Hongik Meta Design Symposium 2009

key Speaker - Hongik University - Meta Design Sympathetic Media Symposium June 24 2009- Hongik University - Seoul - South Korea

Lecture Notes

Communication technology
and the tectonics of architectural space.

Section One – Introduction and Generative structures

I graduated from the Royal college of Art nearly 25 years ago. My major was industrial design. After attending the RCA, I worked as a production and concept designer for 20 years with companies such as Apple computers and the BBC.

The first time I used computers in the design process was with the production design of the studio sets for the wire television network. here for example was done 20 years ago with my first computer. It was a set design and production project for the now defunct “ wire” channel. It was the first time I used a computer to generate the forms that where then projected onto surfaces to sculpt. At that time RP and other three dimensional outputs where not available. It was the beginning of my relationship with the parametric approach.

Section Two – Interaction and Physical Computing

When mobile phones control and modify environments.

Over the past 5 years I have been experimenting with telecommunication technology as a interface for interaction. This has primarily been the telephone and internet systems.
I usually avoid sensor based interactive technology as the telecommunication network is far more prevalent and ubiquitus. Also the mobile phone network is readily available for intervention and modification.

The motivations and design philosophies guiding the design process of these projects are wide. If there are connections and general themes they are, the dissolving of the body with respect to interaction. Entertainment and pleasure as a driving force of communication technology and its synthesis with architecture.

We often use some kind of fetish, personal or cultural as the starting point of a project, this allows for interpretation of interaction, environment and pleasure in a broad human context.

Section Three – Architecture and the end of the body

When Mobile phone migrate inside the body. The injectable electronic telepathic device.

As a linear result of the integration of the human body with communication technology ( i.e. the “Veri chip” for example ) and the driving force of entertainment and pleasure as a motivation for the development of new and ever more sophisticated environments. Ostensibly what I am talking about are questions such as “ if telecommunication devices are implanted does this mean we are all connected permanently, linked in an environment science fiction writers called the evermind”. If so then this could mean the end of loneliness and as a by product the end of privacy?. In these conditions the body and the concept of architectural design would radically shift to new forms and tectonics.

So what I am exploring through conventional design process fused with parametric experiments are the convergence of the human central nervous system and new forms of communication devices integrated and motivated by social networking and the desire for pleasure.

This condition I have called the “ Playstation X” or “ Sony F**k Station”