Open Source industrial design in New York

Art & Craft Workshop系列 從手藝作業而來的快樂，由夏天一條連身裙開始……

IN the age of new technologies- Revolutionary ideas and technologies are brought into the process of "Make" and "'Grow". DIY culture together with open source movement make everyone an inventor and an entrepreneur. We can build our remote controller, chinese writing pad using ipone, we can build our musical instrument using retro technologies such as the copier, fax machine.
We see 'grow your animation' from people using processing and 'grow your meat' as in bio art research. Generative software are now solving problems for us from random and artificial intelligence.

Democracy is out. We no longer need to be represented, we represent ourselves and we share our presence. The ideas of sustainability and 'living green' is also part of this cureent.

SEE emphasizes sustainability and creativity in life are hosting this 'make my own dress' workshop. Wanna bring in some new technologies here?


MYOD工作坊

手藝作業，讓活在虛擬與數字世界的城市人經驗實在與創造而來滿足，思網絡將於5月舉辦首次一連兩堂的“Make your own DRESS”工作坊，拉攏資深自由設計師兼收藏家Vincent AY與沙田區以布藝在家小本創業的Helen嘗試cross over，教大家自己親手加工與創作一條獨一無二的連身裙，讓你在壓力緊迫的生活，轉移視線在這穿得上身的瑣事花心思，與朋友一同分享「手製」的樂趣，重新感受生活中原始的簡單和快樂。。

Make your own DRESS! 工作坊宣傳短片：
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fc27czhw9o

工作坊詳情
日期：2009年5月16日及23日(一連兩堂)
時間：下午2:30 – 5:00
地點：思網絡工作室, 上環皇后大道中233號柏聯樓3樓
導師：資深自由設計師兼收藏家Vincent AY
收費：680元 首次報名優惠 550元正
(連基本裙一條, 包材料費及導師費)
名額：20人 (額滿即止)

如欲參加或有任何查詢,可電郵到 project.see08@gmail.com 或致電 21274504 (Samantha Lam)

Grow your own media lab (the graphic novel)

Text by James Wallbank
Pictures by Michael Tesh
Design by Scott Hawkins
Access Space, 2008
ISBN 978-0-95500-913-6
Access Space is an open access media lab based in Sheffield. Access Space encourages people to learn how to use hardware re-used from local companies and Free Software from the GNU project and others. This saves money and builds skills. Those skills can then be shared to build a self-reliant and sustainable community around the lab.

Since being founded in the year 2000 Access Space has thrived where many community and government schemes have failed. This has drawn attention from groups eager to understand and reproduce its success. This has led to the Arts-Council-funded study "Grow Your Own Media Lab", of which the final report is the graphic novel of the same name "Grow Your Own Media Lab (The Graphic Novel)" or GYOML for short.

GYOML is a 114-page A5 perfect-bound book. The cover is a vivid black and yellow composition. Part Principia Discordia, part Emigre, it will look equally at home in gallery bookshops and alternative press outlets. Curious browsers will be hard pressed to resist taking a look. Inside, the book is black & white throughout with an introductory text followed by alternating pages of titles and comic-book illustrations of case studies.

Most books that use a Creative Commons licence either don't specify the licence or use one of the more restrictive licences. You'd be surprised how many cheerleaders for Free Software and Free Culture have restrictive licences on their books. Kudos to Access Space for getting the licence right (the copyleft "Attribution-ShareAlike" licence) and making sure that it's explained clearly in the book's front matter. This ensures that GYOML continues the Access Space ethos of sharing cultural and technological wealth in a principled and practical way.

The comic-book illustrations by Michael Tesh are in fanzine style, a characterful and evocative aesthetic for a small press publication. I found myself smiling at the clear inner thoughts of some of the people Tesh depicts, and if you meet one of Access Space's personnel after seeing his depictions of them you'll feel you already know them. What makes Tesh's art the perfect illustration for the case studies is that he is an Access Space regular.

Rather than providing an instruction manual for using software, which the book's introduction rightly points out would quickly become outdated, GYOML presents a series of case studies of users of the lab and the situations that they encounter. The case studies include a shy teenager, a nervous work placement, a mature student and a refugee dissident, all people learning from and contributing to different aspects of the running of Access Space. This illustrates the value of Access Space's approach and explain how, and more importantly why, to recreate it.

Despite not being a software manual there is a surprising wealth of technical and administrative information delivered surprisingly painlessly mixed in with the case studies. Such as how and why to use computers that businesses will pay you to take away from them, how and why to use Free Software, and how and why to make a server to keep users' work safe if one of those reclaimed computers breaks down. The names of Free Software operating system and art software is mentioned, as is how to learn more about them, so it is easy to find out more. And I didn't know how to crimp an RJ-45 ethernet cable before reading GYOML. Now I do.

For all the talk of "grass roots activism" and "alternative governance" on mailing lists, in universities, and at conferences there is often a disconnect between the rhetoric of technological radicalism and actually doing anything in society. We can learn a lot from Access Space's determination to get their hands dirty and to use technology as a means to the end of empowering people. A few years ago I helped out at Remix Reading's open access lab, which was inspired to adopt Access Space's way of working, so I can say from personal experience that running a lab is a rewarding experience.

GYOML is an effective and persuasive exposition of the virtues of Access Space's way of doing things. It is inspirational, unpretentious and informative. We need more like Access Space, and GYOML shows us how to do it. Let a thousand media labs bloom.

Chinese Farmers Build Birds Nest Stadium Out of Bamboo [DIY]

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via gizmodo

It is so late for this news but what a good robo promo that can't be missed