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November 23 - 25, 2009
Ontario College of Art & Design, Toronto , Ontario
What Culture Might Bring
Cultural Knowledge is broad-ranging, focused on ‘human factors’, but capable of extending thinking beyond that framework. Here’s a quick look at the possibilities of what cultural knowledge can bring to the table:
- Designers are expert in researching all aspects of human factors in the development and application of technologies, from the physical comfort of a design to the culturally appropriateness of its presentation and the likelihood of its acceptance and use
- Artists and designers are expert in developing physical and virtual spaces that are empathetic, communicative, efficient and engaging
- Designers are expert in predicting and understanding social trends and in developing messages that can reach specific and general populations
- Designers are expert in creating participation in processes of change and self-management
- Designers are expert in imagining and implementing applications for existing and emerging technologies
- Designers are expert in stream-lining systems and processes
- Cultural industries such as advertising are expert in engaging and responding to consumers
- Artists are expert in expressing challenging and difficult topics in society, including concerns of physical and psychological pain, and finding resolution through creative expression
- Artists are expert in understanding and exploring cognition, physical and psychological memory and finding vehicles to express and retain cognitive and mnemonic skills, and
- Artists are expert in engaging others in creative expression that allows them to explore and express emotions and ideas.
Research Questions
Here’s a sample of the the research questions explored by the speakers and participants:
- How can methods of “participatory design” used by designers in product development be effectively applied to designing health technologies, health delivery systems, and health delivery environments?
- How can the artifice and functionality of fashion, interior design or architecture be effectively used for health prevention, patient care environments?
- How can memory-rich environments that use familiar cultural materials be developed using contemporary and emerging technologies that assist brain damaged patients?
- How computer games and other entertainment be used for disease prevention; addiction intervention; care delivery?
- How can effective, easy to operate and communicative home care technologies and support systems be designed, whether physical or virtual?
- How can personal mobile devices be effectively integrated into healthy lifestyle development and maintenance, prevention or care delivery
- Does engagement in creative practice help the healing or palliative process?
- What can we learn about the brain from the cognitive processes of artists or those engaged in artistic practices?
- What are potential intellectual and product transfer potentials from biotechnologies currently in development?
This summit is part of OCAD's Digital Futures Initiative and is generously supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
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