May 1, 2007, 11:20 am

I've spent the morning jumping around the vast internet, starting somewhere on Wired, and then heading to Art Center's Open House exhibition and then from there, a multitude of other artists, designers, architects and the like. It seems to be a happy coincidence, as I'm attending the Diane Francis and Glen Murray talk tonight in Windsor. Though loosely connected, I imagine that my readings this morning will at least help my skepticism of what will be a night of some right-wing rhetoric from the National Post editor, Francis. Titled, "What is our Place in the Global Economy", the city of Windsor apparently spent $20,000 to bring these speakers in tonight. I'm not sure what that says about (my) progressive hopes for the city, when the speakers are set to speak about "the impact of national and international events on the business community" and the considerably less threatening (and even possibly exciting), "strengthening the arts, culture and the economy enhances our creativity and quality of life, creating a more attractive city and urban wealth." I suppose this is a promising step towards the city embracing more creative and progressive thinking in design and policy, but it also feels sort of like an attempt to make the community think that council is progressive... while in two months, they'll have all but forgotten about the ideas raised by this event.

The politics behind this event should prove extremely interesting.

Among the many ideas that swam past my eyes this morning were based in the concept of the extension of our nervous system. Sensors provide the interface for these extensions, whose data then mixes with other data from environmental sensors, creating constantly fluctuating and reactive environments. These environments spanned from the immediately personal to the socially integrated, yet they feel too grounded in the technology and personal human comforts. That is to say, the proposed environments, at least within the Open House exhibition, are tightly connected to technologies that could act as mediators and regulators for our place in an environment. In some of the projects, this seems to be a good thing, where the constructed environment is based within the natural world, or is at least sensitive to us being the invaders of this space. The potential to create integrated design in our constructed world, to interface with the natural world with the least impact and with the tightest cradle-to-cradle design practices must be the dream of every environmentally-sensitive designer everywhere.

Technology has a place in the future of design and constructed environments. The idea of monitoring the natural world around us has been historically a method of defense against that world, but the combination of monitoring both the natural world and environment as well as our impact on that environment is where we need to go. Sensors that feed data into artworks that promote community and sustainability could help to contribute to a society in which your children will grow up happy and healthy alongside the natural world.

By Justin | 0 COMMENTS | POSTED IN: text

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