Lauren McCarthy: Tools for Improved Social Interacting

http://lauren-mccarthy.com/socialinteracting/

Talk and Reception
FREE EVENT
Fri, Jan 15, 7-9PM
sprout – 339R Summer St, Somerville

Directions:

Talk at sprout’s offices which are at 339R Summer Street just outside of Davis Square in Somerville, MA. It’s set back from the street, down the driveway to the right of 339 Summer Street; the “R” means “Rear.”
Map: http://thesprouts.org/contact

Reception to follow at The Spirit Bar (2046 Mass Ave, Cambridge) — Mass Ave and Creighton near Porter Square, just across the street from the Hess station.
http://thespiritbars.com

Lauren McCarthy will present her latest work of wearable devices at the next dorkbot-boston on January 15, 7PM at the offices of sprout at 339R Summer St, Somerville.

Funded in part by The Awesome Foundation, her Tools for Improved Social Interacting are items of clothing that use sensors and electronics to train the wearer to better adapt to expected social behaviors.

Guests are encouraged to bring their own projects to participate in OpenDork after her talk, a show-and-tell of people doing strange things with electricity – art and technology projects at all stages (sketchbook to polished) and of all levels of complexity are welcomed.

A reception will follow The Spirit Bar (2046 Mass Ave, Cambridge) where guests can try out Lauren’s devices.

Lauren McCarthy’s Tools for Improved Social Interacting are a “Series of wearable devices that use sensors to condition the behavior of the wearer to better adapt to expected social behaviors.”

• The Happiness Hat http://lauren-mccarthy.com/happinesshat/ trains the wearer to smile more. An enclosed bend sensor attaches to the cheek and measures smile size, a servo motor moves a metal spike into the head inversely proportional to the degree of smile. The smile size data is logged on a microSD memory card for download at the end of each use period.

• The Anti-Daydreaming Scarf contains a heat radiation sensor that detects if the wearer is engaged in conversation with another person. While he is, the scarf vibrates periodically to remind the wearer to pay attention and stop daydreaming.

• The Body Contact Training Suit requires the wearer to maintain frequent body contact with another person in order to hear normally. If the wearer stops touching someone for too long, static noise begins to play through headphones sewn into hood. A capacitance sensing circuit measures skin to skin body contact via a metal bracelet sewn into the sleeve.

• Lauren McCarthy is a designer, artist, and programmer, and currently an MFA student in the UCLA Design | Media Arts program. She received a BS in Computer Science ad a BS in Art and Design from MIT. Her work explores the structures and systems of social interactions, identity, and self-representation. She is interested in the slightly uncomfortable moments when patterns are shifted, expectations are broken, and participants become aware of the system. Her work takes any form necessary: video, performance, software, internet art, interactive objects and environments, and media installations.

Lauren was most recently working at Small Design Firm on projects for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Thomas Jefferson’s home at Monticello, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has also worked at Continuum and the MIT Media Lab.

• Founded in June 2009, The Awesome Foundation for the Arts and Sciences awards $1,000 grants monthly to projects that advance the interest of Awesomeness in our universe. There are no requirements for applying, no definite criteria for deciding the winner, and no limitations beyond the necessity for being awesome. Winners receive the money in cash, check, or gold doubloons, no strings attached. To learn more or apply, get on over to http://awesomefoundation.org

• dorkbot-boston is a monthly meeting of artists (sound/image/movement/whatever), designers, engineers, students, scientists, and other interested parties from the boston area who are involved in the creative use of electricity. dorkbot meetings are free and open to the public. http://dorkbotboston.com

• sprout is a group of learners and teachers working to inspire the practice of everyday experimentalism by running science programs that are embedded in the community–drawing inspiration and resources from the people, places, and things that surround us everyday! http://thesprouts.org

We are having two fantastically productive and prolific makers be in the space to demo their work and help you with yours:

Josh Gordonson Josh is a sophomore at MIT who’s recently received the Awesome Foundation’s Awesome grant, which will go towards creating several cotton candy guns, exposing the world to the horrors of ‘polysaccharide warfare’. For the past few years he’s been working on wearables (soft-circuits), time keeping devices (eddy current clock and others), and cotton candy machines (both standard and projectile). In the past few weeks, he has become deeply interested in learning how to integrate electronics with biological systems. On the average day, he enjoys embedding himself in nature, learning, and pondering the path towards our inevitable robot overlords.

Past and Present projects:

• http://www.instructables.com/member/T3h_Muffinator
• http://blog.awesomefoundation.org/post/205869776/october-awesome-fellowship-the-cotton-candy-cannon

Star Simpson Star is a mysterious and oft-sought after inventor of things previously never seen on this planet. Known to use any means necessary to accomplish her goals of making things both wacky and useful, Star delights in the using tools, from welders to wire nuts, and beyond.

Past and Present projects:

• http://starbur.st/portfolio/
• http://www.instructables.com/member/stasterisk

We also have a huge selection of tools and materials at the space so come with ideas or things half-made and be creative!

Directions:

• http://microsoftcambridge.com/About/Directions/tabid/89/Default.aspx
• On the T, take the Red Line to the Kendall/MIT stop.
• Walk straight up Main Street toward the Longfellow Bridge (past the Post Office, Bank of America).
• You will see the Parking Garage on your right, Take a right and you can enter the building from the side

dorkbot-boston is a monthly gathering of people doing strange things with electricity. Artists, designers, engineers, students, scientists, hackers and anyone else interested in the creative use of electricity are encouraged to attend. dorkbot meetings are free, family-friendly and open to the public. Bring your projects, in whatever state they are in, and bring 10 friends!

This summer, dorkbot will present: hands-on workshops, outdoor hacking events (Breadboards and BBQ), tours of interactive entertainment venues, and internationally known tinkerers. To participate, please visit dorkbot-boston and join our mailing list.

dorkbot is thrilled to be working with Upgrade! Boston, a monthly gathering of artists, curators, and the public that fosters dialogue and creates opportunities for collaboration within the new media community, and Microsoft NERD to host our August meeting.

Presenter: Douglas Irving Repetto is the Director of Research at the Computer Music Center of Columbia University, where he also teaches a wide variety of classes including sculpting, electroacoustics, and music engineering, and the founder of the original dorkbot. He has become an international figure for also founding ArtBots, an international art exhibition for robotic art and art-making robots, organism:making art with living systems, a group blog of artists and scientists using biotechnology to create art, and MUSIC-DSP, a mailing list and website hosted by the California Institue of Arts that is used to share music and sound related digital signal processing (DSP) strategies, techniques, and code. Mr. Repetto has also collaborated with LoVid in the creation of “Bonding Engery”, a set of “sunsmile” devices that collect and measure solar energy from seven sites in New York state, and in work on the Cross Current Resonance Transducer, a solar energy to sound and movement transducer.

OpenDork – Everyone is encouraged to bring your own recently completed or projects-in-progress for OpenDork, a lightning round-the-room session of peer-review and general showing-off. Art and technology projects at all stages (sketchbook to polished) and of all levels of complexity are welcomed. This is the perfect chance to say, “Hey, I’m trying to do something interesting… here is what I’ve got so far. Can anyone offer suggestions to move forward?”

More Event Info at Upgrade!Boston

A few weeks ago, I made a plea for some help organizing dorkbot gatherings and am thrilled to let you know that Emily Daniels has stepped up to help w/ dorkbot-boston!

She is a multimedia artist, tool-maker, community organizer and educator based in the Boston area. After earning a BFA in painting and printmaking from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, she went on to become the School Director of Kaplan Aspect – Harvard Square and has since developed and established the school as a leader in ESL education. Her more recent projects involve creating interactive robots that express emotions or thoughts in order to generate empathy and make a more approachable and personable experience with computing machines.

What impresses me about Emily is her commitment to community building and figuring out ways to break down the artificial barriers between various art/tech/hacker/school/etc groups around Boston. She speaks passionately about her own work but is equally enthusiastic about other people and their projects. She has an attitude of collaboration and has already proven it through things like organizing a talk at Barcamp about hackergroups and spaces, collecting resources to share with dorkbot members, and evangelizing on behalf of what crazy things people are doing with electricity.

It’s great to have her on board! We’re already starting to work on the
next few dorkbot meetings, some dorkbot field trips, free workshops and lots of other strange activities to fill your summer.

With that being said: If you’re ever interested in helping organize dorkbot-boston or even just want to offer suggestions for speakers, venues, or activities, then the door is wide open for anyone willing to step up!

Click to view Christy’s website.

Typewriters that argue with each other, mobile phonographs, and a device that tunes its own sounds are among Christy Georg’s artwork she will discuss at the October 7, 2008 gathering of Dorkbot Boston at the Charles River Museum of Industry in Waltham, MA. The talk is free and open to the public.

Christy Georg is an artist specializing in kinetic sculpture. Christy Georg has been called “a sculptor of wit and ingenuity, clearly in the tradition of Jean Tinguely and Bruce Nauman, but brilliantly original in her use of existential humor to invigorate the works” by sculptor Rob Fisher. Born in Chicago and raised in Houston, she received her MFA from Massachusetts College of Art, her BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute, and studied glassblowing at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. She has exhibited widely, having solo exhibitions at the Contemporary Artists Center in North Adams, the Roswell Museum, Gettysburg College, and University of Massachusetts at Lowell. She has been awarded residencies at SculptureSpace, Ross Creek Art Center in Nova Scotia, Fine Arts Work Center, Vermont Studio Center, Boston’s Berwick Research Institute, Roswell AIR program, and the MacDowell Colony.

When: October 7, 2008 – 7:00 PM

Where: Charles River Museum of Industry 154 Moody Street Waltham, MA (Directions)

For those people who cannot make it to Waltham, or are allergic to the Charles River, you can come to our local Dorkbot meetings in Somerville on the third Tuesday of every month.

The former overlord of DorkbotAustin arrived at our doorstep, ready to do some lording over, so me made him the co-overlord of DorkbotBoston! Please welcome David by coming to his welcome party on Tuesday, August 19th at 6:30.

willoughby and baltic 195g elm stree somerville, ma 02144

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