I managed to catch at the RMIT design research hub, some of the ‘Studying the European cultural intermediaries of new technologies’, a seminar and workshop led by the INCITE research group, Goldsmiths College, University of London. Presented by Nina Wakeford (Director, INCITE) Britt Hatzius (Lead Researcher).

INCITE mission statement:

The mission of INCITE is to provide a creative interdisciplinary space for research projects which explore the socio-cultural dimensions of technology use and design.

Members of INCITE work on subjects such as the links between new media and landscape, technology as a means of sensing place and identifying community, performativity and design, gender, sexuality and mobility, cultures of access and non-access, urban knowledge-making, Internet and digital subjectivities and material culture. Researchers and students draw on a range of disciplinary traditions, not just sociology, but cultural anthropology, art history and design.

In the part of the presentation that I saw by Britt, she covered an analysis of new media artists in Finland. Locations included the medialab at the University of Art and Design Helsinki; also Pixelache. I was intrigued with the way Britt used user-generated techniques to document the artists activities, like for example providing a number of disposal cameras embedded within an installation.

The term ‘critical design’ came up in a discussion of how some new media artists see themselves more as critical designers that artists.

The final future observations for this research as follows:

newness and progress
newness and critique
newness and innovation
newness and slowness

This collection of ideas made me think of how my own research project title could be developed over time.

other references:

Ubiquitous computing
Anthony Dunne, Hertzian Tales, Electronic Products, Aesthetic Experience, and Critical Design

The concept of Relational Aesthetics was also discussed with reference to writing by Claire Bishop. Interview reference.
Participation, Edited by Claire Bishop