The Mediawork Project

Public Lecture: Peter Lunenfeld

Title: The Mediawork Project Date: Wednesday 26th October 2005 Time: 18.00 Location: Collegezaal, Overblaak 85, Rotterdam

We are witnessing the wide-scale emergence of visual intellectuals - people simultaneously making, pondering, and commenting on culture, but in a way that doesn't always begin with words. We all understand that digital tools and information technology networks contribute to this trend, but the big question is how to develop media design strategies to make the dissemination of critical thinking and informed opinion both more seductive and more rigorous. To talk about these and other issues, Peter Lunenfeld will discuss and demo the Mediawork Project from the MIT Press.

The event will be crucial for all those interested in the relationship between print and online media.

Print Mediawork Pamphlets explore art, literature, design, music, and architecture in the context of emergent technologies and rapid economic and social change. They can be described as being somewhere in-between 'zines for grown-ups and transmedia theoretical fetish objects. The pamphlets include Utopian Entrepreneur (2001) by Brenda Laurel, design Denise Gonzales Crisp; Writing Machines (2002) by N. Katherine Hayles, design Anne Burdick; Rhythm Science (2004) by Paul D. Miller aka Dj Spooky that Subliminal Kid, design COMA Amsterdam/New York; and, Shaping Things (2005) by Bruce Sterling, design Lorraine Wild.

Online The Mediawork WebTakes embed these books in a rich hypercontexual and interactive environments, modeling meaningful responses to meaningful content. The WebTakes include “Idea Tree” by Scott McCloud, “Hollowbound Book” by Erik Loyer, “WMWS” by Anne Burdick, “Hypnotext” by Peter Halley and Casey Reas, and “Macroscopes” by John Thackara and Schoenerwissen OfCD. The first Mediawork Book, USER: InfoTechnoDemo (2005) by Editorial Director of the Mediawork project Peter Lunenfeld, visuals by Mieke Gerritzen pushes many of the issues raised by the project to a new level. <mitpress.mit.edu/mediawork>

Peter Lunenfeld is a professor in the Media Design Program at Art Center College of Design. This fall, he is a fellow at the Columbia University Institute for Scholars at Reid Hall in Paris. He founded mediawork: The Southern California New Media Working Group and serves as director of the Institute for Technology & Aesthetics (ITA). His books include USER (MIT, 2005), Snap to Grid (MIT, 2000), and The Digital Dialectic (MIT, 1999). Recent publications include “The Myths of Interactive Cinema” for The New Media Book (BFI, 2002) and “The Design Cluster” for Design Research (MIT, 2004).

Media Design Research
Piet Zwart Institute
Willem de Kooning Academy Hogeschool Rotterdam
http://www.pzwart.wdka.hro.nl/
http://www.wdka.hro.nl/

Originally published at: http://pzwart.wdka.hro.nl/mdr/Seminars2/lunenfeld