INTERWEAVING TECHNOLOGIES - THE AESTHETICS OF DIGITAL URBAN LIVING

/ / / THE CONFERENCE HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO THE TRANSPORT PROBLEMS FOLLOWING THE VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS IN ICELAND / / /

The urban environment is increasingly formed by the development of digital and mobile media. Although these new technologies are generic in structure, they shape the environment differently, based on the context and site in which they are interwoven.

Latest information, programme etc.: http://darc.imv.au.dk/?page_id=450

Tags: aarhus | conference | digital aesthetics | events | interface aesthetics

New products for digital media platforms – which and how? iPhone, Twitter, Web-flow, E-magazines, Urban Screens, Live text. [Klik her for dansk version]

While the printed newspaper still is the primary revenue source, the big media organizations must develop and publish new products for digital platforms. These platforms will in the early 2010s supplement print, and then gradually to a large extent take over the printed papers' market position and place in society. Most journalists and media professionals agree on this view, the big questions are just: Which products? How should they be produced? What's the business model?

The research project "New digital stories on web and mobile" has studied such issues for the period August 2009 to March 2010. As part of the national research center Digital Urban Living (DUL), a team of researchers, developers and journalists from UPDATE (Danish School of Media and Journalism) and DUL (Aarhus University) conducted a prolonged development, test and analysis project.

The first results come out in the form of an interim report, "E-publicering" (in Danish), which in seven chapters condenses the findings. The report is available as a free download (PDF) [5 MB].

Tags: civic communication | iPhone | journalism | news | publication | Twitter

Michael Mose Biskjær, MA, has recently joined DUL as a PhD fellow. Since graduating from Aarhus University, Michael has taught a number of academic courses and has worked on a recently completed innovation research project at Aarhus School of Business. In a collaboration with The LEGO Group, this project has developed the first-ever model for lead user-based entrepreneurship.

Michael’s PhD research centres on improving the understanding of collaborative, creative processes within the realm of digital media. Both classic and current avant-garde movements have developed and refined innovative and effective intervention techniques – such as obstructions, imperatives, arbitrariness etc. – to ignite and stimulate creative processes.

Tags: people | user-driven innovation

Christina Jakobsen is a PhD student at the department of Computer Science, Aarhus University, and is joining DUL for cooperation. With a background in Information Studies and Design and Design processes from Aarhus University, she is returning to familiar ground.
Her PhD project is entitled "User driven innovation as a strategy in building processes". The main case study of the PhD is the building process of MEDIASPACE the future main library at Aarhus harbor, in which DUL is also involved. The aim of the project is to explore the opportunities and challenges of co-designing technology, future practice and a future physical building in the context of a building process.

Tags: new urban areas | people | user-driven innovation

Exploring experience communication in consumer culture

Based at the Centre for Corporate Communication at Aarhus Business School/ Aarhus University, Erik Sloth is a PhD student and researcher with the Digital Urban Living project.
His specific research field is experience communication. With regard to the formulation of the objectives and research questions of this part of the DUL project, he will address the following two questions:

1) What characterizes the hypermodern citizen, and how is it possible to interact with him/her, taking into consideration his/her digital urban living?
2) How is the hyper-modern citizen constituted within digital urban living across civic communication, hyper-local news, digital art, branding, learning, and community building?

Tags: business | experience communication | people

Seminar on the city, art and media technologies

The ability of digital media to add an extra layer to the cityscape characterizes the experience of the city as mobile phones, cameras, media facades and other interfaces diffuses into the urban scenery. In the urban interface we find lexical indexes linked to maps, links to other places and images of what used to be at a specific location, surveillance devices, etc. The seminar focuses on how and in what ways we can experience the city’s layers and the simultaneous view of (past, lost, virtual, future) information and a specific location – through artistic installations, urban games or architectural strategies.

Tags: aesthetics | architecture | cultural heritage | digital aesthetics | events | interface aesthetics | urbanity