and ideas. Guided by a reflexion on life itself, the course proposes to engage with organic (biological) and "post-organic" (electronic, digital) visions, trying to identify new relationships and interrogations that could be translated into the realization of concrete projects.

I had a look at their website and blogs (old one, new one) and found their work amazingly good.

Just a few v*i*d*a lab projects i discovered and liked:

Prótesis para árboles en peligro (Prosthesis for endangered trees) takes into account a worrying fact: Bogotá is ranked among the most polluted (article in Spanish) cities in the word. This pollution is affecting not only its population of about 7 million people but also threatening the life span of the city's tiny percentage of trees (0.25 trees/habitant, same as Brooklin!), especially those located along congested avenues.

Prótesis para árboles en peligro, by students Juan Mojica, Alberto Sánchez, is a project that calls the attention of city dwellers by confronting them with a tree that waters and shakes itself in a desperate effort to get rid of the pollution that falls into its leaves (video 1 and 2).

The system uses a 12v battery and a timing circuit that controls the two mentioned actions: the shaking of branches and the watering of the leaves. "For making the branches to shake themselves we hacked a second hand Xbox control and extracted its DC Motor with the excentric mass that creates the vibration," explains Alejandro Tamayo. "For making the tree to water its leaves we used a 12 volts fish tank pump and a couple bottles of water."


Prototype and prosthesis circuit

As part of the first Dorkbot Bogotá a working prototype was installed for a whole day in a tree located on Carrera Séptima, one of the most congested avenues of the city. The project is seeking support from the city in order to be fully implemented.

Other favorite projects:

Kit experimental de cocina (Experimental kit for Kitchen), by students: Adriana Cabrera, Iván Salazar, explores the questions: Can we hear the death of our meal while we prepare it? Can our kitchen ustensils obtain energy from them?

The kit is composed of a “sensitive� knife that screams (video) when cutting vegetables, fruits and other food; a set of containers each one with copper and zinc electrodes that can be plugged together to generate energy from different fruit juices; LEDS with different colors that can be easily connected to test the amount of energy obtained and a handbook with proposed experiments.

The Ducha para cantantes (Shower for singers), created by students Adriana Garcés and Jose Avila, is an interactive shower that reacts to tonal levels and voice frequencies. The louder you sing (up to a point) and the longer you do it, the more water you receive. When you stop singing for a while (this lapse of time can be selected by the user) the shower closes itself completely.

It is perfect for taking a shower with your love one and to start singing together under the water. The kit comes with a curtain that allows you to paste your favorites songs.

Tamayo directed another course called Innovación Tecnológica y Cultura at Javeriana University. A blog with the students projects will soon be online. One of the proposed designs is the blender helmet that explores the possibility to have a kitchen but no electricity. "The idea is that without electric ustensils -and without the restriction of being plugged into the wall- we can develop alternative new relations and activities while preparing our meals, for example dancing," Tamayo says. "While we dance we can be mixing our cocktails and drinks."

For the record, Alejandro Tamayo is now also teaching a new course, Digital Media. MD belongs to the Faculty of Fine Arts at another university, the Jorge Tadeo University.

But let's get back to V*I*D*A lab:

How did you come to create the V*I*D*A workshops and courses?

It all started about two and a half years ago when I was asked by the Aesthetics Department from Javeriana University to propose a new digital curriculum for design students. Back then I proposed a one and a half year program composed of three modules, having V*I*D*A at the end. Now each program is independent and none is a prerequisite to the other. The Beta version of V*I*D*A began in June 2005, and the corrected version in January 2006, however, it is an on-going process and I expect that we won't ever have a final version.

I move by intuition, and I don’t know exactly where I’m driving the ship, but i try to maintain the general direction of the course: V*I*D*A emphasizes experimentation and reflection with physical and ubiquitous computing rather screen based works, while encouraging a critical, poetical and playful approach to technology.

Who are your students? What is their background? Do they have to be geeks and experts in electronics hacking to apply?

V*I*D*A is open in the 7th semester. Design students (and any other students from related disciplines who desire to choose it as an elective) can enter the program without having an idea of electronics or computing programming. From the first day we start playing with breadboards, sensors and electronic components, at the end of the 6 months program all students have acquired the basics to confidently build simple circuits and even to use and program a microcontroller.

VIDA belongs to the department of aesthetics. Does it mean that there is some pressure to create some "beautifully designed" projects? Or do you think that a good design is part of the VIDA projects anyway?

I think the Department is more concerned with the philosophical aspects of the projects, the motivations behind them, and the questions they raise.

Your workshop on visible/invisible was, just like any of your courses, extremely playful. However there was also a critical approach to the subject (hidden, toxic electromagnetic fields and their impact on the human body for example). How optimistic are you about technology?

I’m rather optimistic in the short term, but quite suspicious in the long term, especially when I remember that our most common technologies, including the Internet, have been the result of military purposes.

We began our past program of V*I*D*A with two questions: the first one
What is life? (the usual question we pose at the beginning, and also at the end of the program) and the second one How to survive a nuclear disaster? This former question motivated students to reflect critically about technology and also inspired them to start developing ideas for possible contra-technologies.

And where are its dark sides?

Carl Sagan suggested that technological civilizations tended to destroy themselves rather quickly, and that perhaps, it has been in fact the case of many extraterrestrial civilizations.

Recent course on Digital Media led by Alejandro Tamayo at Jorge Tadeo University

You like to make opposite meet: living/non-living; visible/invisible, toys/kitchen appliances. VIDA in particular engages with the living and the non-living. Can you tell us a few words about these concepts? How can they meet? What does an artistic approach bring to the research on living and non-living?

These questions sprang all kinds of bolts and nuts in my head. Here is my attempt for the least messy answers:

With the advances of science and technology, our traditional definitions and concepts are being put into question. What is life? What it means to be human? What it means for a machine to be alive? And eventually, where does the natural end and where does the artificial start? I like to confront students with these questions; and by the exploration of opposites (living/non-living for example) I encourage them to question the solidity of limits. Limits are fuzzy and intriguing, i think they offer a lot of opportunities from a design/artistic perspective.

In particular we are concerned with the shaping of everyday life but we find inspiration from scientific and technological developments, which usually take place in laboratories and specialized centers way detached from everyday life and not concerned with their cultural implications. In a certain way, VIDA is at the union of opposites and therefore encourages the blurring of solid categories and limits.

How can these opposite aspects meet?

From oriental religious philosophies like Hinduism, Taoism or Budhism we have learned that everything is in constant transformation, opposites meet eventually because they are complementary. Remember for example the Chinese symbol of Yin and Yang that represents the “two primal opposing but complementary forces found in all things in the universe�, part of yin is in yang and vice versa. Also, from Hindu mythology, the cosmic dance of Shiva represents the rhythmic process of life and death, the union of opposites.

Eventually everything is connected.

Abstract Picture

What does an artistic approach bring to the research on living and non-living (in comparison with scientific research)?

This is also a very good question. I believe artists can bring new research processes that are highly subjective and not constrained by predefined scientific goals. But also a critical distance, humor, and in general a cultural perspective that is essential in helping to close the gap between new scientific discoveries and technologies and the everyday life.

In one of the emails we exchanged you told me that the Columbian art scene has more to offer than Botero. Could you name us some Colombian artists who deserve to receive more attention from us?

I find the works of Maria Fernanda Cardozo (who lives in Australia), Elias Heim, José Alejandro Restrepo and Oscar Muñoz, to site just a few, particularly critical and inspiring, but there is also a growing number of younger artists doing very interesting things. In the conflux of art/design and digital technologies I’d rather site a few events and festivals that can give you a wider picture: Festival Internacional de la imagen in Manizales, El día del Robot (a few words about it), Bogotrax and the coming Pixalazo and Selvatorium in June.

Something a bit unrelated before i forget. Who designed your websites? They are really beautiful.

Ha ha, Thank you! I do all the design work and most of the photographs.

Muchisimas gracias Alejandro.