[Eyebeam Presents] #ArtsTech: Slow Tech

August is a slow month in the city, so we decided to slow it down with the topic of Slow Tech (http://blog.jackcheng.com/post/25160553986/the-slow-web).

The default of our digital lives tends to have us chasing the latest update: making information more instantaneous, real-time, and bite-size. But that doesn't always work for the type of content many #ArtsTech members engage with--the kind that encourages close looking, close reading, and quiet contemplation.

Slow Tech can be about finding the time to unplug, hard though it may be to go without our Twitter and Tumblr for a day. Or it can be about slowing down to take more time to read that 8,000 word article or watch that 2 hr documentary.

A selection of speakers will present their slow tech philosophies.

HUGE thanks to Ximena (https://www.meetup.com/Arts-Culture-and-Technology/members/26159972/) and Dylan (https://www.meetup.com/Arts-Culture-and-Technology/members/11009472/) for their help putting this together!

Schedule:

7:00pm – Doors. Mingling over wine and snacks provided by Tumblr (http://www.tumblr.com/)

7:30-8:30pm – Presentations

8:30-10:00pm – Conversation continues over wine

Speakers:

Gilly Leshed (http://leshed.comm.cornell.edu/) is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Science (http://www.infosci.cornell.edu/) at Cornell University (http://www.cornell.edu/), where she teaches human-computer interaction courses. She studies how individuals and groups accomplish tasks and socialize and the roles technologies play in these interactions, and she designs technologies that support these practices. She studies how individuals and families use technologies in a world driven by productivity, efficiency, ongoing interaction, and schedules, and has been designing the technologies GoSlow (http://leshed.comm.cornell.edu/pubs/p429-cheng.pdf) and cal.m that reintroduce moments of pause, reflection, serendipity, and downtime.

Dan Phiffer (http://phiffer.org/) is an artist/hacker from California interested in the cultural dimension of low-cost communications networks. Dan works as a web developer at the Museum of Modern Art where he helps build and maintain MoMA.org (http://www.moma.org). His pirate wifi project, Occupy.here (http://occupyhere.org/), recently received a Rhizome (http://rhizome.org/) commission. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and cat.

Andy Nealen (http://www.nealen.com/index.htm) is a faculty member in the department of computer science at NYU Poly (http://www.poly.edu/), where he teaches and researches game design and engineering. Some time ago, he studied architecture and structural engineering, and worked in those fields before turning his attention to the study and design of games and computer graphics. He has since obtained a PhD in computer science, helped out with the award-winning game Osmos (http://www.hemispheregames.com/osmos/), published work at Siggraph (http://www.siggraph.org/), and spoken at international game and graphics conferences. Some of his current obsessions include minimalist game design, the semiology of graphics, perceptual science, tabletop game design, and simple graphical user interfaces.

Dan Visel (http://mobilityshifts.org/conference/participants/keynotes/dan-viesel/) is a contributing editor of Triple Canopy (http://canopycanopycanopy.com/). He is presently working for Unfold, a start-up mapping political discourse. Besides working as a book designer and editor, he has since 2005 been been part of the Institute for the Future of the Book (http://www.futureofthebook.org/), a Brooklyn-based think tank focusing on the changing nature of the book as it moved from the printed page to the networked screen; in addition to managing the Institute's software development projects, he has written and spoken extensively about the changing nature of the book and its relation to technology.

This event is made possible with support from Eyebeam (http://eyebeam.org/) and Tumblr (http://www.tumblr.com/), and livestream support from CultureHub (http://www.culturehub.org/).

About our sponsors:

Eyebeam (http://eyebeam.org/) is the leading not-for-profit art and technology center in the United States. It provides a fertile context and state-of-the-art tools for digital research and experimentation.

Tumblr (http://www.tumblr.com/) is a microblogging platform and social networking website that allows users to share multimedia content quickly and easily with a vibrant community of peers.

CultureHub (http://www.culturehub.org/) is an incubator for creativity focused on bringing together artists from diverse disciplines and cultures to explore art and technology as a means for developing new forms of expression, sharing creative experiences and promoting global collaboration, learning and innovation.