keyword: MIT

Categories
briefs

Role playing panel sessions

Another experiment by John Maeda, carried it out in 1996 (his first year of teaching computational design at the MIT Media Lab). Described in his book Creative Code (2004, p. 217):

I always wonder what a session with a panel of experts at a conference achieves. Having been on many and hosted a faire share of them, I decided to put students on the spot by making them experts in an impromptu schedule of panels. This role-playing activity forced students to contribute their own perspectives.

Some of the session topics invented by Maeda:

  • Static, Physical, and Hyper-real
  • One shot performance vs. Continuum
  • Coding vs. Caching
Categories
briefs

People as pixels

An experiment carried out by John Maeda at MIT (Computational Media Design Course) in 1996. Described in his book Creative Code (p.216):

As a continuation of the collaborative coding process, we attempted an experiment to better understand visual design on the computer. In the atrium of the Media Lab, we rigged up a camera on the fourth floor pointing downward; in the lower lobby, we projected the image seen from above so that the students (as pixels) could see themselves. The idea was that each student took charge and “programmed” the pixels, whether by script or direct commands.

Maeda mentions the source of this idea:

My inspiration for this experiment was a Bauhaus story of an old Master taking his students to the gymnasium to walk on the paths of large circles to graps the form’s essence.

Categories
briefs

One-line-at-a-time collaborative programming experiment

An experiment carried out by John Maeda at MIT (Computational Media Design Course) in 1996. Description from his book Creative Code (2004):

One day I brought a computer and projector to class. I opened up an empty Java program skeleton, and asked the class to edit the program as a collaborative process, whereby one line of code was entered by each person.