Speakers and Events
Game design, play and sustainability; Aukje Thomassen & Erik Champion
Aukje Thomassen:
Play - as a means for social innovation through design actualization. Design is often the generator for newer means such as exploration, transformation and actualization. We can also see that design provides governance through actualization by opening-up existing networks and transforming them into new structures.
The last years such an empowerment has come through serious games and virtual worlds (Second Life) as well as communication tools (such as chat, wiki, text, youtube). Access and usage of these new tools driven by design have increased profound changes in how content and context are processed by society in their non-linear manner. Combined with Play design is taking the lead in social innovation and sustainability. This presentation will show some examples and will discuss these transitions.
Dr Aukje Thomassen is a Associate Professor and Research Director at Massey university’s Institute of Communication Design in Wellington. Her research focuses on Social Innovation through Design Research with an emphasis on enabling knowledge creation (in particular for Interaction Design/Game Design) within a theoretical framework of Cybernetics.
She also supervises Master and PhD candidates in these areas. Before moving to the Southern Hemisphere she was appointed to direct the PSAU (Professional School of the Arts), a collaborative institute with the University of Utrecht commissioned with external design research projects and leading their Research-Master program on Creative Development. This work extended towards being a direct research advisor for the Dutch Prime Minister on the Creative industries. Within Europe she has set up and run the Interaction Design consortium which resulted in an EU-funded Interaction Design summer course annually held in Istanbul.
Erik Champion:
Erik Champion is an Associate Professor and Director of Research and Postgraduate Studies at the Auckland School of Design, Massey University. His most recent supervising and research involved Mac OS-based game design, intermedia/hybrid tactile panorama tables, biofeedback for immersive gameplay, evaluation critique of Virtual Heritage, thematic interfaces, history-based game environments, and warping for projection onto 3D surfaces.
He is a Fulbright scholar, and has won Swedish Institute, Apple WWDC and Australian Research Council scholarships, national and institutional grants, best paper awards, and has been invited to speak in Australia, the United States, Spain, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan.
A member of ICOMOS ICIP, he is also on the editorial boards of Journal of Virtual Reality and Broadcasting, Games & Culture: A Journal of Interactive Media, Gaming and Virtual Worlds, International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations (Book Review Co-editor), and Loading. He has or is editing or co-editing special issues of Techné, International Journal of Heritage Studies, Leonardo and the International Journal of Architectural Computing.
Photo credit: Erik Champion.
Type Talk: Stephen Banham (AUS)
Once upon a Times: Typographic Storytelling Stripped to its core, graphic design is the telling of stories.
Through a series of typographic design projects and research, this idea will be playfully explored. Stephen Banham is founder of Letterbox, a typographic studio based in Melbourne, Australia. Rather than writing about how to kern Clarendon Bold at 144 point, Banham’s typographic explorations centre on the social and cultural significance of letterforms.
His 15 publications on typography include the Qwerty series (1991-96), the Ampersand series (1997-2003), Fancy (2004) and the Oblique series (2008–). In 2005 he began a very successful public forum series on typography known as Character. In 2007 Character hosted the Australian premiere screening of “Helvetica”, bringing its director from New York. For the fifth Character (2009) Banham produced the comprehensively researched project Characters and Spaces in partnership with the State of Design Festival. Banham’s design work and writings have appeared in countless international type publications. He has spoken at international design events from Barcelona to Beirut, Qatar to Singapore, New Zealand to New York.
A lecturer in typography since 1991, Banham holds a Masters in Design Research. Banham’s compelling storytelling and energetic stage performance will kick off the Type Talk of this festival.
Type Talk: Sarah Maxey
Sarah Maxey has a degree majoring in textile design, and has worked as a bookseller and graphic designer. She was Design Manager at Bloomsbury Publishing in the UK in the mid-nineties before returning to New Zealand to establish her own studio, Sarah Maxey Design, providing thoughtful design and print solutions for the publishing industry and arts-related projects. She is most known for her award-winning work on literary book covers, often using her own illustration and hand-lettering.
Lately Sarah has been focussing on personal hand-lettering projects, and is represented in Wellington by Bowen Galleries, where she has had two solo shows. She has also exhibited at Lopdell House Gallery in Auckland and in a show of New Zealand book design at Objectspace, curated by Jonty Valentine of The National Grid. In Wellington Sarah has been commissioned by the City Gallery to contribute work to a lightbox installation on Courtenay Place. She is also a Director in Nice Work, a small publishing company producing fine stationery.
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Designing for our Future Selves: Holly McQuillan & Jennifer Whitty
Holly McQuillan: Zero Waste
There is an inherent conflict between the notion of sustainability and the current model of fashion consumption: how can design be truly 'sustainable' when it is developed within a system concerned with propagating the ‘Next New Thing’?
Within the fashion industry significant resources and energy are invested to manufacture cloth and clothing yet these have become readily disposable commodities with little value. On average 15 – 20% of cloth needed to produce a garment is unused and the useless remnants are destined for the incinerator, landfill or occasionally used as mattress filler.
The entrenched traditions of the fashion industry, which separate the stages of garment design and production into hierarchies, means the designer is not accountable for the waste they create. This system fails to acknowledge that textiles are a finished product with energy invested into their design and manufacture.
Holly's research on zero-waste design processes redresses this systemic failure. All parts of the cloth that are conventionally removed are incorporated back into the garment as a means of asserting a more sustainable design process.
Holly McQuillan is a lecturer in the fashion design programme at Massey University’s College of Creative Arts in Wellington. Her research focuses on sustainable design practice within a contemporary material culture framework. Since completing her Masters of Design, which explored the presentation of cultural memory through garment design, her work has focused on exploring the possibilities that arise when garment design is restrained by one goal – zero-waste.
She has presented at the International Foundation of Fashion Technology Institute’s annual conference and her work is soon to be exhibited in Wellington. Upcoming projects include a collaborative project with an industrial designer to explore the potential of her pattern cutting for furniture design and a contribution to a book on Eco Fashion.
Jennifer Whitty: Fashioning Change
Fashion plays a unique and valuable role at the heart of our culture, connecting with our emotional needs, asserting our identity and desires. However the business of producing, selling, wearing and disposing of clothing is amongst the most environmentally damaging.
The fashion industry’s lack of attention to ethical and environmental issues is both socially and ecologically undermining. The statistics show that 80% of the social, environmental and cultural impact of a fashion product is determined at the development stage. Fashion, on the whole has become disconnected from the people involved in its chain of production. It appears in so doing has lost sight of the joy of making through engaging with those involved in the process.
To work sustainably is to be considerate of the processes of the structure within which you work. Sustainability is not solely about reducing negative impact, but is also about increasing positive impact, allowing individuals, communities and systems to thrive. This presentation will show ways in which I have in my own work used fashion as a positive force for change towards finding solutions that balance ecology, society and culture.
Jennifer Whitty is a Senior Lecturer at Massey University, Wellington. She holds an M.A in Fashion Menswear Design from the Royal College of Art, London. Hailing from Dublin, Ireland Jennifer has broad experience in fashion, having worked globally across various levels of the industry. Notable experience includes periods in the fashion centres of London, Paris and New York working for high-end designers Sharon Wauchob, John Rocha, and D.K.N.Y Prior to her appointment in N.Z, Jennifer lectured at Limerick School of Art and Design, Ireland, Denmark’s DesignSkole, Copenhagen, and The Estonian Academy of Art, Tallinn. She has exhibited her work in Ireland, Italy, U.K, Greece, Japan and N.Z.
Jason Munn (USA): Small Stakes, Revisiting the rock poster
Munn’s work exudes a Zen-like serenity, a love of negative space and an almost religious reverence for typeface. Scott Timberg - Los Angeles Times Jason Munn started his career with a love of independent music and design. After studying fine arts at the University of Wisconsin, Menasha, and earning an Associates Degree in Applied Arts from Madison Area Technical College in Madison, Munn packed his bags and moved out west in time to catch the full blast of the dotcom crash. As a result he began designing posters for gigs at a now defunct venue in Berkeley, California, called the Ramp.
By working free of charge and selling the leftover prints he was able to recoup his costs and as the small local bands that played there gathered acclaim, so to did his posters. In 2003 he founded his studio, The Small Stakes, in Oakland, California, where he produces designs for a range of products, including book covers, album packaging, T-shirts, and custom gig posters. BLOW 09 is privileged to present the man behind the posters. Join Jason Munn as he discusses his thoughts on design, music and the influences that have taken him to this point.
Giep Hagoort: Real World cultural entrepreneurship
Cultural entrepreneurship can be seen as philosophy bringing together ‘discovery’ and ‘exploitation’ within the creative processes. Two freedoms are fundamental to cultural entrepreneurship: artistic freedom and entrepreneurial freedom.
Giep’s engaging talk will explore how artists, designers and other creative professionals are dealing with dilemmas related to the interplay of these two freedoms. He concludes that economic growth, development of creative firms, strategic management and artistic leadership are important priorities in the new creative economy.
Giep Hagoort is professor of Art and Economics at the Utrecht University and the Utrecht School of the Arts. His book Art Management Entrepreneurial Style has been translated in several languages. He is currently leading a EU research project on the entrepreneurial dimension of the cultural and creative industries.
www.hku.nl www.asom.org
Jan van Mol: Turning Open Source Creativity Into Bottom Line Value
How can global brands and social organisations harness the power of open source creativity to create value in troubled times?
Jan van Mol, founder of Addictlab, presents valuable insights from providing innovation consultancy to some of the world’s leading brands and social marketers. Using case studies from his work with clients as diverse as Lancome, Nike, Diesel, BMW, The City of Rotterdam and the Brussels and Flemish governments, Jan will discuss the ways that transparency, intellectual property and ethical considerations can be managed within the open source creative process.
Addictlab is a creative laboratory uniting thousands of creatives from all over the world and over 30 disciplines (amongst others: fashion, photography, architecture, cooking, design, materials, music, advertising and branding). Jan Van Mol was recently selected by I.D. magazine New York as one of the top 40 undersung heroes influencing the creative industry.
www.addictlab.com
Paul Carter (AUS): Creating Place
Internationally acclaimed writer and artist Paul Carter will discuss the implications, both institutional and methodological, for new ways of thinking about and producing places.
Carter relocates creativity at the heart of debates about sustainability. Creative research involves 'material thinking' - thinking that is situated, opportunistic and evolutionary. As institutions cannot accommodate these attributes, creative research is best conducted outside the academy. The Melbourne-based Centre for Creative Place Research (CPR), currently being established to mediate partnerships between 'end users' and 'research producers', seeks to reinstate creativity's role in placemaking.
This model recognises the creative potential of places to (re-)create themselves beyond the bounds of prescriptive planning discourses, and in the face of change. Places are both biological communities and mythopoetic constructs; change correlates to both bio-systemic realities and human destinies. Creative research documents phenomena that fall between the physical and psychological domains.
Carter's latest book Dark Writing (2008) discusses techniques for applying these phenomena in the field of placemaking. Carter’s lecture will be of interest to all those who are considering the problematic nature of creative research within institutions.
Prof. Paul Gough (UK): Research through practice
Pro Vice-Chancellor Professor Sally Morgan of Massey University’s College of Creative Arts is pleased to introduce Proessor Paul Gough, the United Kingdom’s leading authority on art and design research assessment.
His lecture is an opportunity for the art and design research community in New Zealand to hear a succinct and authoritative overview of research through practice in the context of research assessment.
Paul Gough is a painter, broadcaster and writer and has recently become the Pro Vice-Chancellor Research, Enterprise and Knowledge Exchange, at the University of the West of England, after 12 years as their Executive Dean of Creative Arts. Paul was the Chair of the Art and Design Panel in the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2008, the UK’s equivalent to New Zealand’s Performance Based Research Fund (PBRF).
His recent research covers the aesthetics of conflict, landscapes of dereliction, and the iconography of commemoration. Paul’s large-scale history paintings, with a strong military theme, are in many private and public collections, including the Imperial War Museum, London and Canadian War Museum, Ottawa. He has shown widely in UK and abroad, and has had one-man shows in Canada, London, Manchester, Lancaster and Bristol.
Peter Turner Memorial Lecture: Prof Anne Marsh - the photographic medium in a post-medium age
Rosalind Krauss has termed the current era the ‘the post-medium age’ in which “the aesthetic option of the medium has been declared outmoded, cashiered, washed-up, finished”. Krauss is concerned that ‘post-medium’ art is blurring the boundaries between disciplines too much. She argues that photography plays a major role in postmodernism because it “restructures the conditions of the other arts”,1 however, she laments the loss of the aesthetic medium.
How has this post-medium condition come to now threaten or destabilize the arts? What is it that makes art historians so concerned? Hal Foster is worried about how design and fashion have infiltrated the arts. Krauss sees trouble in the arena of the medium itself. At face value these comments appear reactive and conservative. Surely inter-disciplinary experiments are the backbone of research in our times.
Writing about Krauss and Foster’s recent work, George Baker argues that: “their breaking of a postmodernist and interdisciplinary taboo has let loose a series of much more conservative appeals to medium-specificity, a return to traditional artistic objects and practices and discourses that we must resist.”2
Drawing on research for her recent book LOOK! Contemporary Australian Photography, Anne Marsh will explore some of the issues that concern photography in the 21st Century. She will address critiques of the post medium condition and explore the influence of digital technologies and photo-installation through the works of several Australian art photographers who engage with the medium of photography in various ways.
2 George Baker, ‘Photography’s Expanded Field’, October, no.114, Fall 2005, p. 138.
Dr Anne Marsh is Professor of Theory and Associate Dean of Research in the Faculty of Art & Design, Monash University. Her latest book LOOK! Contemporary Australian Photography will be launched late 2009. She is author of Pat Brassington: This is Not a Photograph (2006), The Darkroom: Photography and the Theatre of Desire (2003) and Body and Self: Performance Art in Australian, 1969-1992 (1993). Anne’s research has been generously funded by the Australia Council Research (2005, 2009, 2009), and the Australia Council (2008).