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Please find below a press release from Goldsmiths, University of London for your attention. 22 November 2007 Inaugural Lecture: Curious things for curious people: Designing technology for everyday life Tuesday 11 December 2007, 5.30pm - 6.30pm George Wood Theatre, Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross, London SE14 6NW Admission: FREE Professor of Design and member of the innovative Interaction Research Studio, William Gaver, will deliver his Inaugural Lecture titled: 'Curious things for curious people: Designing technology for everyday life.' The Lecture will be introduced by the Warden of Goldsmiths, Professor Geoffrey Crossick, followed by a reception. Admission free, all welcome. The Lecture is unticketed, but please e- mail [log in to unmask] or telephone 020 7919 7033 if you plan to attend. Visit www.goldsmiths.ac.uk for map and travel information. Lecture summary: Digital technologies increasingly pervade our everyday lives. Sadly, they tend to reflect life as an endless round of work, entertainment and consumption. At the Interaction Research Studio, we design computational products that tell more interesting stories about who we are and what we care about. The Plane Tracker, for instance, is an appliance that tracks passing flight traffic and imagines views of their journeys. The Local Barometer is a family of small devices that display text and images from local sources as if blown through the home. The Home Health Horoscope uses a set of 'shy sensors' to pick up indicative information about household activities and reflects this back to users in the form of automatically generated horoscopes. Our designs share several features. They are purposefully made open- ended, even ambiguous, to evoke curiosity and engagement rather than provide predetermined experiences. They raise spaces of issues and possibilities, but allow people to find their own answers within them. They provide new views on the world, simultaneously asking questions about the values we find in technology, and the values we embrace more generally. In this lecture, I will describe a number of the artifacts we have built and what happens when we allow people to try them for extended periods of time. I explain the design-centred methods we use for understanding people, exploring possible designs, and assessing the results, and propose these methods as an alternative to more traditional science and engineering approaches. Finally, I will discuss how doing this work in the multifaceted Goldsmiths environment is shaping our approach to address new issues in the future. Notes to editors: Professor William Gaver has pursued research on innovative technologies for over 15 years, following a trajectory that led from experimental science to design. His research work has included an auditory interface for the Macintosh, devices that allow people to move remote video cameras as if looking through a window, and, most recently, a number of systems that explore playful interactions at home. Much of his work has been pursued with and for companies such as Intel, France Telecom, Hewlett Packard, IBM and Xerox. He is a member of the AHRC and EPSRC Peer Review Colleges and also on the Steering Group for the Joint Council Designing for the 21st Century initiative. For more information on the Interaction Research Studio visit http:// www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/interaction/index.php Images and interviews with Professor Gaver are available on request. Press enquiries: Tim Hirst, Communications and Publicity, tel 020 7919 7970, e-mail [log in to unmask] Tim Hirst Press & PR Officer Goldsmiths, University of London New Cross, London SE14 6NW t: +44 (0)20 7919 7970 f +44 (0)20 7919 7975 e: [log in to unmask] www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/experts ==== Paul Brown - based in the UK October - November 2007 mailto:[log in to unmask] == http://www.paul-brown.com UK Mobile +44 (0)794 104 8228 == USA fax +1 309 216 9900 Skype paul-g-brown ==== Visiting Professor - Sussex University http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/ccnr/research/creativity.html ====