N E W S
The Informational City 20 Sept 2011. This
lecture programme at the London Design Festival explored the ways in which designers, architects and policymakers have informed and influenced our understanding of the contemporary cityscape find out more here
PhD Design Forum 2011/12 Research Network for Information Environments and Faculty of Design, LCC.
This once-a-term, cross-University seminar is intended to provide a forum for Research Degrees and MA/MRes students and supervisors working in design and related fields. These lunchtime seminars aim to develop a better understanding of design thinking, processes and methods. Guest researchers and PhD students are invited to use the forum as a prompt for gaining constructive feedback on issues or approaches encountered in their own research practices. The PhD Student Forum has become a well-established seminar series in the University with guests hailing from Australia, USA and the UK.
Seminars take place at the London College of Communication. Please check for up to date information and room locations on Blackboard and www.informationenvironments.org.uk
Organiser: Professor Teal Triggs
Monica Biagioli was Guest Researcher at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona from January to March 2011 to develop the last two exhibitions of the Sound Proof series, focusing on legacy and linking the future London site to the previous Olympics site in Poblenou, Barcelona. The Sound Proof project is to run for 5 years up to 2012 and features artist responses to the Olympics site in London as it is increasingly transformed in preparation for the Olympics in 2012.
http://www.macba.cat
A collection of prototypes in thinking and design, the first graduating class of researchers from the MRes Information Environments held their end-of-year show at London College of Communication in December 2010. Showcasing works informed by the final projects of Benjamin Mason, Mavis Lian, Rhett Griffiths and Shahina Khanna, the exhibition captured the breadth of design-led research into Information Environments embraced by this emerging collective of researchers.
London College of Communication, Elephant & Castle, London SE1 6SB
Public viewing 4th – 8 Dec 2010 (Closed 5th December)
Private view | Friday 3rd December 2010
Roughly 100,000 people are born every twelve hours. In the same period of time 70,000 people will have died. Drawing a circle for every birth and death in a waking day, Sam Winston's work Birthday illustrates how statistical information can be used to inform artistic practice. Alongside these drawings he presented his new artist book Orphan, and further studies around text and image. The artist was in residence throughout the duration of the exhibition, creating new work.
Kaleid Editions | 23 – 25 Redchurch Street, London E2 7DJ
1st – 22 Dec 2010 | Wednesday to Sunday 11am – 7pm
Private view | Thursday 9th December 2010 6pm – 9pm
Teal Triggs provided the keynote for the second annual conference on Women in comics held at the Leeds Art Gallery, UK on 18 Nov 2010. The international conference celebrated the growing interest of 'women in comics, women reading comics, women writing about comics and women making comics.' Triggs spoke specifically about the relationship between the fan reader and the comic artist in Katy Keene comic books 1945–1961.
Realising the geo/graphic landscape of the everyday
Alison Barnes, AHRC funded research student based at LCC and attached to
Information Environments, has recently successfully completed her PhD. Her
thesis, entitled 'Realising the geo/graphic landscape of the everyday'
centred on the development of a 'geo/graphic' design process which proposes
an interdisciplinary method for researching and re-presenting place. The
research draws together practice and theory from both graphic design and
cultural geography and was undertaken primarily within the London Borough of
Hackney. Alison's thesis was examined by Professor David Crow of Manchester
Metropolitan University and Dr Eric Laurier of Edinburgh University. Her
Director of Studies was Professor Teal Triggs.
Alison has since accepted a position as a lecturer on the Bachelor of Design
(Visual Communication) programme at the University of Western Sydney and
will be relocating to Australia in December 2011.
More information about Alison's research can be found at
www.alisonbarnesonlineportfolio.tumblr.com
IE researcher designs hit iPad app
IE PhD student Hilary Kenna has designed one of the most successful iPad book apps produced, according to this article in the Financial Times of 12 Aug 2011. According to the article, the app was at one time 'the third highest grossing iPad app in the UK.'
T.S. Eliot's modernist poem ,The Waste Land, is an iPad app published jointly by Touch Press and Faber and Faber. The app is designed by Hilary Kenna, a part-time PhD student under Information Environments, where her research has focussed on designing typography for screen environments. Kenna is also a designer, researcher and lecturer at the Institute of Art, Design & Technology at Dun Laoghaire, Ireland. Her knowledge of basic design principles as well as an understanding of how to use the potential for interactivity of typographic texts brings this 1922 poem to life for a contemporary audience. The New York Times wrote: 'For all its accouterments, The Waste Land app honors the silence of the text itself, the silence that makes Eliot's many voices in this poem so clearly audible.'
For further details of the design process see Kenna's research website here.
Re-designing airport security
In Spring of 2011, MRes IE students engaged in research and design aimed at redesigning passengers' air travel experience in order to communicate security information and reassurance. This complex brief was commissioned by the UK's Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure, and students conducted research in information theory, cognitive psychology, and activity theory, bringing in findings from other spaces ranging from museums to hospitals. Alongside this, students had seminars with professionals in human factors, information design and security technologies. The students' design solutions addressed ticketing, wayfinding, security checkpoints and emergency situations, and stakeholders from government and industry were impressed with the visual presentation of their research and design solutions.