Scholars at Work

New 2022-2023 Collaboration Studio: "Soft Data and Common Wares"

In a magenta lit room one woman sits on the ground with a laptop and the other stands while wearing a white futuristic garment.

 

This collaborative studio aims to reflect on the hybridizations of bodies, materials and world-building narratives and the dissemination of such research through a print on demand publication, and an openly-available pdf version on the web.

The Simpson Center for the Humanities is excited to announce a new Collaboration Studio for 2022-2023: "Soft Data and Common Wares." The studio will feature a collaboration between the DXARTS Softlab (e-textiles and wearable technology lab run by Afroditi Psarra in DXARTS) and Studio Tilt (interaction design research studio run by Audrey Desjardins in the School of Art + Art History + Design), that will manifest in the form of a print and web open publication probing the connections of working with data-driven approaches and crafting physical artifacts. Both labs are interested in the process of collecting, archiving, and critically transcoding data from the intimate spaces of the home and the body, and the search for meaningful interpretations; they analyze the use of material experimentations and prototyping as techniques to shape social identities and create intellectual and cultural commons. This collaborative studio aims to reflect on the hybridizations of bodies, materials and world-building narratives and the dissemination of such research through a print on demand publication, and an openly-available pdf version on the web.

Audrey Desjardins (School of Art + Art History + Design, Division of Design) and Afroditi Psarra (DXARTS) are the co-leaders of this exciting new project. We hope you join us in congratulating them and look forward to sharing more about the project in 2022-2023.

Image of "Ventriloquist Ontology" by Tanja Busking.