WORKSHOP: ‘Switch On, Switch Off’,
a creative workshop for people who shy away from technology
with Joëlle Bitton (FRANCE)
WHEN: Friday 01.06.2012, at 2pm – 6 pm (you can drop by at any point)
WHERE: PUBLIC SPACE “HOF 7” in Museumsquartier, Innenhof, neben Architekturzentrum Wien
Switch On Switch Off is a workshop on the basics of digital interaction in the physical world. Participants hack their bodies and their environment, turning them into the switches that activate and inactivate simple electronic circuits. A team of artists and designers guide them as they try and invent creative interactive gestures.
For beginners and pros
Switch On Switch Off is a interaction workshop for people of all ages, from all backgrounds, including absolute beginners and people who typically shy away from technologies. The main idea is to keep it simple — not simplistic. More advanced practitioners can also get a lot from the simplicity of the workshop, being able to quickly iterate and try things. The constraint of a very simple building block is in fact liberating, as you concentrate on the gestures and the scenario.
Bio
Joëlle is a new media artist, a human-computer interaction researcher and a traveller. She looks at the creative uses of technology and their potential social impact in the ‘Social Inclusion through the Digital Economy” (SiDE) research program at Culture Lab, Newcastle University. She pursued similar questions at Media Lab Europe in Dublin, between 2002 and 2005, in the research group “Human Connectedness”, with the projects “RAW” and “Passages”.
She co-founded in 2000 in Vienna an experimental collective “`Superficiel” in support of works that explore, among other things, the ideas of surface, screen, and body movement as interfaces.
In 1999, Joelle holds a postgraduate degree from the University of Sorbonne in History of Techniques. Her thesis, “Les Machines de l’Imaginaire” describes the impact of emerging technologies and networks on the 19th century European society.
She also co-organises Dorkbot Paris events.