FORESIGHTING FOR MEANINGFUL INNOVATION: SMARTlab AS CASE STUDY

By SUZANNE STEIN and LIZBETH GOODMAN

For the last few decades foresighting has been used in private and public organizations to understand and respond to the changing contexts that they could find themselves in. Whereas this was a predominantly reactive stance, foresighting techniques are playing an increasingly active and formative role in forging desired futures. It can be a particularly helpful tool for artists, scientists and business strategists and designers in guiding curiosity and situating innovation in a meaningful socially-aware seat. For example, we can look at the expertise and projects at SMARTlab, University of East London and how these draw upon emerging trends to capitalize on them and direct us to a better, future world.

SUZANNE STEIN and LIZBETH GOODMAN

Suzanne Stein, Canadian, 1969, Research Fellow in Mobile Technology Futures, University of East London, SMARTlab, www.SMARTlab.uk.com, suzanne(at)SMARTlab.uk.com

Suzanne comes to UEL from Nokia where she was working with both corporate strategy and design functions to think about the future possibilities of their handsets, as well as the London School of Economics where she has been researching the emergence of games as a mainstream expressive form. She also lectures at the Canadian Film Centre in their new media department and has worked as a Mentor in a national Interactive Project Lab in Canada. She was also the Canadian Juror for the World Summit Awards, a UN task force, on innovative content in 2003 and Moderator in 2005. Previous publications include two chapters for the e-content: Voices from the Underground series edited by Osama Manzar and Prof. Peter Bruck, about the state of ICTs in Canada. She is presently working on a book proposal on Social Inclusivity and Mobile Gaming for publication by The MIT Press in 2008.

Prof Lizbeth Goodman, American, born 1964, Director, UEL, SMARTlab, www.smartlab.uk.com lizbeth(at)smartlab.uk.com

Chair in Creative Technology Innovation, Director – MAGIC Gamelab & Innovation Centre, & Director of Studies for the UEL practice-based PhDs in Digital Media, Performance Technology & Informatics. Her main field of speciality is the creation of learning games developed WITH, not only for, people with disabilities and ‘non-standard gamers’. She is widely published, with many years of BBC experience, and is a performer/director and PI of projects for and with NESTA, BBC, Microsoft, Lego, Futurelab, SGI, the Wellcome, et al. She directs the GLAM (Games, Life and Media) Academy, making games for the 2012 games. She is series editor of Emergenc(i)es for MIT Press.

BOUNDARYLESS NANOMORPHOLOGIES

By PAUL THOMAS

This paper investigates questions of spatial boundaries by presenting information related to artistic research developed in the area of nanotechnology. The paper establishes a link between Deleuze and Guattari’s theories of the refrain, vibration, milieus, territories, and rhythms and the synergies towards the immaterial substrates that constitute nano spatial boundaries. I look at a nano disintegration of territories and boundaries¹ through the ubiquitous nature of the refrain. The disintegration parallels concepts of the swarm and the multitude that constitute the postbiological body (Milburn 2005 p 283).

PAUL THOMAS

Dr Paul Thomas, Australian, 1950, Senior Lecturer, Curtin University of Technology, Department of Art, http://www.visiblespace.com

Dr Paul Thomas is coordinator of the Studio Electronic Arts (SEA) at Curtin University of Technology and is the founding Director of the Biennale of Electronic Arts Perth (BEAP). Thomas has been working in the area of electronic arts since 1981 when he co-founded the group Media-Space, which was part of the first global link up with artists connected to ARTEX. His practice lead research is in collaboration with the Nanochemistry Research Institute at Curtin University and the SymbioticA Lab at the University of Western Australia. He is currently collaborating on a public art commission for the Curtin Mineral and Chemistry Research Precinct in collaboration with Woods Bagot Architects. He recently completed his PhD researching the reconfiguration of space. http://www.visiblespace.com

BETWEEN THOUGHT AND MATTER: THE FINAL FRONTIER

By MICHAEL PUNT

The letter fell from his nerveless hands. He thought long and deeply. Yes hehad memories of a neighbour’s child, of a girl, of a woman in a dancing hall–all was dim and confused, like a flickering and shapeless view of a stone in the bed of a swiftly running stream. Shadows chased one another across his mind, but would not fuse into a picture. There were stirrings of

memory in the realm of feeling, and still he could not remember. It seemed to him that he must have dreamed all these figures, must have dreamed often and vividly–and yet they had only been phantoms of a dream. His eyes wandered to the blue vase on the writing-table. It was empty. For years it had not been empty on his birthday. He shuddered, feeling as if an invisible

door had been opened, a door through which a chilled breeze was blowing into his sheltered room. An intimation of death came to him, and an intimation of deathless love. Something welled up within him; and the thought of the dead woman stirred in his mind, bodiless and passionate, like the sound of distant music.

Zweig, S. (2004) Letter from and Unknown Woman, London: Pushkin Press:. p.104. (First published in German as Bukrief einer Unbekannten in 1922).

MICHAEL PUNT

United Kingdom. Professor of Art and Technology, University of Plymouth, Transtechnology Research. http://www.trans-techresearch.net. Editor-in-Chief, Leonardo Reviews. www.leonardo.info. Email: mpunt@easynet.co.uk. He has made 15 films and published over eighty articles on cinema and digital media in the last decade. He gained his PhD at the University of Amsterdam (Early Cinema and the Technological Imaginary, 2000) His most recent book: Screening Consciousness: Cinema Mind World Rodopi, 2006 edited in collaboration with Robert Pepperell follows their earlier collaboration: The Post-Digital Membrane: imagination technology and desire, Intellect Books, 2000. A full cv and details of research and publications are at: http://www.trans-techresearch.net.