Two of the 20 international young designers chosen to participate in the inaugural antenna are from the ACT community.
antenna is a program of Design Indaba and Dutch Design Week (DDW), which brought these designers together to present their projects – that will shape the way that we adapt to the ever-changing world that we live in – on the interactive platform.
The antenna program was developed to expose these designers to an expanded network of experts and professionals, and help foster future opportunities. As they said on their website, “Like the antennae of the natural world, antenna aims to intuitively spot and react to the subtle signs in the world around us.”
Lucy Siyao Liu, a lecturer at ACT, is a designer working on evolving representation techniques for cultural production. Her work addresses contestations and disjunctions that occur in imaging technologies, with an emphasis on exploring systems of nature through experimental drawings and animations. Lucy recently received a post-professional research degree in Architectural Design at MIT.
Lucy presented on Props Paper, a single broadsheet newspaper, printed on both sides, featuring the work of one collaborator per issue. Along with Matthew Bona, Lucy spearheads this unique publication which takes a different form of content with each iteration, linked together by a focus on the art of image-making and how it relates to the work of the guest contributor.
Nicolas Kisic Aguirre is an architect, artist and designer from Lima, Peru, and a current SMACT’18 student. Presently focused on researching the potential of sound, Nicolas looks at its relevance to different notions of power, politics and the public sphere. One particular instrument he looked at was a popular type of drum called the Cajon. The Cajon emerged during the period of the slave trade, when African slaves were brought to South America. Forbidden to play drums or speak to one another, they utilized wooden boxes to generate sound as their means of communication.
In his work, Nicolas looked at different ways in which sound has been used throughout time and place, and developed the Modular Rhythm Machine instrument.
Recently featured in the Ars Electronica Festival, The Modular Rhythm Machine is open-source, meaning anyone can download the information and build their own machines.
To watch Lucy’s talk, click here.
To watch Nicolas’s talk, click here.
