Thursday, September 5th, 7:00 – 9:30pm
Applied Matter and Beyond
In The Duncan Anderson Design Department Gallery at California State University, Long Beach
Oliver Hess is interested in the points of contact between the two fields of his interest: the social computer and machines to make the future. He is Director Emeritus of Materials and Applications, a non-profit organization that produces installations twice yearly and hosts open air discussions, workshops, performances and other public events.
Social computers are groups of people oriented toward a shared goal that they solve iteratively, intuitively, and through the innovations and coincidence that inspiration of groups bring. In essence the social computer is programmed to solve problems in a way silicon computers never could. Social computers are programmed with inspiration and mythology and have an output of ownership, pride, enthusiasm and the poetry of another generation of the myth.
Machines to make the future are robots, prosthetics, computer programs sensor networks and sensory feedback machines that create an experience where the users of the machine can feel that their technology is moving them toward a future that is compatible with their interests. The machines to make the future are largely involved in innovation where only the arts allows development that is too ahead of its time to be commercially viable or too unprofitable to be relevant to main stream awareness. It is important to develop these technologies and use them to steer the imagination of the future.
Oliver Hess is self-educated but owes his knowledge to all the people who inspired him, working side by side for decades to develop a vast ocean of knowledge that he is happy to share with anyone who wants to propose research concepts to his studio Aperiodic Industries. An archive of his personal work is visible at choubun.com (a eulogy in japanese.)
IDSA-LA 