the last 15 minutes

Period: Tuesday 13 – 16 February, 2018
Venue: KYOTO Design Lab Wood working and Digital fabrication Room, Kyoto Institute of Technology

About
Electricity, as a form of energy, arrives through wall sockets that deliver a seemingly endless supply. These ubiquitous, generic sockets are part of the design of every electrical product with the designer’s role ending at the cable and plug inserted into the wall. This system also completely shapes our energy-interactions and behaviour creating the perception of an always-available flow.
Our lives are energy rich, but our relationship with energy is ethereal and distant – a number on a meter, a bill at the end of the month.
This workshop explores our relationship with energy from two viewpoints:

How we design products:
Where do a product’s boundaries lie?
What happens on the other side of the wall socket?
Can we design products that incorporate energy supply into the product itself?

How we interact with products:
How can energy consumption be made more transparent and tangible for product users?
How can we change user behaviour in more engaging or meaningful ways than through smart meters?

Workshop Brief
Our perception of always-there energy is supported and maintained by a well-functioning energy infrastructure. Comforts and pleasures, delivered by modern electrical products, are only threatened when this infrastructure stop functioning such as in the event of a natural disaster.
Disaster has struck (chose your own version of what has happened), infrastructure has been destroyed and there is 15 minutes until the end of the world.
Design an electrical product to spend those 15 minutes with. The product should be capable of producing its own energy and the interaction should be something worthy of taking up your last moments on the planet. Explore local and bespoke solutions to energy generation – DC motors, the issues surrounding renewables such as solar and wind turbines and consider related constraints such as whether the wind is not blowing or it is night time.

Workshop leader
Professor James Auger [MA, PhD, RCA]
James Auger is associate professor at Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute (M-ITI), Portugal.  His current research explores the potential of the Island as an experimental living laboratory where fictional, factual and functional multi-scale energy-related proposals and projects are combined. This work was recently awarded the Cultural Innovation International Prize by the Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB).
After studying Design Products (MA) at the RCA, James moved to Media Lab Europe (MLE) exploring the theme of human communication as mediated by technology. He then worked in Tokyo as guest designer at the Issey Miyake Design Studio and from 2005 -2015 James taught on the critically acclaimed Design Interactions courset at the RCA,
James is also partner in the speculative design practice Auger-Loizeau whose projects is in the permanent collection of MoMA, New Yorkand have been shown at 21_21, Tokyo; The Science Museum, London; The National Museum of China, Beijing and Ars Electronica, Linz. 

Maximum participants
20

Participation Conditions
The workshop is open to all.
Participants must attend for the full workshop period.

Application deadline
18:00, Tuesday 6 February, 2018

Application form
Please fill in the bellow form and send it.
https://www.kit.ac.jp/form/view/index.php?id=30032