The hole in the wall

I was in Copenhagen last May 29-30 to get my annual dose of ideas and inspiration overload at the conference aptly called reboot. It’s an annual gathering — a community event to be more precise — that’s been going on for a decade; it has been a crossroads of digital technology and change where practical visionaries meet and reboot.

From the organisers’ own words: “2 days a year. 500 people. A journey into the interconnectedness of creation, participation, values, openness, decentralization, collaboration, complexity, technology, p2p, humanities, connectedness and many more areas.”

I like being in reboot, mainly because it’s so different from your usual corporate conferences. There’s an air of excitement and anticipation, but everyone’s just cool to everyone. The energy sizzles in the air and good will just overflows. It’s good to be stuck in such a place that houses stories and inspirations of people of different nationalities, who share ideas as artists, writers, bloggers, developers, entrepreneurs, researchers, analysts, teachers, cultural workers, designers, information architects, and so much more.

I almost did not go after having had long, tiring and bad day at work, but it’s a good thing I did. I really needed to shut down and reboot ;-)


Walking through walls
This year’s theme was ‘Free’: not just the price, but the freedom to flow, create and re-create spaces and interfaces around and within us.

One of the topics that struck me the most was the talk on ‘walking through walls’by Molly Wright Steenson. It was a military strategy used by units of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) on its attack on the city of Nablus in April 2002. Described as ‘inverse geometry’ as it re-organised the ‘urban syntax’, it used the streets, roads, alleys, or courtyards that constitute the syntax of the city in a non-traditional way; as well as the external doors, internal stairwells, and windows that constitute the order of buildings, the soldiers moved horizontally through blasted walls, and vertically through blasted ceilings and floors. Because the rebels interpreted the spaces made by doors, windows and alleys in a traditional manner — places where you can walk through or enter, but also places where you can be trapped and confronted — Aviv Kochavi, then commander of the Paratrooper Brigade decided to perceive these spaces not in the same way as every architect did. He considered it forbidden territory and thus looked for other ways of moving through the spatial boundaries they were in.

“…. We interpreted the alley as a place forbidden to walk through, and the door as a place forbidden to pass through, and the window as a place forbidden to look through, because a weapon awaits us in the alley, and a booby trap awaits us behind the doors. This is because the enemy interprets space in a traditional, classical manner, and I do not want to obey this interpretation and fall into his traps. Not only do I not want to fall into his traps, I want to surprise him! This is the essence of war. I need to win. I need to emerge from an unexpected place. And this is what we tried to do.”

I found deeply interesting the unexpected way the space — or the interface — was reinterpreted by the military. In this case, it was not the spatial boundaries that created and directed movement, but it was the movement itself — the walking though walls — that recreated the space around it. “Walking-through-walls” re-conceptualised the city as not just the site, but also the very medium of warfare.

I find this very relevant in our work with experience architecture, where we give structure to and analyse information on different digital platforms: it reminds me to keep on rethinking the interfaces we design and develop; to challenge the usual flows of data and how users access it.

But although I have a grudging admiration for this perspective, the tactic of ‘walking through walls’ has greatly impacted the democratic spaces offered by both public and private domains. By invading and worming through the domestic interiors, the inside has been turned to outside: private domains became thoroughfares of conflict where fighting takes place ‘…within half-demolished living rooms, bedrooms and corridors of poorly built refugee homes, where the television may still be operating and a pot may still on the stove.’

If they have walked through walls and reinvented the spaces around them, what could have then been removed or displaced? Which pathways have been blocked or rendered impassable and which new spaces are going to evolve, adapt and perhaps fill in the gaping holes in the walls?

On the lighter side

There are a lot more topics served in reboot that whet my appetite, but I will share those musings another time. Here’s some lighter stuff that help me reboot on a daily basis:

• There’s a game console designed for active playing indoors and outdoors
• Crowds naming products and getting paid for it
• And my personal fave — a 2.8 inch karaoke machine (w00t!)

Sometimre ago, I read about Locomatrix, a UK-based company that develops location-based games. Locomatrix creators, Richard Vahrman and Moira Nangle, who described themselves as ‘keen walkers’, wanted to make game that would encourage kids to play outdoors. Now, there’s ‘Swinxs’, a game console designed to encourage active and social play among children. It’s created by Swinxs B.V., a Dutch games developer.

How it works: You’ve got Swinxs, the game console. which talks, cheers and explains the games, referees and keeps score. Then there are the XS tags, wristbands with microchips that communicate with the console. It starts the games, retrieves player profiles and measures performance. Up to 10 individual players can join in a game.

Players can connect Swinxs to the computer through a USB cable to download new games (for free) and upload performance data at swinxs.com. They can also issue challenges, share experiences. The games are grouped by age and category and are mostly educational and adventure games. A software development kit (SDK) is also available that lets players or third parties create their own games for the system. I haven’t tried it myself, but it looks like the kids are having fun.

Then there’s ‘NameThis’, an online site where community members submit names for products and services requested by innovators. Their selling point is that why settle for the ideas of the few when you can get the ideas of the crowd. People requesting names pay $99 and within 48 hours are guaranteed to have three ‘world-validated’ names for their ‘thingamajig’. The site is powered by Kluster, which claims to use complex algorithms that let the brightest ideas surface, not just the loudest ones.

They take $80 out of each naming fee and distribute it to the members who create/influence the top three names:

1st Place: $40 to Namer, $10 Shared Amongst Influencers
2nd Place: $16 to Namer, $4 Shared Amongst Influencers
3rd Place: $8 to Namer, $2 Shared Amongst Influencers

Check out the names being bounced around – some are quite witty and right on target, while some can make your hair stand.

Last, but definitely not the least, is the world’s smallest karaoke! Created by a Japanese toy-maker (Tomy Co. Ltd), it’s a seven centimetre (2.8 inches), on-the-go, must-have gadget for the young pop-star wanna-be. It targets elementary school kids, girls in particular, who adore pop stars.

This so-called ‘Hi-kara machine’ comes with headsets, but can also be used with a second set of headphones or put on speaker mode. Apparently, the invention of the Hi-kara machine follows the trail of an emerging trend in Japan, called ‘hitokara’ -- or "lone karaoke" -- which means going out to sing karaoke alone.

I can imagine myself doing karaoke alone in the house, but it’s much more fun to do it with your friends (and lots of beer and lots more food ;-p ). I think I’d use the Hi-kara not to go on a solo karaoke trip, though, but I love the idea of mobile karaoke! But then again I’m Filipino so I think that’s hard-wired in my genes. ;-p