Sneve Martinussen & Knutsen :: ‘Immaterials: Adventures in the Networked City’ #

Grafill
Rosenkrantz gate 21, Oslo

This talk is about the history of the Immaterials project and is presented by Einar Sneve Martinussen and Jørn Knutsen. The talk collects anecdotes, films and behind-the-scene material from this interaction design research project into the invisible materials of our networked world.

Grafill’s gallery R21 is currently showing an exhibition about Immaterials, and this talk will be held in the exhibition.

The urban landscape is changing in ways that can not be seen by the naked eye. As digital, networked technologies are becoming a part of daily urban life, the invisible terrain of the networked city is taking shape. Over the last 7 years the Immaterials project has explored the electromagnetic landscape of our networked world through investigating and revealing the technologies, materials and infrastructures which enable contemporary digital culture.

By making these visible through design, photography and film, Immaterials seeks to develop awareness and understanding about the invisible pervasive technologies that underpins both our networked lives, and contemporary interaction design practice.

Immaterials comes out of design research project based at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO). It is created by a network of interaction designers that includes Timo Arnall, Einar Sneve Martinussen and Jørn Knutsen from AHO, and designers Jack Schulze and Matt Jones, previously from BERG. Arnall writes:

"As designers we can reveal the materials behind the 'seamless' technologies that make up our everyday experience, and in doing so empower others to question, critique, re-imagine and re-make. As we increasingly inhabit technical systems, and enact society and culture through them, it seems dangerous to have so little idea, about how these things work. Making visible material out of technological infrastructure is the first step towards understanding them. What we can't see, we cannot critically evaluate."

About the speakers

Einar Sneve Martinussen and Jørn Knutsen are interaction designers and researchers based at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design. Since 2007 they have been teaching interaction design courses and developed practice-led design research projects. Their research takes up material explorations of technology, everyday life and interactive, networked products. They lecture widely about design and technology, and also runs the Oslo-based design studio Voy.

• About the project
• About the exhibition
• IxDA

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