[iDC] Intro - Karmen

[Karmen Franinovic]

Hello everyone!

My name is Karmen Franinovic, and I will be speaking at the
Architecture and Situated Technologies symposium. Trebor invited me to
introduce myself and my work to the list. The issues tackled in
discussions on the iDC list and the upcoming symposium are very close
to my own concerns, which have grown out from my background in
architecture, communication studies and interaction design.

In last ten years my research/practice has moved from exploring
digital architecture and theories (+ designing public buildings in
arch. studios), to more tangible and interactive urban installations.
The latter have aimed at providing contexts for the emergence of new
social and sensorial ecologies in the city, and challenging our
established everyday routines and behaviours. For example, the
Recycled Soundscapes project questions the ways in which we listen to
urban soundscapes and how we produce them; Kontakt offers the
possibility/excuse to touch others and to collaboratively generate
sound-light atmospheres.  (To check out this and other work you may
visit Zero-Th Association which I co-founded together with Yon Visell
: www.zero-th.org )

These projects, I believe, fit Usman's ideas about architecture, which
include the immaterial, social, sensorial and affective flows and
relations, rather then material structure alone: "It is about
developing ways to make people themselves more engaged with, and
ultimately responsible for, the spaces that they inhabit. It is about
investing the production of architecture with the poetries of its
inhabitants." Can these poetries and architectures break routine
patterns and raise awareness about our behaviours in public space? Can
we, as artists/designers/architects activate tensions hidden in the
urban space in order to question assumptions and beliefs?

... just a few thoughts.

Best,
Karmen