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.