Inspiring Crystalpunks since Sept 2005: 11, 12 & 13 November

Almost at the same time, I read Paul at dataisnature's blog post about this and Wilfriend Hou Je Bek at socialfiction sent me an email about it. It looks so much fun, it would be rude not to spread the word, so here goes.

Next weekend there's a Crystalpunk Workshop in Utrecht which gathers together a great collection of people/ideas/things/activities, including a Processing/Wiring workshop with Manuel Dahm. From the Crystalpunk page...

A Crystalpunk Workshop for Soft Architecture Event

The Crystalpunk Workshop for Soft Architecture will from Friday 11 to Sunday 13 November be open for crystalpunks and public to work, learn and discuss what is needed to develop soft architecture. During this period we will be open for extensive amounts of time, while we will also provide for some inspirational juice open for the general public with these two events:

Program:

Saturday 12 November 15.00-18.00 Processing & Wiring Board Primer by Manuel Dahm Processing is a scripting tool, designed for teaching the basic of programming using a visual environment, that has become rapidly popular over the last 2 years. Making use of the fact that processing is open source other applications have extended its use. One of the examples being the Wiring boards, of which the workshop possess 5. These are easy to use tiny programmable interface boards that allow you for instance to read sensor data.

In true Crystalpunk fashion this primer will be hands-on, allowing complete novices to learn from the more experienced.

This workshop is free, but you might want to bring your laptop (and install the software before you come) if you have one.

Manuel Dahm is the best interaction designer in the world. http://www.dr3.de

http://processing.org/ http://wiring.org.co/

Sunday 13 November 15.00-18.00 Making It So - presentations by Pete Gomes, Paul Prudence, Inga Zimprich, Jo Walsh

Pete Gomes is the best filmmaker in the world. He teaches Film and Architecture at the Architecture Association London, and has undertaken many experiments in physical GPS annotations of visible and invisible objects. When Pete talks other people listen http://www.mutantfilm.com

Paul Prudence is the best designer in the world. His blog Data=Nature is one of focalpoints in the developing genre of generative art. Recently his graphic work took Majorca by storm. He will show his VJ work as well as discuss the importance of images for crystalpunk [anti]theory. When Paul is on the jazz the audience wiggle their toes in admiration. http://dataisnature.com

Inga Zimprich is the best artist in the world. Currently she is a researcher at the Jan van Eyck Academy, prototyping Think Tank, a speculative approach to social software. If the van Eyck academy didnt exist already it had to founded for this purpose. http://www.thinktank.con-gress.net

Jo Walsh is the best semantic web developer in the world. Apart from being an excellent programmer her background in literature pays off in her capacity as a software critic. Currently she is working on Nodal, a framework for collaborative knowledge management and information distribution making use of semantic web technologies. Tim Berners-Lee invented the WWW for her. ">http://frot.org

Perhaps I'll see you there (to be confirmed) but if not - let me know how it goes!