The Centre for the Study of Invention and Social Process (CSISP), hosted by the Sociology Department at Goldsmiths, has a new blog. You can find it here.
The Centre for the Study of Invention and Social Process (CSISP), hosted by the Sociology Department at Goldsmiths, has a new blog. You can find it here.
On the 28th of June I participated in the one day conference ‘How’s my feedback?‘ organised and hosted by the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. The conference addressed the ways in which ranking and rating has become a key process of public assessment in relation to the provision of web-based product and service provision. The conference included the unveiling of the prototype web site How’s My Feedback where web users are asked to review ranking and review services. My presentation entitled ‘User Involvement in Design: Some Implications from the Field’ sought to respond to two questions formulated by the organisers: 1) What is it to involve ‘users’ in the process of evaluation and related claims about participation, engagement and democracy? And, 2) What is the currency and role of ‘design’ and ‘prototyping’ in the project?
Last Thursday I gave a keynote speech as part of the Design & The Social seminar series organised and run by Joachim Halse, Sissel Orlander, Signe Louise Yndigegn, Tau Ulv Lenskjold and Christina Lundsgaard at the The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation. The seminar I participated in focussed on productive convergences between Sociology, in particular Science and Technology Studies, and Design and also featured a keynote by Brit Winthereik, an Associate Professor in the Technologies in Practice Group, IT University Copenhagen. My speech focussed on Speculative Design as a process of engagement between issues and actors of varying kind and composition.

Mike Michael and Bill Gaver discussing the Sustainability Invention and Energy Demand Reduction project.
Goldsmiths has produced a number of Research Documentaries, providing overviews of various research initiatives currently underway at the University. Here, Mike Michael and Bill Gaver sketch out the scope of ‘Sustainability Invention and Energy Demand Reduction: Co-designing Communities & Practice‘.

Delivering 'Prototyping the Prospects of Obesity' at the Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales (CSIC), Madrid.
Here’s a link to a video of the lecture I delivered at the Prototyping Cultures: Social Experimentation, Do-It-Yourself Science and Beta-Knowledge seminar (November 4 and 5, 2010) at the Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales (CSIC) and Medialab-Prado, respectively. Here’s a link to further documentation of the seminar.
Last week I visited the Nun’s in York to take photographs of the Prayer Companion for the upcoming show ‘Talk to Me’, to be held at MoMa in New York. The Nun’s have been using the Prayer Companion for about two years now, as a resource for their intercessional prayers.
Last week I helped organise and run a three-day PhD workshop with 40 students from the Swedish Design Research community. Alongside (and with thanks to) Pelle Ehn, Sara Ilstedt Hjelm, Mats Rosengren, Maria Hellström Reimer, Peter Ullmark, and Bosse Westerlund the students were guided through a series of workshops, seminars and discussions ending with a self-directed meeting and reflection. The event included talks by Kat Jungknickel, Nina Wakeford and Michael Guggenheim, Bill Gaver and Mike Michael.
During the site visit and workshop I ran with the students I asked them to explore and interrogate the notion of ‘community’ as a way of understanding high-density collectives in the East End of London.
Liliana, a member of the Interaction Research Studio, is currently in Milan showing two projects she has been working on: rugs for the Nodus Collection (2011) and a series of DIY pots for Casa’s Garden AT Home project.
The studio is preparing a set of Probe packs to be given to volunteers as part of the Legible Landscapes project. The studio is interested in gathering non-instrumental data about the home’s microclimates and people’s understandings and practices in relation to this.
My Best Fiend. On the Productivity of Intellectual Enmities
Seminar series organised by Michael Guggenheim
Michael Guggenheim (Sociology, Goldsmiths) has organised a seminar series entitled ‘My Best Fiend. On the Productivity of Intellectual Enmities’. The seminar series is being held at Goldsmiths in room RHB 137 and includes the following speakers: Liz Moor (1. Nov), Harry Collins (8 Nov), David Oswell (6. Dec) and Steve Fuller (13 Dec).