CONFERENCE CLOSING: Sheila Jasanoff – the politics of ‘expert’ design, and closing discussions.

New Sciences of Protection Conference: Plenary 4 with Sheila Jasanoff ‘Taking Risks for Safety: The US Discourse on Precaution’ and conference closing.
Sheila Jasanoff led the final plenary session. Through a comparison of the regulation and governance of embryonic stem cell research in the UK, US and Germany she dissected how different cultures of risk and [...]

DREW HEMMENT AND ANDREW CLEMENT: The Ethics of Surveillance Space

New Sciences of Protection Conference: Theme Panel 4 with Drew Hemment ‘Loca: Location orientated Critical Art’ and Andrew Clement ‘Total Transparency Solutions Inc’

Drew Hemment introduced the work of ‘Loca,’ or location orientated critical art (http://www.loca-lab.org/). Loca is an artistic practice which seeks to explore the often ambiguous ethical implications of pervasive surveillance. It “looks [...]

TIM LUKE AND BENJAMIN BRATTON: The Terrors of Design

New Sciences of Protection Conference: Plenary 3 with Tim Luke (Design as Defence) and Benjamin Bratton (Dissimulation and Terrorism)

Tim Luke and Benjamin Bratton discussed the architecture of safe living in both its actual and virtual dimensions. ‘Architecture’ is concerned with both the concrete material structuring of a space, but also with the projection of form, [...]

CINDY WEBER: ‘I am an American’

New Sciences of Protection Conference: Exhibition on the theme ‘Designing Safe Citizens’ by Cindy Weber.

On 21 September 2001 – ten days after 9/11 – the Ad Council in the United States launched its ‘I am an American’ advertising campaign. The exhibition unsettles the Ad Council’s smooth presentation of post 9/11 American patriotism through interviews [...]

Lynn Hershman Leeson’s Strange Culture: An introduction by Jackie Stacey

“Seduction” (1986), a photograph from a series by Ms. Hershman Leeson called “Phantom Limb.”
As part of the ‘New Sciences of Protection’ conference a screening of Lynn Hershman Leeson’s Strange Culture was arranged. Jackie Stacey, RICC, University of Manchester, introduced the film…
Lynn Hershman Leeson has been making visual investigations of the integration of the human body [...]

Surveillance for Safe Living: Beyond the dystopian critique?

New Sciences of Protection Conference: Theme Panel 3 ‘Surveillance for Safe Living’ with Andrew Clement, Charles D Raab, Clive Norris, Lucas Introna and David Murakami Wood.
Members of the Surveillance Studies Network, an international network of researchers dedicated to tracing and analysing developments in surveillance technologies and practice, discussed the role of surveillance in contemporary designs [...]

LUCY SUCHMAN AND PATRICIA CLOUGH: ‘Action-at-a-distance,’ or the ideology of safe living design

Yes Men’s Survivaball

New Sciences of Protection Conference: Plenary 2 with Lucy Suchman (Making Deign Safe for Living) and Patricia Clough (Scenes of Secrecy, Scales of Hope).

Lucy Suchman and Patricia Clough both explored the implications which the new sciences of protection have for our understandings of intimacy and human contact. Amongst other things they discussed [...]

BOB JESSOP AND JOHN LAW: Failing Designs for Safe Living

New Sciences of Protection Conference: Theme Panel 2 ‘Design Failure and Designing for Failure,’ with John Law and Bob Jessop.

John Law and Bob Jessop (download presentation) offered differing diagnoses of design failure. They also each provided some tentative thoughts on how designs for safe living could begin to be reconciled with the excess of unsafety [...]

FIONA RABY: Do you want to replace the existing normal? – an error message from Microsoft word

FIONA RABY (Royal College of Art, Dunne & Raby)

“Do you want to replace the existing normal? this is a piece of poetry when it pops up on the screen unexpectedly. And its very interesting as it is exactly what we have been specialising all our time through what we attempt to do in design. Design [...]

New Sciences of Protection: Conference opening

Conference Opening with Bob Jessop, Cynthia Weber and Andrew Clement; Theme Panel 1 (New Sciences of Protection: Designing Safe Living) with Cynthia Weber, Adrian McKenzie and Mark Lacy
Cynthia Weber, Adrian McKenzie and Mark Lacy opened the first panel session with a reminder of the three central themes or questions which the research programme ‘New Sciences [...]

Brazil prisoner’s pigeon drug mules

Brazilian prison authorities have discovered carrier pigeons being used to deliver drugs and mobile phones to inmates. Officers were alerted to the scheme at a prison near Sao Paulo, when they noticed some of the birds experiencing difficulty flying.
See BBC video clip>

Top 10 strangest anti-terrorism patents

Explosion Containment Net
U.S. Patent 6854374, Explosion containment net, by O. Alan Breazeale. Issued Feb 15, 2005.
See more here>
Thanks Bruce Schneier

The Designing Safe Living conference

Images: Women with fire masks, Priscilla Huggable Mushroom Cloud, Surveillance light
The international conference will be held at the conference centre in Lancaster University from 10th – 12th July with a variety of keynote and panel session speakers. Subjects raised include Genomics and Design, Designing Safe Citizens, Design , Body and Control, etc. [...]

Strange Culture: miniclip

Secrecy by Peter Galison & Robb Moss

Secrecy is a documentary by Peter Galison and Robb moss about “the vast, invisible world of government secrecy. By focusing on classified secrets, the government’s ability to put information out of sight if it would harm national security, Secrecy explores the tensions between our safety as a nation, and our ability to function as a [...]

A vest that simulates your physical reaction to bullet fire

The 3rd Space™ Vest from TN Games takes gameplay beyond sight and sound, creating spatial awareness of the world your characters inhabit. The 3rd Space™ Vest gives you precise impact of bullet fire or a pounding blow. A built-in system of eight pneumatic microcompressors permits simulated blows of about 30 pounds per square inch, so [...]