open-source

Make it shareable – Bits of my talk at Interactivos 2015

  At the beginning of December 2015 I was in Madrid for “Objects in common” seminar session at Medialab Prado. Here’s the summary of my talk and below the slides: Open source projects are focused on involving a community of users and engaging them in different ways. It’s not only a matter of uploading a file, or some code. The process of sharing is a complex effort of internal and external communication: it’s about understanding the immaterial value that can be exchanged among the people participating but also the limits and obstacles you encounter on your path of growth. In the last 10 years, the debate around open source has been growing in unexpected areas of the socalled “creative industries”. From software, code and computer’s operating systems (like Linux), open source moved to content creation, knowledge, art, journalism, photography, music. Thanks to the power of the web and the accessibility of personal computers and mobile phones connected to it, it

read more Make it shareable – Bits of my talk at Interactivos 2015

The Culture Dress – Experiments during Makers in Residence

“The Culture Dress” series is a collaboration between media artist Afroditi Psarra and architect Dafni Papadopoulou that aims to combine electronic handicrafts with parametric design and digital fabrication on an ongoing research on wearables. The project was developed during the Maker-In-Residence program at WeMake, Milan´s Makerspace that I’m curating. Dafni and Afroditi spent with us two weeks in our guest-room at the second floor of the makerspace. I’ve been following the work of Afroditi for a couple of years and it was great to have her with us, meet with Dafni and make our community know about their practise. Explore more pics and other documentation: wemake.cc/mir/  

The Journal of Design Strategies on Alternative Fashion Systems

Pascale Gatzen and Otto von Busch  are the Guest Editors of The Journal of Design Strategies Volume 7  titled Alternative Fashion Systems and containing the edited transcript of the presentation I gave at Parsons 3 years ago: “From Open Source Branding to Collaborative Clothing”. The following article is the letter from the editors, opening the Volume:

Shaping the Future of Digital Social Innovation in Europe

In 2013 I was invited by Nesta to join the Advisory Group to advise on a major new policy study on digital social innovation in Europe. The study has been looking at grassroots civic innovation enabled by the internet, and at how social innovation is being enabled by the “network effect” of the Internet and new open innovation models. The study has been run by Nesta, in partnership with the WAAG Society (NL), ESADE (SP), IRI (FR), and Future Everything (UK) and it has been exploring how emerging technologies in the digital economy can transform society by the mobilisation of collective action, enable a more collaborative economy, new ways of making, citizen participation, sustainability and social innovation. In February I’ll be in Brussels to discuss lessons from the 18-month research and the future of DSI in Europe.

Exchanging ideas on open fashion and tech at MeshCon: podcasts are online!

How to reap the benefits of participatory production in the textile industry was the topic of the first edition of MeshCon taking place in Berlin last October from 10 to 15, 2014: We are developing concepts and Free and Open Source technologies for fair and environment friendly production of garments and textiles at home and in the industry. MeshCon Berlin brings together industry representatives, fashion designers, pattern creators, knitters, textile manipulators, FOSS developers and DIY hardware makers. The event offers a place to exchange new ideas in personalized fashion and technologies in the garment production. I was invited to give a talk, but I couldn’t travel in those days. I suggest to listen to the recorded files in 13 podcasts of the event, and especially: Open Tools for Computational Craft Glitchaus Project: Between pixel art, textile design, and digital techniques with knitting machines Digital Patternmaking with Project Valentina on PCs