[ISEA2017] Paper: Crystal Eng, Michael Nitsche & Isabel Restrepo — Prototyping Puppets Beyond Borders

Abstract 

Keywords: Narratives, Puppetry, STEM/STEAM, Participatory design, Co-creation and Collaboration, Craft, Intercultural exchange.

We report on an ongoing collaboration that uses puppetry as a shared cultural expression in STEAM workshop designs that inform intercultural exchange. Collaborators in Atlanta, USA and Medellín, Colombia work in tandem on the design and implementation of a puppet-building workshops. These workshops use narrative framing, craft-based prototyping, and performancebased validation to teach students basic prototyping skills. They specifically encourage them to relate to their local culture and to inform an ongoing dialogue between the two cultural spheres.

  • Michael Nitsche, Associate Professor, Georgia Institute of TechnologyAtlanta, GA, USA.  Michael holds a Ph.D. from Cambridge (Darwin) , UK in Architecture. He is Director of Graduate Studies for Digital Media at the School of LMC at Georgia Tech. His research combines Performance Studies and Craft Research to explore interaction with new media. He directs the Digital World and Image Group, which has received funding from the NSF, NEH, Alcatel Lucent, Turner Broadcasting, and GCATT, among others. Nitsche’s publications include the books Video Game Spaces (MIT Press, 2009) and The Machinima Reader (MIT Press, 2011). He is co-editor of Digital Creativity (Taylor & Francis). homes.lmc.gatech.edu/~nitsche
  • Crystal Eng is a 1st year student in the Industrial Design program at the College of Design at Georgia Tech, USA.
  • Isabel Restrepo holds a PhD from Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia and a MFA in Art with emphasis in Multimedia from San Diego State University, USA. In 2008, Restrepo
    founded the interdisciplinary group Hipertrópico to study relationships between art, technology and society. She directed key research within that group, including the project on Augmented Reality and Imaging and Artistic Education: A Pedagogical Model. In her
    exploration, Restrepo has utilized Open Source as a tool for production, experimentation and teaching digital media in art. Such work has led to the creation of the pedagogical multimedia Líneas Digitales, based on the use of GIMP. In addition, she has worked as curator and educator.Full text (PDF) p. 87-94