10th Anniversary Panel
Friday, April 16th at 5:00 pm
Laura Forlano
Sally Gutierrez
Samuel Tobin
Laura Forlano
Laura Forlano is a Postdoctoral Associate at the Interaction Design Lab in the Departments of Communication and Information Science at Cornell University. In 2008-2009, she was Kauffman Fellow in Law at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School. Forlano received her Ph.D. in Communications from Columbia University in 2008. Her dissertation, “When Code Meets Place: Collaboration and Innovation at WiFi Hotspots,” explores the intersection between organizations, technology (in particular, mobile and wireless technology) and the role of place in communication, collaboration and innovation. Forlano is an Adjunct Faculty member in the Design and Management department at Parsons and the Graduate Programs in International Affairs and Media Studies at The New School where she teaches courses on Innovation, New Media and Global Affairs, Technology and the City, Technology Policy, Sustainable Design and Business Ethics. She serves as a board member of NYCwireless and the New York City Computer Human Interaction Association. Forlano received a Master’s in International Affairs from Columbia University, a Diploma in International Relations from The Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelor’s in Asian Studies from Skidmore College.
WiFi Geographies: Designing Interfaces and Interventions for Collaboration in Place
How can we reformat our cities and public spaces – and the architectures and technologies within them — as sites of collaboration and innovation? This presentation examines the ways in which WiFi enables the formation of networks of socio-technical spaces that reconfigure people, work and forms of organizing based on a year-long empirical research project. Theoretical debates about the social construction of technology, the importance of and attachment to place and the formation of ad-hoc “communities” are central to understanding the ways in which the use of wireless networks is allowing people to reorganize urban public space. These reconfigurations are reframed conceptually as codescapes in order to integrate digital information and physical space. This presentation will also report on an ongoing collaborative design project, Breakout! Escape from the Office, which was presented by The Architectural League of New York as part of the Situated Technologies: Toward the Sentient City exhibition.
Sally Gutierrez
Sally Gutierrez is a visual artist working in the hybrid field between contemporary art and documentary. After her M.A Art studies in Madrid Gutierrez moved to Berlin and participated in the 90s art movement in the former East Berlin. She moved to New York on a Fulbright grant, completed a Masters in Media Studies at the New School University and took part in the The Whitney Museum of American Art Study Programme. In 2001 she received a residency grant from the LMCC in the World Trade Center. After moving back to Europe Sally Gutierrez received grants to travel to South Africa and the Philippines, where she has made several videos and taken part in exhibitions and film festivals. Gutierrez’s work has been shown at international galleries, museums, TV channels and film festivals. Gutierrez has taught in the New School University, has given many talks and workshops in Universities and Art Centres and has been a jury member for several grants and festivals. Her first feature length documentary feature film, Tapologo, co-directed with her sister Gabriela, has received eight international awards.
Sally Gutierrez was one of the students who initiated the Critical Themes in Media Studies Conference ten years ago. In her presentation she will show fragments of videos shot in Spain, the Philippines and South Africa, and talk about some of the issues arising from her work. Titles include Manola gets The Bus, Organ Market, and Tapologo.
Samuel Tobin
Samuel (Sam) Tobin is a sociologist and media scholar who studies play, media, the body, technology, experience and methodology. He is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at the New School for Social Research and teaches, or has taught, at Eugene Lang, the New School for General Studies and New York University.
Sam Tobin’s panel presentation covers his participation with Critical Themes in Media Studies over the years as presenter, co-chair and volunteer and those experiences relation to his current research and teaching.
Sam’s current project explores play and technology by focusing on the use of portable video game systems. He argues for the importance of studying technologically mediated play, as play on such devices has assumed near ubiquity in contemporary urban life. The use of the DS is examined in the context of the dynamics of boredom, attention, distraction, space, and mimesis. Sam’s study of how the DS is used has far-reaching implications for the use of other hand-held technology, including mobile phones and computing platforms, and consequently, makes substantial contributions to the sociology of play, media and technology as well as to media studies and to the growing field of video game research.