I suppose I could be classified as an interaction designer that works across the disciplines of graphic design, sculpture, installation and performance. My design process produces artworks and experiences born from my own heuristic/intuitive exploration of physical computing and advanced digital systems.
The specific types of interaction I am most interested in are improvisation and play, with my creative research and studio practice producing three closely-related outcomes:
1. Making Electro-Mechanical Objects and Installations involving both micro-electronics and advanced physical computing software. This type of work is mostly exhibited in art gallery situations in a wide range of contexts from tradional ‘white cube’ galleries to alternative venues like vacant store front properties.
2. Creating Site-Specific Events that interact with the physical world through sensing, processing and affecting human experience. This involves collaborative and improvised audio/visual performances and installations, also in a wide range of venues.
3. Teaching Young People to Realize Their Creative Potential is something that is core to my being and influenced/inspired by my exploration of my own cross-disciplinary creative process. I believe that teaching is the most significant thing I can do with my time on this planet.
I believe that a contemporary design education must be truly cross-disciplinary and holistic, (following the tradition of pragmatist philosophy), to educate students towards the development of an individual design methodology, (a cognitive understanding of how one manifests individual creativity). If a student “learns about life by living it”, (John Dewey), through a kinesthetic relation to their work, they become dynamically connected to the world around them and are aware of the inter-connectedness of mind, body and spirit that constitute one’s experience of living and source of inspiration for a lifetime.
My formative education and a large portion of my life’s experiences are in graphic design, with a specific focus on realizing the affects of “design thinking” on society and culture. This knowledge inspires my current practice, most obviously in my use (and love) of typography. The phenomenological and psychological nature of letterforms as symbols of meaning is fascinating.
Published Texts:
Raven Press: An Education in the Making.
Matrix: A Review for Printers and Bibliophiles, Issue 28, Summer 2009.
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| Matrix ©2009 The Whittington Press, Herefordshire, U.K. | |||
Visual Communications at the University of Delaware
Baseline Magazine, Issue 57, Fall 2009.
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| Baseline Magazine ©2009 Bradbourne Publishing Ltd. | ||
Unpublished Texts:
Thinking Through Making: The Value of Letterpress in Contemporary Graphic Design Education
Paper presentation at the 2010 College Art Association Conference.
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