[Sep 21st] Hack the Senses: Can we redesign perception?
Carl H Smith
Director of the Learning Technology Research Centre (LTRC) and Principal Research Fellow based at Ravensbourne.
His background is in Computer Science and Architecture. He has 16 years experience conducting R+D into the application of hybrid technologies for perceptual and cognitive transformation. He is working on the newly funded Horizon 2020 project [WEKIT] Wearable Experience for Knowledge Intensive Training’ which will use the latest in wearable and motion tracking technology to create ‘wearable experience’ - an entirely new form of media. His other research interests include Embodied Cognition, Spatial Literacy, Perceptual Technology and Human Centric Methodologies and Pedagogies. In partnership, he has recently created the Holoportal Ravensbourne, which aims to create an AIR b’n’b for bodies where your high definition avatar can be placed in multiple contexts.
Ling Tan
Designer, maker and coder
Ling is interested in how people interact with the built environment and wearable technology. Trained as an architect, she enjoys building physical machines and prototypes to explore different modes of interaction between people and their surrounding spaces. She is currently working at Umbrellium in London to understand social wearables through community participation. She also participated as artist resident in various festivals and had worked with museums such as Wits Art Museum, South Africa and Watermans Art Centre, UK. Her works have been featured in magazines and websites across the globe and was nominated for awards such as Internet of Things Awards.
Professor Charles Spence
Head of the Crossmodal Research Laboratory, Oxford University
Charles' research focuses on how a better understanding of the human mind will lead to the better design of multisensory foods, products, interfaces, and environments in the future. His research calls for a radical new way of examining and understanding the senses that has major implications for the way in which we design everything from household products to mobile phones, and from the food we eat to the places in which we work and live.
Liviu Babitz
CEO of Cyborg Nest
Merging the empirical and the creative, Liviu spent the last 10 years leading projects driven to impact social and fiscal layers of society. Liviu is the co-founder of Cyborg Nest alongside TED speaker and colour-blind artist Neil Harbisson who became a cyborg by implanting an antenna in his skull that enabled him to sense color via audio vibrations. Cyborg Nest is developing artificial senses to enable people to design their evolution, and their current project is the 'North Sense' allowing you to detect magnetic north.
Jorge Crecis
Dancer and Choreographer
Jorge holds a degree in Sport Sciences and studied contemporary dance at the Royal Conservatory of Madrid. He has worked regularly with companies like Akram Khan Company, DV8, Punchdrunk, Rambert and in 2014, Jorge initiated the creation of 'min tala' a Pan-Arab dance project that uses contemporary dance art as a peacekeeping, personal and professional development tool. He has taken this cross-disciplinary approach to his current project, 'Through&Out²', where he encourages audiences in the performance to connect to his emotional states in real-time through a specially developed augmented reality and sensor platform.
