Back in December I had the lovely opportunity to sit on a panel with Alex Leitch and Pearl Chen at the TIFF Nexus Women in Film, Games, and New Media Conference. Alex unpacked the wonders of DIY Fabrication while Pearl reminded us that code literacy will be one of the most important issues of this coming decade. You should watch their brilliant talks. Seriously.
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I love working with emerging technologies.But one of the problems you face in working with a medium that is constantly changing is that sooner than later your work ceases to be. It becomes outdated, falls apart, or the things necessary to maintain it become unavailable. While ideally I’d like to be a proper archivist of my own work, it’s just not something I’ve been able to maintain in the midst of my other activities. This is one reason among many that I am completely thrilled to announce that the Museum of Modern Art’s Architecture & Design Acquisition Committee has approved the addition of Botanicalls to the MoMA permanent collection! This means that after the Talk to Me exhibition closes, Botanicalls will join the likes of Eames chairs the BIC pen, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Starry Night. It’s a huge honor and we’d like to thank the acquisition committee, as well as the many collaborators who have helped Botanicalls along the way, a few of whom include: Gabe Barcia-Colombo, Andrew Schneider, Limor Fried, Phil Torrone, Nathan Seidle, Jim Lindblom, Tom Igoe, Red Burns, Dan O’Sullivan, Danny Rozin, Clay Shirky, Josh London, Eric Beug, Jimmy Garver, K Otterness, JooYoun Paek, Chris Paretti, John Frazier and many others. This is a project that has been underway since 2006 with 3 collaborators who have become some of my closest friends. Here’s some memories from along the way:
Last summer (while I was wearing my ITP Camp Director hat) John Dimatos & I were interview by Rick Karr about our beloved ITP/NYU for the new video series “NYC 2.0″. ITP Classic starts at 15:15, ITP Camp at 20:30. It is my impression that aspiring musicians ravish the opportunity to open for another band that they idolize. I felt similarly when Alicia Gibb called me and asked if I would do a talk directly following the keynote at the Open Hardware Summit by four of the five Arduino dudes. What to fun to share the stage with these Open Hardware celebrities! My talk was titled “Edges, Openings, and In-Betweens”. While I’ve dabbling in Open Hardware, as is often the case with my work I am just as attracted to the overarching concepts tied to the movement as the details of how it is put into practice. In addition to talking a bit about my own work and my use of open hardware within academia, I also spoke a bit about what it means to be open. Where does the object end and the idea begin? What are the all different levels on which these things are open? My favorite word of the day was “thingness”, specifically referring to what it means to be a thing and when a thing goes beyond a thing. Arduino is a good example to start with, as the team cites it as being 3 things: hardware, software, and a community. I wonder how our consideration of things and their porosity will develop as the open movement continues…
I’m entering a phase where I want to work big and hanging out with friends who create projects on a larger scale serves as great inspiration. Last May I had the awesome opportunity to volunteer on John Rose‘s newest project – the Harvest Pyramid. This 40-foot tall structure was specially designed as a venue for Harvest Festival, one of the most enjoyable events I’ve been to in Ontario.
Below is a time-lapse video of the build. You may recognize the woman working at the top towards the end. Those rock climbing skills sure do come in handy! You can read more about the design process on John’s website. Glacier, hats, and houseplants, oh my! My long-awaited TED talk is finally online. Here it is:
While running ITP Camp this summer I had the opportunity to have a fabulous conversation with Antonius Wiriadjaja – current ITP student and guest blogger for art:21. The result was “Kate Hartman Talks to Herself … and the Art21 Blog“, by far the most pleasant and comprehensive interview I’ve done to date. If you’d like to know what I’ve been up to recently it’s worth checking out!
While it’s fantastic to continually do things you never would have dreamed of as a kid, it’s also nice to do things that you have. From now until November 7th three of my pieces will be on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York as part of the Talk to Me exhibition curated by Paola Antonelli. Here is the official description of the show:
My projects can be found on the MOMA website here: And additional photos can be found on Flickr.
A little over two years ago I responded to a job posting for “Assistant or Associate Professor in Wearable/Mobile Technology and Interfaces”. While OCAD had a strong history of teaching fibre, jewelry making, industrial design, and mobile development, wearable technology was an area just starting to be explored. Two years later I’m happy to report that we’ve successful launched two new courses (1 & 2) as well as an undergraduate minor in this field of study. Yesterday the Toronto Star published a great article on some of these recent developments:
Congrats to my fantastic students and thanks to Madhavi Acharya-Tom Yew for visiting our class and for opening up our conversations to a broader audience! |
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Copyright © 2012 Kate Hartman - All Rights Reserved |
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