Continuing my penchant for sharing reading lists (see my mislabeled “Books” category for more), here’s one sent out to an anthropology listserv I’m on for Ethnographic Perspectives on Design. I’m guessing Carl or Anne would have some others to add…
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I’m in San Francisco, after visiting New Zealand, Boston/Cape Cod, Des Moines, and Kansas City since graduating a month ago. I should have announced it sooner, but I’m now midway into my first week as a User Interface Designer at Google, working alongside Kevin Fox and the rest of the UI Design team. I’m honored and excited.
Thanks to Carl for guestblogging, and I’m looking forward to reading his own when it’s up.
More in a few days—right now I’m busy moving, enjoying the city, and learning the ropes at my job.
As this is not my blog, I’m going to shy away from directly dealing with politics. But this event is too important not to pay attention too.
ARTISTS SUBPOENAED IN USA PATRIOT ACT CASE
Feds STILL unable to distinguish art from bioterrorism
Grand jury to convene June 15
Three artists have been served subpoenas to appear before a federal grand jury that will consider bioterrorism charges against a university professor whose art involves the use of simple biology equipment.
The subpoenas are the latest installment in a bizarre investigation in which members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force have mistaken an art project for a biological weapons laboratory (see background below). While most observers have assumed that the Task Force would realize the absurd error of its initial investigation of Steve Kurtz, the subpoenas indicate that the feds have instead chosen to press their “case” against the baffled professor.
Two of the subpoenaed artists–Beatriz da Costa and Steve Barnes–are, like Kurtz, members of the internationally-acclaimed Critical Art Ensemble (CAE), an artists’ collective that produces artwork to educate the public about the politics of biotechnology. They were served the subpoenas by federal agents who tailed them to an art show at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. The third artist, Paul Vanouse, is, like Kurtz, an art professor at the University at Buffalo. He has worked with CAE in the past.
More information on the Critical Art Ensemble.
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Steve Dietz has a nice synopsis of a dicussion Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby participated in entitled Consuming Monsters: Big, Perfect, Infectious.
I am always impressed by Dunne + Raby’s work, it’s smart and well-executed. What’s more, I think it’s profoundly important for design to develop critical practices and discourse from within. And Dunne + Raby’s work is a stellar example of one form of a criticial design practice.
Also, Dietz’s WebWalkAbout is worth keeping an eye on.
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