September, October
Dear Blog
Sorry I have missed writing to you for so long, there are so many things to catch up on...
Ok, so forgive the cliche entry to the always at the end of the month blog writing, but it has been a while and so many things with promise seem to have gone on that it is worth making note here from both September and October of the highlights.
Back in September, I was able to attend a special gathering of the Tuttle Club independently organised Ted talks, organised by the guys at Broadsight. The full program was a mix of video Ted talks and live talks, including former Tomorrows World presenter Maggie Phillbin, how our perceptions of tech and visions of the future have changes, and some of the tech first shown on TW, clips included. The highlight though was Rachel Armstrong talking about synthetic Biology and architecture (literally, living buildings), a very DI subject, and was nice to hear someone talk so positively about it, sometimes to much dark side when it comes to biotech projects. Really fascinated about her Venice repair project.. Some fascinating discussions all round on the subject, and others... See the web for the full program, and hopefully soon the videos will be online (thanks to Alan and the Broadsight team for organising too).
I have been part of a new venture by RCA IDE graduate Ed Muffit, WeFab is a social enterprise around sustainable textile manufacture, encouraging textile (for the moment) designers to submit patterns that 'makers' can offer to make, and as the buyer you choose who the maker is to buy from. Currently I'm working with Ed to get the website in a fit and ready state for testing. I attended the last two days of the Design London Incubator Boot Camp (Ed was there for the whole week) which was a crash course in business by Imperials business school. At the end of the week there where pitches from various projects, looking forward to seeing what happens to LooWatt (since I might know some organisations who would be interested). It was great to meet a lot of people and go through part of the experience of Design London, and so many IDE grads from my year where participating pitching projects. We're hard at work on WeFab, so I won't say much more now, but will post after launch, in the mean time, please sign up as interested if the concpet interests you.
(or Home Sewing is Killing Fashion). Fascinating talk by Otto van Busch on hacking fashion, and other products in general. I'm really fascinated by the other artist he mentioned who is doing counterfeit crochet Guci bags (not that I want one or anything) but the idea of re purposing the design and style. There was a lot of talk about hacking allows you to take true ownership of something, also the aesthetic of hacked design, that the product doesn't looked as polished, because the finished product is that it works.. lots of parallels there with my 'design style' then. There was lots of discussion about the re-use of clothing, and of the relationship between the designer and the maker, interesting crossovers with WeFab (and I managed to get Ed to come along) and as always, really fascinating discussion afterward.
Last week in Birmingham, there was the second Hello Digital conference / festival. I say conference, as this year seemed very conference, very different to last year. It was a strange experience. I preferred last years openess, and the talks by Heather Flickr and the like, about the things they have done. Still there was some fascinating discussions, future business models and the like, still very businessy though. End keynote by David Rowan from Wired UK was great, lots of interesting (and again, positive) futures, plus we bagged a years free sub to Wired. Nice. The after party felt a bit awkward, I still feel slightly out of place in Birmingham for some reason (home is not really Birmingham but countryside, so difficult to get in and just meet people) something I want to change... Also highlights I'm not much for networking parties..
Well thats this months posting... Usual updates (as always more regularly) on my twitter...
Sorry I have missed writing to you for so long, there are so many things to catch up on...
Ok, so forgive the cliche entry to the always at the end of the month blog writing, but it has been a while and so many things with promise seem to have gone on that it is worth making note here from both September and October of the highlights.
TedxTuttle
Back in September, I was able to attend a special gathering of the Tuttle Club independently organised Ted talks, organised by the guys at Broadsight. The full program was a mix of video Ted talks and live talks, including former Tomorrows World presenter Maggie Phillbin, how our perceptions of tech and visions of the future have changes, and some of the tech first shown on TW, clips included. The highlight though was Rachel Armstrong talking about synthetic Biology and architecture (literally, living buildings), a very DI subject, and was nice to hear someone talk so positively about it, sometimes to much dark side when it comes to biotech projects. Really fascinated about her Venice repair project.. Some fascinating discussions all round on the subject, and others... See the web for the full program, and hopefully soon the videos will be online (thanks to Alan and the Broadsight team for organising too).
WeFab and Design London Boot Camp
I have been part of a new venture by RCA IDE graduate Ed Muffit, WeFab is a social enterprise around sustainable textile manufacture, encouraging textile (for the moment) designers to submit patterns that 'makers' can offer to make, and as the buyer you choose who the maker is to buy from. Currently I'm working with Ed to get the website in a fit and ready state for testing. I attended the last two days of the Design London Incubator Boot Camp (Ed was there for the whole week) which was a crash course in business by Imperials business school. At the end of the week there where pitches from various projects, looking forward to seeing what happens to LooWatt (since I might know some organisations who would be interested). It was great to meet a lot of people and go through part of the experience of Design London, and so many IDE grads from my year where participating pitching projects. We're hard at work on WeFab, so I won't say much more now, but will post after launch, in the mean time, please sign up as interested if the concpet interests you.
Hacking Design and Fashion Hacktivism
(or Home Sewing is Killing Fashion). Fascinating talk by Otto van Busch on hacking fashion, and other products in general. I'm really fascinated by the other artist he mentioned who is doing counterfeit crochet Guci bags (not that I want one or anything) but the idea of re purposing the design and style. There was a lot of talk about hacking allows you to take true ownership of something, also the aesthetic of hacked design, that the product doesn't looked as polished, because the finished product is that it works.. lots of parallels there with my 'design style' then. There was lots of discussion about the re-use of clothing, and of the relationship between the designer and the maker, interesting crossovers with WeFab (and I managed to get Ed to come along) and as always, really fascinating discussion afterward.
Hello Digital
Last week in Birmingham, there was the second Hello Digital conference / festival. I say conference, as this year seemed very conference, very different to last year. It was a strange experience. I preferred last years openess, and the talks by Heather Flickr and the like, about the things they have done. Still there was some fascinating discussions, future business models and the like, still very businessy though. End keynote by David Rowan from Wired UK was great, lots of interesting (and again, positive) futures, plus we bagged a years free sub to Wired. Nice. The after party felt a bit awkward, I still feel slightly out of place in Birmingham for some reason (home is not really Birmingham but countryside, so difficult to get in and just meet people) something I want to change... Also highlights I'm not much for networking parties..
Well thats this months posting... Usual updates (as always more regularly) on my twitter...
Labels: experience, life, real world, updates
posted by andy broomfield at 11:44 PM
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