Welcome to REGIONAL, the partnership of Joshua Kauffman and Gwendolyn Floyd
Recent and Ongoing Projects
“Designing for Cuba: necessary in(ter)vention” (Stanford University, April 11, 2008)
The Stanford HCI Department has invited us to speak in their ongoing lecture series on People, Computers and Design. The Stanford HCI Group works across disciplines to understand the intersection between humans and computers. For this talk we will lead an expanded discussion on our work with emerging technology in Cuba and the lessons it offers for social dynamics and technological development across the world. (link to abstract of talk. link to lecture series website)
“The Ethics of Ubiquitous Social Networking” (Budapest, Hungary, September 25-27, 2008)
The Hungarian Academy of Sciences and T-Mobile Hungary are organizing a conference as part of their ongoing extensive research into Communications in the 21st Century. We will be presenting a paper that discusses how the progressive development of mobile communications will reassert the embodied
and provide tools for social intelligence and collective action. (link to conference.)
O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference (San Diego, March 3- March 6, 2008)
“Of necessity and humanity: what Cuba can teach us about ourselves and our own technology.” The Cuban people live in acute technological scarcity, yet illuminate strategies for living and creating in a society of excess. This talk will share inspiring adaptations and surprising interpretations of technology in a country that is constantly on the brink of emergence and complete transformation. (link to conference. link to REGIONAL’s Cuba talk. link to report on BoingBoing. link to Cory Doctorow’s extensive notes.)
MOMA’s Design and the Elastic Mind includes Gwendolyn’s “Surround Sound Eyewear”
Surround Sound Eyewear is a hearing-aid/spectacle hybrid that returns to the hearing-impaired saturating soundscapes and near-perfect speech intelligibility.
Shenzhen & Hong Kong biennale of Urbanism and Architecture (Shenzhen, PRC)
Shenzhen has responded to the flattening of the global economy by flattening its own topographical features, replacing natural landmarks with built construction. ‘Foregound’ recreates Shenzhen’s lost topography by mapping a recently removed mountain-ridge onto the central axis of the Biennale site thereby exposing pre-urban ecological networks. By confronting the space between the present and the past, ‘foreground’ stimulates an expanding dialogue on Chinese urbanization and environmentalism.
Self-Portraiture and emerging artistic consciousness in Dafen ‘Oil Painting’ Village (Buji, PRC)
Sixty-percent of the world’s oil paintings are produced in Dafen, the majority of which are reproductions. This project will productively collaborate with the indigenous creativity and community by encouraging the unique concentration of artistic talent to create original works for the global markets. The first series, an exercise in free-form self-portraiture, in now underway.
Rooftop Sessions (London, New York City, Frankfurt, Amsterdam)
REGIONAL is a co-founder of Rooftop. Rooftop facilitates dialogue between global organizations and independent experts for focused collaborative exploration and creation. Recent sessions in London, New York and Amsterdam produced technological inventions and social-cultural forecasts that identified significant opportunities in the future of fashion, interior design and architecture. The next session this May for a major global mobile player, is about mobile social applications.