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Artists, scientists converge for Humane Technologies Pop-Up Week

March 2, 2018

Artists, scientists converge for Humane Technologies Pop-Up Week

Collaboration for Humane Technologies Logo

A week of inspiring collaboration and fascinating conversation in the service of building better futures is right around the corner.

From March 3-9, the Humane Technologies Pop-Up Week at the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD) will bring together a formidable roster of Ohio State researchers, alumni, students and visiting innovators — including acclaimed sound artist and technology visionary Pamela Z — for a week of collaboration focused on well-being.

"We’re bringing together multiple collaborators, scientists and artists to make discoveries we can only make together," said Norah Zuniga Shaw, professor and director for Dance and Technology and the Principal Investigator for the Collaboration for Humane Technologies — a segment of the university's Humanities and the Arts Discovery Theme that is exploring how to improve our everyday relationships with technology through artist-led research.

With a fast-paced, full lineup of flash talks, rapid prototyping, lively and compelling discussion, open studios, movement workshops and performances, visitors can get an inside peek at the creative spark and projects supported by ACCAD and the Humane Technologies project. Topics and events surround:

  • Robotics for assisted living and companionship
  • Simulations to improve dementia care
  • Games for well-being
  • Mindfulness in Virtual Reality
  • Artificial Intelligence and health insurance, and more.

While the topics are weighty, the approach is one that merges the rigorous work needed to tackle these ideas with a sense of play to ignite sites of discovery and surprising insights — it is both work and play.

Researchers explore applications of virtual reality at the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design.

Researchers Maria Palazzi (left) and Norah Zuniga Shaw work together in a networked Virtual Reality-and-touch-table environment created with Alan Price and others at the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design.


“Because it’s rooted in the arts, we allow for imaginative leaps,” Zuniga Shaw said. It is that sense of interdisciplinary possibility that breaks open traditional modes of thought and makes the collaborations at ACCAD so unique.

Zuniga Shaw continues, “this approach runs counter to the habitual desire for fixed categories and clear hierarchies, which is a 20th century headache. It creates what appears to be a messier process at first but it works every time and people end up relating differently to each other and discovering powerful new connections.”

The lead partners on the projects include: the Departments of Design, Dance, and ACCAD (Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design); the Champion Intergenerational Center (Colleges of Medicine, Nursing and Social Work); and students and contributing faculty from Engineering, Architecture, Theater, Music, Nursing, Medicine, Social Work, Spanish and Portuguese, English and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies.

Zuniga Shaw noted how the importance of bringing these disciplines together is all part of ACCAD’s core mission. 

That's what this is entirely about: fostering meaningful collaboration and enhancing research design to created sustained engagement for innovation and impact.”

A complete schedule is available online. Admission to all events is free and open.

Join ACCAD on Instagram (@accadatosu) and tag your pop-up week moments with #HumaneTechOSU or share your thoughts and ideas about the future of well-being and the ethics of care.

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Artists & scientists across @OhioState are gathering to explore how we can improve our well-being through technology. @DiscoveryOSU #HumaneTechOSU #ASCDaily


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