Workshop Statement

CRITICAL INTERACTION DESIGN/PUBLIC SPACE PROJECT

The workshop takes place in a local community center Kontupiste at a suburb called Kontula in Helsinki. The focus of the workshop will be to introduce the participating primary school kids to a new way of playing with technology.

The workshop begins the engagement from traditional media forms and moves towards more interactive and networked media. The main issue that is addressed through the workshop is to understand ways in which we perceive technology and information via technology and how we understand others through them.

The process of the workshop will be on experiments and playful engagement with high and low technology. The emphasis is on fun and creative games working with content from popular culture, mass media and personal interests.

The intention is to illustrate a range of outcomes that are small and quick in order to keep the attention span of the kids through short experiments and immediate results.

• Marcus Neustetter (ZA) is conducting research and developing projects in the field of new media art. Based in South African context, he works in many capacities; as artist, producing and exhibiting a range of creative projects in mobile, web and low tech translations of new media, as researcher, and as facilitator and curator.