Presentation at symposium For Real, Maastricht University, 1.10.10

1. MAD
• Phd Cultural
Studies/KULeuven
• Research coordinator
Social Spaces
• www.socialspaces.be

2. Social Spaces
• Deals with:
– Public space
– Social media
– Social design

3. Public space
• very concrete context
• you do not “just” put a work there
• you create a dialogue with various stakeholders + context
• social spaces: allow all stakeholders to participate in
expert (architecture, policy, art, design,... ) creation of
public space (social design)

4. Problem situation: public space – media
• media mediate between people
and public space
• tension: passive intuitive use vs
autonomy
• question for lot of media artists,
designers, developers today how
to reconfigure this relation into an
active/participatory relation via
creative work
• case studies + own work
• Images IBM, Touch

5. First criterium for creating active
participation = hybrid objects/media
• observation = hybrid
objects/media (vs slick,
finished objects) encourage
participation by other
perspectives before, during,
after point of showing art
work in public space
• situated in realm of
collaboration, not perspective
of users or experts
• Image Yanki Lee

6. Hybrid objects
• role of hybridity in
objects is of great
importance for
participation
• enabling different
conversations,
addressing and not
ignoring tension media-
public space
• Image Ideo

7. Hybrid objects
every object has potential to
become hybrid

8. Second criterium for creating active
participation = long creation processes
Blast Theory, Uncle Roy all around you
3 years to produce a game, work with
different stakeholders
discovery of hybrid objects/media that work
Uncle Roy All Around You is a game played online in a
virtual city and on the streets of an actual city. Online
Players and Street Players collaborate to find Uncle
Roy's office before being invited to make a year long
commitment to a total stranger.
Communication online- street: GPS => video
=> self-reported positioning, player
regains autonomy
Images Blast Theory

9. Third criterium for creating active
participation = co-creation & prototyping
• GOforIT
• observations youth
culture
• sports hall full of games
• Image Patching Zone

10. GOforIT
• low tech prototypes
• Tic-tac-toe: folk game

11. GOforIT
• final installation: hybrid
site specific and larger
folk culture
• problematics of
sustainability of media
works
Image Patching Zone

12. Fourth criterium: to provide afterlife, reveal
and share source code
• GRL
• dialogue with current
infrastructure
• media becomes tool to
express one self in public
space by sharing codes,
people can do it
theirselves!
• long life span in various
hybrid manifestions...
• Image GRL

13. Eyewriter
• GRL interesting, because every
output they create is prototype
and input for new ideas
• durational art (O'Neill)
produces “work” that keeps on
generating social interactions
after the artist has left the
project site
• GRL: “It is a low-cost eye-tracking
apparatus & custom software that allows
graffiti writers and artists with paralysis
resulting from Amyotrophic lateral
sclerosis to draw using only their eyes”
• Image GRL

14. Social Spaces
• durational art/design
• role artistic/design research
group in public space
• Hybride stad
– observation via different
perspectives
– disclosing data heritage
– encouraging people to
build in it, remix media
(stories, real life,
illustrations)
– now new project on
stories c-mine
– Drawing Moritz Ebinger

15. Challenge media creators working in public
space?
• strengthening knowledge role media
work in public space +
understanding quality of hybrid
objects for participation
– media that are 'honest'
about tensions they create
between people - public
environment
– prototype
– open source code
• to create hybrid objects experiment
with
– length of creation
processes
– co-creating with
stakeholders

16. Contact
liesbeth.huybrechts@mda.khlim.be
www.socialspaces.be
www.e-cultuur.be
http://twitter.com/liesbit