The Design Lab aims to foster design as a means of knowledge production in its own right…design is a study of the world the way it could be through the creation and interrogation of the "designed" world.

If we were assigned a piece of the cityscape, how would we interrogate and create a space for ourselves? We might ask: who was here before me, what did it look like, how did it sound, how did people communicate, what did they do for fun? We might ponder: now that I’m here, what should it look like, how should it sound, how do we organise communications, how should we present ourselves? With multiplicitous screens, cacophonous sounds, increasingly mobile technologies, and deeply personal narratives assailing us constantly, how can we make sense of our surrounds in a creative way?

New Media Curation and the staff at the Design Lab Sydney have answered the call for content at the Rocks Pop-Up spaces for their annual End of Year Festival. This call stands for a need to re-enliven, rework and rejuvenate historical spaces with contemporary artwork. At this time, The Rocks sits adjacent to one of the most famous harbours in the world and is managed by the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority. It is a lively commercial, tourist, and artistic destination for visitors to and residents of Australia. It has been able to maintain this reputation based on an ever-evolving sense of community, of multiple identities clustered around change, growth and renewal.

Now that we have carved out a space for ourselves in the Sydney-scape, I propose we utilise contrast to contextualise the concept of community, and articulate that idea through the metaphor of distributed nodes and networks. Our tools utilise these frameworks, our physical sites mirror this idea in that it offers one central space with the opportunity to infiltrate or infringe on other spaces, and I’d also like to propose that we exhibit a selection of collaborative post-graduate research in the central space, with the works of the students distributed throughout several Rocks Pop-Up sites. This layered metaphor mirrors the history of The Rocks itself and will be communicated through a series of experimental designs for the public to engage with and enjoy.

Site Proposal:

Four red X’s mark the four main sites we would like to animate

[Site1] MCA studio - Shop 2.05

[Site2] Pop-Up Studio space in Playfair Square via Kendell Lane

[Site3] 29 Playfair Street

[Site4] Lot 105 and the alley way(s) beside & behind 29 Playfair Street

Site1Oliver Bown and Erin Gee.

Ani.MOS, 2011.

Site4 Eduardo Barata, Luke Hespanhol,

Philipp Peltz (audio), Martin Tomitsch

Metastasis, 2011

Site3Ingrid Pohl.

Sensitive Surface, 2011

Site4Jonathan Fernandes, Alex Jung, Won Lee, Lian Loke, Marjo Niemela, Dagmar Reinhardt, Elmar Trefz James Ye.

Black Spring, 2011

Each of the main sites (nodes or core communities) will feature a collaborative research work authored by Design Lab members and offering a designed experience mediated by technology. Further works developed by design lab students will both cluster around and disperse from these works, occupying the space within the sites but also infringing on the spaces surrounding and between these sites (distributed nodes representing communities; historical, physical and virtual). Some will be exhibition works, some performances, some happenings.

[Site1] MCA Studio – Shop 2.05> Oliver Bown and Erin Gee. Ani.MOS, 2012 < > Mark Mitchell, Hanley Weng, Dale Hurwitz, Tom Dermot. The secret lives of (misanthropic) computer systems, 2012.> Claudia Nunex-Pacheco. Eloquent Robes, 2012.> GoGet & Design Lab. Sharing Economy, 2012. (video loop on screen)> Sam Ferguson. Mutli-touch Table Musical Instrument, 2012.

[Site2] Pop-Up Studio space in Playfair Square via Kendell Lane> Jonathan Fernandes, Alex Jung, Won Lee, Lian Loke, Marjo Niemela, Dagmar Reinhardt, Elmar Trefz James Ye. Black Spring, 2012<> Nattinee Kurbumsuwan, YoungDong Kim, Yoko. My Diary, 2012> Taiki Uno. Remote Robots, 2012 – across 2 sites.> Anna Malapira. Creating Wings, 2012.

[Site3] 29 Playfair Street > Ingrid Pohl. Sensitive Touch, 2012 < > Gabriel Podesta, Cameron Smith, Michael Anaxagorou, Ashleigh Sutton, Joel Porter Piano MashUp, 2012.> Taiki Uno. Remote Robots, 2012 – across 2 sites.> Alick (Congshan Lai) & Boey (Zhibo Song). Band on your desk, 2012.> McLean Pierce, Philip Grimmett and Jonathan McEwan. Untitled, 2012.

[Site4] Lot 105 and the alley way(s) beside & behind 29 Playfair Street>Eduardo Barata, Luke Hespanhol, Philipp Peltz (audio), Martin Tomitsch. Metastasis, 2012<> Ken Khoo, Austin Lin, Morgan Carter, Ryan Gavin. Portal, 2012.> Ronan Brett, Lucy Matchett, Ben Murphy, John Duncan. Little Boxes, 2012.> Matt Norris, Susan Chang, Michelle Vuong, Ava Ng, Emila Yang. Assertive Room, 2012 – particularly the alleyway between Playfair Lane and the back of 29 Playfair Lane.> Ken Khoo, Austin Lin, Spencer Walden, Morgan Carter. Discriminatory…Game?, 2012.> Lavie Sak. Tennis in Cambodia, 2012 – in space with windows behind 29 Playfair.

Current suggestions…more to follow!

Mitchell, et. al

Nunez-Pacheco

Malapira

Pierce, et. al