Metamedia at Stanford
"Metamedia ia a studio and lab that pursues research and pedagogy in design history and media materialities.
It is located online, in Stanford Archaeology Center, and has worldwide affiliates.
Metamedia combines archaeology and media, with an archaeological and long-term focus on how people get on with things, with media(works) treated as modes of engagement between people and things. Media as artifacts and prostheses as well as systems to convey meaning: we emphasize the materialities of mediation at the heart of design - the way the steel was burnished, the clay was turned, how the vessel connects makers and materials, users and contents in genealogies of containment, portage, representation ... whatever work gets done."
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Archaeology is about our relationships with what is left of the past
"Archaeology is what archaeologists do. This answer is not a tautology. It refers us to the practices of archaeology. And to the conditions under which archaeologists work - the institutions and infrastructures, the politics and pragmatics of getting archaeological work done.
Archaeologists work on what is left of the past. Archaeology is about relationships - between past and present, between archaeologist and traces and remains. Archaeology is a set of mediating practices - working on remains to translate, to turn them into something sensible - inventory, account, narrative, explanation, whatever.
Archaeology is a way of acting and thinking - about what is left of the past, about the temporality of remainder, about material and temporal processes to which people and their goods are subject, about the processes of order and entropy, of making, consuming and discarding at the heart of human experience.
'Archaeological Sensibility' and 'Archaeological Imagination' are terms to summarize components of these mediating and transformative practices. Sensibility refers us to the perceptual components of how we engage with the remains of the past. Imagination refers us to the creative component - to the transforming work that is done on what is left over."
(Michael Shanks)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Material Synthesis: Negotiating experience with digital media
"Given the accessibility of media devices available to us today and utilising van Leeuwen's concept of inscription and synthesis as a guide, this thesis explores the practice of re-presenting a domestic material object, the Croxley Recipe Book, into digital media. Driven by a creative practice research method, but also utilising materiality, digital storytelling practices and modality as important conceptual frames, this project was fundamentally experimental in nature. A materiality-framed content analysis, interpreted through cultural analysis, initially unraveled some of the cookbook's significance and contextualised it within a particular time of New Zealand's cultural history. Through the expressive and anecdotal practice of digital storytelling the cookbook's significance was further negotiated, especially as the material book was engaged with through the affective and experiential digital medium of moving-image. A total of six digital film works were created on an accompanying DVD, each of which represents some of the cookbook's significance but approached through different representational strategies. The Croxley Recipe Book Archive Film and Pav. Bakin' with Mark are archival documentaries, while Pav is more expressive and aligned with the digital storytelling form. Spinning Yarns and Tall Tales, a film essay, engages and reflects with the multiple processes and trajectories of the project, while Extras and The Creative Process Journal demonstrate the emergent nature of the research. The written thesis discusses the emergent nature of the research process and justifies the conceptual underpinning of the research."
(Sasha McLaren, 2008)
McLaren, Sasha (2008). "Material Synthesis: Negotiating experience with digital media", MA thesis, The University of Waikato, Aotearoa New Zealand.
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Art and Design and Built Environment College Research Conference and Festival: Perspectives on the Material World
"Thursday, 28 June 2012, 09.00 am - 17.30 pm, Exhibition-Newton Central Gallery, Conference-Newton LT3, LT37, LT33 and LT32, Welcome 9 am - 9.30 am in Newton Central Gallery, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK.
All University staff, students and guests are invited to come along to this exciting research conference and festival. The conference has a series of parallel sessions of papers organised round research groups, as well as an exhibition.
This year's innovations will include workshop sessions on the seven candidate REF impact case studies, as well as the involvement of the Future Factory. Video art, production engineering, sustainable consumption, C18 textiles, concrete, knitting - all these and more will be the origin of papers in this year's Art and Design and Built Environment College Research Conference and Festival. This rich collection of research has a common concern to understand and shape our relationship to the material world; physically, socially and philosophically."
(Nottingham Trent University)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Transitional Cardboard Cathedral for Christchurch
"2011年2月22日に発生したM6.3のカンタベリー地震は、街のシンボル的存在であったクライストチャーチ大聖堂にも深刻な被害をもたらした。これを受け、新たな仮設のカテドラルを設計することとなった。
現地で調達可能な紙管とコンテナーを用いて三角形の断面を形成する。オリジナルの大聖堂の平面と立面のジオメトリーを受け継ぎ、同じ長さの紙管の角度を徐々に変化させている。700人収容可能で、教会としての機能の他に、多くのイベントやコンサートとしての使用も視野に入れている。
2011年7月31日に、同地にてプレス発表が行われた。2013年2月頃の完成を目指している。
The February 2011 Christchurch earthquake (magnitude 6.3) inflicted crippling damage on the Christchurch Cathedral which was the symbol of city. In response to this situation, we were asked to design new temporary cathedral.
Paper tubes of the equal length and 20 ft containers form triangular shape. Since geometry is decided by plan and elevations of the original cathedral, there is a gradual change in each angle of paper tubes. This cathedral, which has a capacity of 700 people, can be used as an event space and a concert space.
There was a media conference in Christchurch on 31st of July, 2011. We aim to open cardboard cathedral in February, 2013."
(Shigeru Ban Architects)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
