Design for Responsive Communities

Name, title and affiliation
Christian Nold (christian@softhook.com)

Short Biography
Christian Nold is an artist, designer and educator working to develop new participatory models for communal representation. In 2001 he wrote the well received book ‘Mobile Vulgus’, which examined the history of the political crowd and which set the tone for his research into participatory mapping. Since graduating from the Royal College of Art in 2004, Christian has led a number of large scale participatory projects and worked with a team on diverse academic research projects. In particular his ‘Bio Mapping’ project has received large amounts of international publicity and been staged in 16 different countries and over 1500 people have taken part in workshops and exhibitions. These participatory projects have a strong pedagogical basis and grew out of Christian’s formal university teaching. He is currently based at the Bartlett, University College London.

Abstract
A new diverse generation of individuals and communities with civic, political and ecological agendas are looking to get involved in reshaping their own local contexts. What is needed is a range of appropriate technologies for local and intra-local settings; new tools, methodologies and provocations that create, foster and challenge these emerging responsive communities. This presentation will show a range of the innovative tools and methodologies for participatory mapping that start from the sensory experience of the single body and then move to the communal and political. There will also be a discussion of the resulting projects and evaluation findings.
http://sf.biomapping.net/