Bruce Sterling at Innovationsforum Interaktionsdesign, Postdam

from the talk of Bruce Sterling on SPIMES

Coming through the convergence of technologies, are the Spime. 6 qualities distinguish them:

1- they are conceived and designed within a network,
2- they are given a unique (digital) identity distinct from the others,
3- they are physically fabricated as opposed to manufactured in a factory. They are not made until they are sold,
4- they can be tracked through technologies of geo-localization,
5- they can be searched out through network search engines,
6- they are designed for disassembling.

- then there's a 7th one: they leave an historical trace behind them, a valuable pool of metadata.

via WMMNA

Gillian Crampton Smith questioned by Boris Muller at Innovationsforum Interaktionsdesign, Postdam

Boris Muller asking questions to Gillian Crampton Smith on the "craft of interaction design"

...It seems interaction design has become much more powerful in terms of creating prototypes. ..And those tools like Processing and Arduino, you can really do more than just static prototypes, you can really create experiences that really work. Do you really think it would be possible to have to ?$?$? evolve and really become craftsman that its able to go to a designer and say ok I would like to have this, and then they craft this?

I think one of the things that happened is because the pace of invention has been so rapid, and the technology is changing all the time that is very difficult for people to keep up with the craft, there isn't enough time that you need to get to the experience you need with the particular technologies. So I think that's one problem.

I think another thing is - to be a crafts-person you have to understand the medium, and that for us does mean understanding something about how the underlying technologies work. So I think there's an interesting er tension between a way of thinking that is more a program(er) way of thinking and a way of thinking that is more a holistic, if you like way of thinking, which is what traditionally the craftsman, designer, uses in their work, and I think we haven't resolved that yet.

That's probably because its so..... If we think of the web, Web 2.0 something really interesting has happened ..suddenly data becomes available, and kind of Flicker opens up an API, so just anyone can just create his or her very own Flicker viewer and I think if this would also happen in the physical world, a new way of...for design objects could emerge.

Yes, Well I think the whole thing of platforms - where a certain level of complexity is done for you, and then you can work on top of that. I think that web 2.0 is, in a way a lot of hype, but I think it has opened up a fantastic opportunity, really, to break the monopoly of Microsoft. (laughs) Im sorry if its one of your sponsors... But I think before it was very difficult for anyone to design new types of software because they just had such a grip on the market. But now I'm using a software on the web called 'Basecamp' and its been written by 3 people, and it suits me fine..so i think there's a tremendous opportunity for innovation again, just suddenly now, so I'm very excited.