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PROJECT SITES:

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liquid geography
mapping perception
diffusion ebooks
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PRIVATE REVERIES, PUBLIC SPACES:
PUBLIC FORUM LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS, JUNE 2002

DATE: Tuesday 25th June 2002
TIME: 1pm to 6pm
VENUE:

London School of Economics
5th Floor Conference Room
Lionel Robbins Building (Library)
Portugal Street, London WC2A 2AE

MAP: Area Map | LSE Campus Map
TRANSPORT:

Tube: Holborn or Temple;
Buses: Aldwych Bus Stop

INVITE: download invite [PDF 68k]

view the online prototypes & proposals
PRPS Press Release [80K PDF]

DOCUMENTATION FROM THE DAY IS AVAILABLE AS A CD-ROM
PLEASE EMAIL PROBOSCIS FOR DETAILS

INTRODUCTION
Technology is changing our relationship to each other in private and public spaces. PRIVATE REVERIES, PUBLIC SPACES (PRPS) aims to stimulate public debate and discussion around the impact of new technologies on people's lives as private citizens in social spaces by commissioning artists and designers to rethink the possibilities of the technologies of social interaction.

Technologies such as mobile phones are dramatically altering social relations in ways that are difficult to gauge with any clarity.

  • What will happen once we are permanently connected, ubiquitously immersed in a networked society?
  • What perils and possibilities might be ahead of us?
  • How will it affect the way we behave as private individuals in public spaces?
  • What consitutes public space in the mesh of physical and virtual?

PRPS addresses the implications of 'convergence' – what might it be and how might it affect us. 14 proposals were commissioned and 3 developed as conceptual prototypes, or scenarios, that are demonstrated online. The proposals/prototypes explore the phenomena of such change, and propose cultural interventions using or misusing convergent technologies to bring these issues into the public arena.

AIMS
The PRPS Forum aims to:

  • stimulate public debate and discussion on the issues
  • offer a space for critical and creative dialogue between the cultural sector with industry, academia and public policy
  • consider the shifts in social relations and concepts of public space that are/will be triggered or facilitated through convergent / pervasive / ubiquitous technologies (internet, radio, interactive TV, wireless & mobile communications etc).

STRUCTURE
The Forum will be focused on group discussions with several short presentations by:

  • Project curators: Alice Angus & Giles Lane
  • Professor Roger Silverstone (Director, MEDIA@LSE)
  • Prototypers: Natalie Jeremijenko, Ben Hooker & Shona Kitchen, Rachel Baker
  • Context setting by: Matt Locke (Creative Director, BBC Imagineering)

The number of places at the forum is limited to 50.

SCHEDULE  
1pm: Registration
1pm-1.30pm: Introductions & coffee
1.30-1.50pm General Introduction: Alice Angus & Giles Lane
1.50-2.10pm:

Introduction by Professor Roger Silverstone

2.10-2.30pm: PRPS Prototype Presentation: Ben Hooker & Shona Kitchen
2.30-2.45pm: Open floor discussion
2.45-3.05pm PRPS Prototype Presentation: Natalie Jeremijenko
3.05-3.20pm Open floor discussion
3.20-3.45pm: coffee / tea break
3.45-4.10pm: PRPS in Context: Matt Locke
4.10-4.30pm: PRPS Prototype Presentation: Rachel Baker
4.30-5.30pm Open floor discussion: Questions of Convergence
5.30pm: Wrap up
6-8pm: Drinks reception: Robert McKenzie Room
2nd Floor, St Clements Building, LSE.

ISSUES FOR DISCUSSION: PRPS PROJECT BRIEF
The issue of convergence is very broad and the term is both self-evident and perplexing. The curators and the selection panel devised some questions and issues as a series of parameters or guides for project participants. Participants were not asked to deliver a convergence media product or service, but think beyond convergence, and consider what public or audience their proposal would address.

Proposal were asked to:

  • engage critically with the social impact of technologies on society
  • engage with the relationship between the physical and the virtual in public spaces
  • explore the relationships of institutions and corporations to public space
  • address how technologies are changing social interrelations in public spaces
  • explore the issue of false utopias / fantasies created by technological futurology
  • address the management of anxiety through technology:how the devices we use both fuel and assuage our fears and desires of being responsible citizens, parents, workers etc...
  • explore the changing nature and experience of time caused by technology use
  • address how technology changes our concept of community
  • address how technology changes our inhabitation of public spaces
  • address how technology changes our concept of sociability
  • address the materiality of technology:how we react when our virtual, networked lives are abruptly brought down to earth by being offline, out of network reach, out of batteries etc...

PARTICIPANTS

Professor Roger Silverstone Director, MEDIA@LSE, London School of Economics
Matt Locke Creative Director, BBC Imagineering
Natalie Jeremijenko Artist & Engineer, Yale & New York Universities
Rachel Baker artist, irational.org & BBC
Ben Hooker Research Fellow, Royal College of Art
Shona Kitchen Research Fellow, Royal College of Art
John Paul Bichard Liquid Idea, PRPS participant
Caroline Smith Liquid Idea, PRPS participant
Petra Trefzger artist/designer, PRPS participant
Felix Goetz artist/designer, PRPS participant
Julie Freeman artist, PRPS participant
Nina Pope artist, PRPS participant
Laura Watts artist/writer, Sand14 PRPS participant
Aaron Watson artist/archaeologist, Sand14 PRPS participant
Fiona Raby Senior Research Fellow, Royal College of Art
Dr Charlie Gere Senior Lecturer, Birkbeck College
Hannah Redler Curator, X-Space gallery, C/PLEX
Rory Hamilton artist & Senior tutor, Royal College of Art
Brendan Walker Research Fellow, Royal College of Art
Jamie King writer
Louise Sandhaus Co-Director, Cal Arts Graphic Design program
Kate Rich Artist
Giles Rollestone Interaction Designer, Scient & Urbanfeedback
Elizabeth van Couvering Interaction Strategist, Organic
Sigune Haman independent curator
James Lane Squidsoup
Mark Waugh Arts Council of England
James Stevens spc.org & consume.net
Mark Segal Director, Artsway
Nina Wakeford Director, INCITE, University of Surrey
Matt Jones BBC Online & the Disappearing Org
Simon Pope artist & lecturer, UWIC Business School
Helen Cadwallader Arts Council of England
Fee Plumley producer, the-phone-book.com
Tony White Collaborative Arts Unit, Arts Council of England
Clive Gillman FACT
Ben Eastop Curator, ART@LSE, London School of Economics
Arianna Bassoli MediaLab Europe
Valentina Nisi MediaLab Europe
Daniel Angus Autonomous Software Ltd
Ron Corbett 3G Interaction
Chris Byrne New Media Scotland
Ben Jones creative director, the-phone-book.com
Clare Lees The Henley Centre
Tobie Kerridge Royal College of Art
Gair Dunlop Artist
Deborah Smith Independent curator
Anna Hiltunen TEKO
Rod Dickinson BBC
Luci Eyers low-fi locator & Kent Institute of Art & Design
Jacqueline Koay Senior Executive Learning Systems Ltd
Gio d'Angelo SPC.ORG
Armin Medosch Telepolis
Lina Russell noaltgirls.org
Tomato Lichy Artist
John Chris Jones Designer

Event facilitation:
Giles Lane & Alice Angus (Proboscis).

PRPS is a SoMa project: a partnership between Proboscis, the Royal College of Art School of Communications and MEDIA@LSE, London School of Economics. PRPS is supported with the generous financial assistance of the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology and the Arts Council of England New Media Projects Fund.

 

   
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