Helene Steiner (Royal College of Arts / Microsoft Research)  

Conversations between the Natural and the Artificial

Helene Steiner is a UK based designer and researcher with a focus on new interactions in and with our (natural) environment. Her research follows a biological approach and looks at opportunities to not only bridge the physical and the digital world but also the natural and the artificial.

Her background is in Product Design with a degree from the Bauhaus University in Weimar. During her time in Vienna she studied under FROG founder Prof. Hartmut Esslinger to explore the opportunities of extending our bodies with technology and prosthetics, what lead to her MA and MSc in Innovation Design Engineering at the Royal College of Art and Imperial College in London. Currently she is a PostDoc Researcher in Human Experience Design at Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK.

»Mankind evolved on the ground of tools nature provided and started very early taking advantage of biological processes. Over time, nevertheless, humans had been distancing more and more from nature and disconnected from being part of it - instead we built our own artificial world. 

New technologies put biology back into the spotlight and open up a lot of new opportunities to manipulate, design, understand, protect and interact with our natural environment. This raises the question, though, what is still natural and what artificial.

This talk is on the opportunities of a future where the natural and the artificial are connected and interact enabled by technology and driven by nature - and on how this combination of digital and natural processes leads to new applications and innovative products.« 

About »bauhausinteraction.colloquium«:
The Bauhausinteraction Colloquium is a new interdisciplinary colloquium series at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar which is to address issues between technology and arts+design and the humanities. This colloquium is organised by different disciplines at the Bauhaus-Universität, across media-informatics (applied computer sciences), media-design, media arts and product + interaction design.

The talks take place on Monday evenings. All talks are in english. In design, human–computer interaction, and software development, interaction design is »about shaping digital things for people’s use«, and alternately defined as the practice of designing interactive digital products, environments, systems, and services.

Beyond an interest in the mere form, interaction design has its main focus on human behavior and the interplay between human actions and technology. Coming from different disciplines in this colloquium we explore the central questions: Do we speak a common laguage? Are we ready for interdisciplinary dialogues and are we prepared for upcoming transdisciplinary challenges? Through a series of lectures and workshops on interaction design and related topics. A selection of internationally renowned speakers will give insights into their work, current developments and discussions. The colloquium provides a forum for exchange of ideas, impulses for inspiration and interdisciplinary collaboration

Talk:

Date:
Tuesday, 3. Mai 2016 
7 p.m.

Location:
Bauhaus-Universität Weimar
Faculty of Art and Design
Geschwister-Scholl-Straße 7, room 116
99423 Weimar

For further information visit: http://bauhausinteraction.org/2016/04/talk-helene-steiner/