Virtual Knowledge Studio – The Virtual Knowledge Studio for the Humanities and Social Sciences (KNAW) supports researchers in the humanities and social sciences in the Netherlands in the creation of new scholarly practices and in their reflection on e-research in relation to their fields.

A core feature of the Virtual Knowledge Studio is the integration of design and analysis in a close cooperation between social scientists, humanities researchers, information technology experts and information scientists. This integrated approach provides insight in the way e-research can contribute to new research questions and methods.

The VKS collaborates with the Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Erasmus Studio KNAW (in short: Erasmus Studio) based in Rotterdam and with Maastricht University in the Maastricht Virtual Knowledge Studio KNAW based in Maastricht.

Professor Suchman runs courses at Lancaster on Virtual Cultures and a graduate course on the Antropology of Cybercultures – she also teachers in Gender studies and feminist theory.

Her work at Xerox ‘combined ethnographic studies of work and technologies-in-use with the in-situ development of new prototype information systems’.

Professor Suchmann has written two books on the human-machine nexus. The first based on her Dissertation, Plan and Situated Actions: the problem of human-machine communication (1987) and the second a reprise or sequel of the first Human-Machine Reconfigurations: plans and Situated Actions 2nd Edition (2007).

OCEAN aims to facilitate collaborative research by design with a focus of improving the human environment. It has produced work ranging from exhibitions of Performance-oriented Design to publications on 3D Audio and Sound-Art. Its diverse group of members hail from a range of countries from Italy to Israel and Australia to the United States, but are based mainly in Oslo, London, Sydney and Istanbul.

In February 2006, one of Gapminder’s founders Hans Rosling gave a TED talk that demonstrated the most effective aspect of Gapminder’s data visualisation, that is, how data changes over time. In a graph that displayed UN statistics of the number of children per family juxtaposed with life expectancy for a number of countries, Rosling takes us through the changes from 1962 to 2003 like a sportscaster calling a horse race as countries represented by animated, colour-coded dots that grow and shrink as they move across the axes.

The Gapminder site offers both static and dynamic materials in the form of PDFs and clickable flash presentations/applications, but the main draw is Gapminder World, where you can create your own animated data-visualisation by investigating whichever countries and using whatever parameters that interest you.

He is the founder of Transmute, the interdisciplinary collective behind Intimate Transactions, an interactive installation that has been exhibited all over the world, where two people in geographically separate spaces inhabit and interact in a shared virtual space.

Based in the UK, Haque Design + Research is a centre specializing in the design and research of interactive architecture systems. Headed by Usman Haque, the centre houses the collaborative projects of a collective of designers and architects including Ali Hasegawa, Barbara Jasinowicz, Chris Leung and Susan Haque. The team’s innovation is based on the assumption that architecture is no longer to be considered something static and immutable; it is instead imagined as dynamic, responsive and conversant.

As an architect, Husman Haque’s stated focus has been to consider what he’s called the ‘software’ of space (ie. sounds, smell, light, temperature, electromagnetic fields, social relationships etc) as opposed to the ‘hardware’ (ie. floors, walls, roof etc) – the domain of traditional architecture. His personal work has involved the creation of responsive environments, interactive installations, digital interface devices and mass participation performances, all of which have displayed a celebrated skill for the design of physical space and the software and systems that may bring them to life. His work has been recognized and supported via several prestigious international grants and residencies.

Projects completed by Haque Design + Research transverse the aesthetic and the social. Examples include ‘Reconfigurable House’, an environment constructed from thousands of low-tech components that can be “reconfigured” by its occupants, allowing them to determine the systems that run inside it; and ‘Haunt’, a collaboration in non-visual architecture that uses humidity, temperatures and electromagnetic and sonic frequencies to imbue an environment with a simulated feeling of ‘haunted-ness’.

Pachube is currently a main focus for Haque Design + Research.

Located in Montreal, Canada, the Society for Arts and Technology (SAT) is a multidisciplinary centre dedicated to research, creation, production, presentation, education and conservation in the field of digital culture. The centre operates as a forum where practitioners who work with digital technologies may congregate and collaborate across an array of artistic and scientific disciplines. The centre is situated prominently within an international network of industry and educational institutional partners who share similar and complementary objectives.

Since 1996 the SAT has established a number of programs that facilitate access to human and technical resources with the aim of encouraging reflection on issues related to the use of technology. SAT[Art&D] supports IT projects in IP network environments by providing a studio for research, production and commission of artwork that is utilized as a workspace by artists participating in SAT’s artist in residence calendar. [Espace]SAT is a presentation space that is used to house live electronic music and video events conceived and performed by international artists. Between such larger events SAT[Mix Sessions] serves to promote and develop local audiovisual creativity by gathering Montreal’s VJ and DJ/sound artist communities for jam session meetings. SAT also provides education through [TransForm], which offers courses on production of interactive projects, video art, audiovisual creation in real time and VJing, teaching students to operate software such as Arduino, Max/MSP and Modul8.

SAT is an affiliate of The SenseLab, a research-creation laboratory that houses the collaborations of Erin Manning and Brian Massumi.

Toni Robertson established the Interaction Design and Work Practice Lab at the University of Technology, Sydney, in 2002. Robertson’s interest in technology design was born out of her earlier career as an artist, printmaker and graphic designer. Today her research interests include understanding how actual work practices can be developed and then used to design information systems that appropriately service their situation of use, and exploring how different metaphors for human cognition and work can affect the design of technology.

Robertson is presently chief investigator in an Australian Research Council funded project that is seeking to establish an empirical framework for designing usable and useful wireless mobile computing applications. Based on the premise that the technological challenges presented in the development of mobile computing devices have overshadowed attention to issues of use and usability that ultimately determine technologies’ success in real environments, the project aims to shape the findings of its ethnographic studies into a reliable conceptual framework that will increase the successful utilization of mobile technology by Australian industries.

Under Robertson’s directorship the Interaction Design and Work Practice Lab is currently committed to two other main projects. The Bystander Field aims to stimulate unprecedented understanding of narrative and affective patterns in our past through investigating new systems for interactive and immersive display of contentious stories found in imagery from heritage collections.  Understanding Quality of Experience in Experience Enrich (Next Generation) aims to provide an approximation of what the phrase ‘quality of experience’ could imply for future networked environments, and how its criteria could be utilised to assist with the beneficial design of network related technology, as well facilitate a decrease of the risks in developing inappropriate products and services.