Young, old, furry, slippery

Douglas Edric Stanley

2008.06.04

Starting tomorrow, I’ll be spending two days participating in Fing’s Université de printemps (Spring University) entitled Plus longue la vie (A Longer Life). As you can tell by the subject matter, it’s about aging and the role of new technologies in the life of seniors, which is great for me because it adds yet another piece to the puzzle that I’m currently working on. Last year, plot worked with France Cadet, the Hacking Lab, Christian Graff and the students of the ESAA on interfacing with electric fish (cf. Workshop Mormyrophone™). Some interresting ideas emerged from that workshop, most notably Games For Mormyridae (cf. Mormyre-Pong) as well as biological random number generators. That’s the slippery part, and feeds nicely into the whole process of physicalization which I have been working on recently, especially the idea of biological computing using insects, à la crickets and moths. Also thanks to France, I will most probably be working sometime next year on making games for primates (Games For Gorillas). More on that later, but that’s the furry part. Also in progress, an ENIAROF for redesigning our anarchic form of play for the younger set. So it is only natural, now, that I turn my attentions to the question of abstract machines and play in the context of the ever-extending lifespan. Although all of the ateliers intersect the type of work I do, I’ll be participating in the atelier entitled Un habitat confortable et modulable, facilitateur de vie. The rest of the time I’ll probably just be napping because there is a lot of blah blah blah planned, which I have very little time or patience for.