Think outside the screen: spaces and activities to navigate the physical & digital world
Tinkering and Making Space (La Cassiere Hall)
With the surge of interest in making and the increased availability of approachable digital tools like micro:bit and block-based coding, there have never been more opportunities to make 21st century skills like coding and computational thinking creative and tinkerable.
As digital technologies increasingly enter our lives, there is a risk that we will spend more time passively watching screens rather than actively creating with materials and technologies. We believe that approaches combining physical and digital materials can open up opportunities for a deep understanding of technology.
By approaching digital technologies through an aesthetic lens with inspiration from artists, we can make them engaging and personally meaningful. This approach can help make topics like computational literacy, digital fabrication, and other high-tech topics accessible and relevant to learners of all backgrounds and interest levels.
Limited to 25 participants.
This session is sponsored by Archimedes Exhibitions as a part of the 21st century skills conference track
Outcomes: what will participants get from this session? Skills, knowledge, experience etc.
In this workshop, we will gain direct experience with 3 digital tinkering activities that range from creating immersive projections to making fabric art with code.
We will experience how aesthetics and storytelling can be a way into developing an intuitive understanding of and creativity with digital tools.
We will share concrete design principles for inclusive digital tinkering spaces and lessons learned from developing and facilitating activities in 3 institutions
Facilitator
MIT Media Lab - Research Affiliate
San Francisco
United States
Session speakers
We offer temporary and low-threshold science communication activities to underserved districts of Vienna in order to reach people who do not have access or who won’t just go and visit established science communication and educational institutions.
We’ll share our experience with Computational Tinkering activities that include programming. The block based programming interface is easy to access (only a browser is needed and no coding) which leads to fast success experiences and visitors can continue at home if they want. Combining Coding with physical materials also allows to relate to different interests of diverse visitors.
The use of digital technology is often passive and is almost never associated with elements of expression, emotions and creativity. In these activities, starting from artistic inspirations produced by two guest artists, Carlo Riccobono (auroraMeccanica) and Machiel Veltkamp, we invite the participants to produce installations and performances using projectors, speakers and dedicated software. We will use Isadora, a software used for video mapping to cover by light three-dimensional structures, using an user-interface developed by the artist to make the original software more accessible, and Scratch, to play with shadows and projections. These tools have the aim to explore the artistic languages exposed in the installations presented as inspirations by the artists, as a “capture” moment, and bring the public closer to the science and technology that constitute them. These instruments have been chosen or developed so that they are accessible to anyone and able to give the possibility of complex creations.
Head of Exhibition and Education
We are surrounded by attention grabbing screens - an assault on the here and now. At Technorama we focus on multisensorial interactions with natural phänomena and materials. In the digital context, this is an extraordinary challenge.
We use pre-configured motors, knobs, and sensors to allow for a low ceiling screen-free first contact with the digital. With paper, pens, and glue you can create and animate your own worlds and characters. As long as you can glue paper on a motor you are in. Let’s start diving into the digital world of wonders and tell your own story.
