left Usman Haque – Open Burble , right Despina Papadopoulos’ day-for-night

Another upcoming event in London I intend to cover is ‘Softspace – Contemporary Interactive Environments’ this coming saturday at the Tate Modern. Speakers include Usman Haque, Jason Bruges, Daan Roosegaarde,  Despina Papadopoulos, Jane Burton and Lucy Bullivant, . Lev Manovich,  is a keynote speaker. More details can be found here

"The physically permanent identity of architecture has helped to define society for centuries. Now some practitioners have disengaged from tectonics as we traditionally understand it and are taking their discipline into the realms of ‘softspace’, a more fluid, ephemeral form of digitally-enabled design based on personalised experiences and responses. Softspace deploys new spatial systems including wearable computing, wifi, RFID and custom-designed digital software incorporating light, heat, sound and electromagnetic fields. These not only rely on people’s individual ways of interacting with them, but are enriched by narratives people contribute, creating new metaphors of use. Responsive environmental strategies of this kind have increasingly colonised museums and galleries like Tate, the Science Museum and the V&A While the notion of a fantasy world made possible ‘on demand’ by new technologies is the theme of films like Minority Report and ExistenZ, contemporary softspace projects play a more subtle and open-ended influence on contemporary socio-spatial dynamics and our sensing abilities."

left Daan Roosegaarde  – Dune , right Jason Bruges Studio – Wind to Light