Thoughts and Impressions
From Tgc
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Onur Güngör
He presented a video on kesdoku-n (literally "Cut & Touch" in English) an interactive installation.
It was a very nice opportunity to meet with very interesting people, this is in fact an essential quality for a good conference. I was out of the city on the second day, so I can't say anything about the presentations on that day.
But Sunday was filled with a lot of good presentations: Rene's and Yagmur's presentations both included interesting remarks.
Antje Kirsten
Voilà some thoughts and comments on the this year's TGC which I enjoyed a lot. Although I had not contributed anything with regard to content, I wanted to let you know how I experienced it.
First of all, I wanted to thank you for organising/creating this. I felt like being part of the whole and I learned a lot, also about group dynamics and interpersonal exchange. I was deeply impressed by the easiness knowledge was shared during the conference and appreciated the time which was given to every participant for reflexion and discussion. Although I did not really see a central theme connecting all presentations, I am convinced that this year's TGC has been an enriching experience for everybody: to see how problems are solved in other domains/fields can give us new impulses or even change our ways of looking at things.
I think that Dinesh's effort to connect people and fields is highly striking. An ideal for the future would be to continue and enlarge the co-operation in order to have more concrete results. For example, when Nilüfer (I hope I don't mix up names here) from the architect's office expressed her need to better file the projects in order to make visible the working-process - this should be the moment where you computer engineers should meet to discuss possible solutions. Fixing concrete points or questions like that before the conference could be a good idea - the TGC could then be used for discussing the solutions of concrete points.
Dogukan Erenel
Dogukan's work is summarized in his proposal on Accelerometer based editor for Visually Impaired on Mobile phones.
TGC workshop gave opportunity to participant to exchange the ideas and cultures while observing real world situations in Istanbul. I was really impressed how a culture and governance affects the architectural designs and concepts. Especially, "space in time" ( title may be different ) gives an idea about how inspiring from history and reflection todays world change the design and concepts. In addition, I understood that public space concept is changing to a new space in visually like twitter which affects all cultures in means of speaking freely and contacting people with similar ideas. All in all, my overall experience is pretty good about communicating with people from different cultures and backgrounds.
Rene Ejury
Rene on Back To the Future here
Thanks again to all of you for the nice impressions we could share in Istanbul. I personally found the meeting very fruitful, it was a nice gathering where I could gain new impressions and ideas as well as share my own ones.
As known from last TGC meetings, the outcome is hard to define, as it is mainly based on the changes in our perception. These changes will influence - and I have to speak for myself - my way to judge and create new own projects as well as my sensibility for other fields of development. Bringing views onto technology from different areas and different cultures together in a mixture of a brainstorming-session and scientific talks, that's what I like most on TGC. And, not to forget, I like the nice people from different worlds coming together for a short moment to share their self - I'm really looking forward for the next meeting.
This is the mixture which might push our own creativity in future projects. One perspective future-project I might think of is this Communication-Box, which might as a cross-development be established in India, Turkey and Germany, if we can merge our different intentions strategically into one solution. If we can't merge them, it is as well nice to see where similarities and differences emerge in our creative usage of new communication media. ...
Nadin Kökciyan
TGC was a good opportunity to bring together many researchers from different backgrounds. I believe that we came together around one important notion, "people".
First of all, the aim is to understand people better. For some of us, that is finding answers from the very beginning, as Yağmur Denizhan mentioned some aspects. Some of us are using mapping techniques to map cities, and to recognize the environment that we're living it, as mentioned by architects. Some of us are looking at virtual environments, but actually, we realize that there are only virtual borders separating the real and the virtual. The enormous content created online by people is a mirror of the society, we are trying to understand society by analyzing this content, as mentioned by Suzan Uskudarli. Some of us are using digital technologies to help communities to create their own web presence via free and open source softwares. We are trying to provide free internet for the society e.g. OpenNet Initiative, as mentioned by Rene Ejury. We are developing free and open source Content Management System to help people for sharing information within/between communities e.g. Pantoto, as mentioned by Mega Vishwanath. Some of us, especially people living in Turkey, are hitting government's walls because of censorship issues: block on YouTube and some Google Services, as mentioned by Özgür Uçkan.
To summarize, we are all looking at a same notion from different perspectives. Firstly, we want to understand what people want and especially, what they need, and secondly, we want to make life better for them.
I believe we had good discussions all along TGC sessions. Despite Murphy's Law, that was a very dynamic and a nice workshop. We were not stucked within a same place, and moved from one place to another. We may thank everyone who covered their expenses to participate in TGC, otherwise it couldn't be possible to organize TGC :)
Jyothi Mitta
Jyothi's Time and Space is captured here
Seems like I left a big part of me there...it refuses to come back...wandering in those memories unable to disconnect from those spaces, cafes.....and ofcourse all of u who actually made it come alive...this trip would be more memorable not just because of the place but also because of all of u....am still wondering about the connection between the moon n the sun...but well its all the same 'cos everything is connected to everything....lambert,it was great knowing u, ofcourse not to forget our intuitive path :-)....rene, I guess u would rely more on ur intuition than ur GPRS, for sure intuition never needs re-booting :-)....Antje, it was great the time I got to spend with u....thanks to u I discovered the power behind languages....hey yagmur,it was fun discovering you..thanks for all the food for thought that u have provided me....susan you amazed me the most by presenting a paper on architectural spaces. Wish I could've spent more time with you. But alas, all good things have to end.the taste of your cake n the hummus brings me alive.A lot of effort has gone into organising all of this. Thanks so much to you n your team....Onur, its a great pleasure meeting u....megha and rene, don't forget to post me all the pics...we promised to share esp. The red moon between the minarets which establishes the relation between the moon n the heart :-)))) ....Special thanks to john the BIG heart. Thanks for letting us share ur warm home....dinesh, u need a special page for me properly thank you.I would have missed this great experience but for you. Loved every moment of it.
P.s - hope to see you all soon.
Can Uskudarli
One can never overestimate the contributions of easy D (largest one), moe (med size), and cool T (smallest) to the TGC event....
Megha Vishwanath
A short summary on the Schools and Pantoto is put up here.
Excited as I left and excited when I came back. I've been in and out of my orbit more than once with this Trip to Istanbul. Many heartfelt thanks to our hosts. Your hospitality remains unmatched in my records :). Now, at the task of trying to tie it all together, I realize we may not have a chain but a bouquet of topics. This clearly reflects on the reach and the possibilities of discussions that involve Technology is some form of the other. Also discussions that involve Dinesh and his amazing network of friends :).
While the conference was more than just informative for me and opening me up to new ideas, experiments and thoughts, what really made a difference was the fact that I could hear out people from such diverse backgrounds and their approaches. Particularly, I'd never given "Technology in Architecture" as much thought as I did during and after this interaction. It's the one thing I'm mentioning to everyone who asks about my trip. Would definitely like to keep track of any developements on this trail of thought! Every other presentation was very engaging as well. Since I'd never given much thought, previously, to Interactive Installations, OpenNet, Censorship in Turkey and how Mythology could blend us all in, I am glad this platform was made available to me.
In general Istanbul is a very enjoyable city to visit. I loved every moment of my traveling around. I loved the food and "the love of food" :). I loved Andy's Lego. I was totally impressed with the public transport infrastructure. I was awakened to how cultures thrive in a city with so much heritage. I wish to come back with my friends and family and hope to meet you again then.
Kavita Philip
Forthcoming discussions in Hyderabad, India facilitated by Kavita, Dinesh, Venkatesh, et al. will be available here.
Despite not being there in istanbul, regretfully, I do want to pop in mainly to agree wholeheartedly with Antje about the exciting exchange possibilities in this model of connecting people and fields ( that dinesh promotes among all of us! )
A few of us are going to try and reproduce a small non-conference in hyderabad later this month. I like the bar-camp approach more than the academic conference, and I am hoping that we can persuade traditional academics to spontaneously form affinity groups, panels, sharing spaces, etc. So please do share any ideas that emerged from TGC-Istanbul on forms of exchange in non-standard conference formats . (My main disappointment with TGC-Bangalore2007 was that we - myself included - fell into the academic format all too quickly, which destroys all spontaneous exchange, and forces interdisciplinary thought into boring structures and frameworks...)
Suzan Üsküdarlı
Physical Virtual(PV) designs from a Tuşpa Session is captured here
It is clear that the visitors made much more of Istanbul than myself, as it turned out to coincide with a very overloaded dynamic schedule a the University. The up side was that I was totally prepared for a super dynamic TGC session.
- Pre-TGC 7th grader summer camp.
Prior to the conference one of the events at the university was introducing computer programming to 20 students from Anatolia. Dinesh participated and was a major hit especially for the girls. They made him dance and learned a few moves from him. The students were very cool. We set out to show them a few thigns using javascript. They mostly enjoyed expressing something of themselves using the business model tablet PCs. For example, they created skits/songs/interviews and composed them very naturally. They were very immersed during creation and very proud in demonstration. These students were sent/brought to Istanbul to see a "good" university with intent to inspire them to aim for higher education. Sadly, I predict, even if any do end up here their levels of creativity and enthusiasm will have waned through years of preparation for the multiple choice placement exam. This session made clear the familiarity of computers as well as the lack of empowerment over how it can be used -- aside for entertainment (which is nothing to sneeze at).
- TGC
Nilufer Kozikoglu hosted a cozy session at Tuspa on Thursday. She gave some background on networked spaces work that took place with several people over many months. The PV (which someone assumed meant Physical Virtual) and some of its conceived descriptions. The code name PV refers to an exploration of how an embodied space and humans could interact and what that would feel like. The pursuit of PV is on the shelf and will hopefully come down again.
Melodi presented some very interesting thoughts and images from a slum and relocating (i am not saying this correctly at all, help Melodi). So many thoughts come to mind like the emergent structures, self organization, harmony, trust, security, inclusion, exclusion... If'll try stop being academic. Frankly, visually I thought it was beautiful. The colors and composition in India always appeal to me. Most intreguing.
Gokhan followed with exploration of Urban spaces moving between the density and vacancies within Urban spaces.
This was an architects day. I always enjoy presentations of architects. They are brilliant presenters. Wishc some would rub off on me.
- TGC -- Bogazici, Computer Engineering Roof.
Lots of food! (Bulgur upma, lemon cake, humus, lentil & rice dish, pide, feta, yogurt, watermelon, cantalope, figs, plums, etc.)
Aside of malfunctioning alarms, loss of internet connection, rubbish connector cables we managed.
I elaborated on the PV theme to continue from the Tuspa session (attached docs are super early states). I talked about how we view PV as a public space and discussed other work we do in the greatest public space i know: Twitter.
(Yagmur stopped to say hi. No good deed goes unpunished! As such, we didn't let her escape and the mythology of Turks and other cans of worms were opened. Yagmur was allowed to return to work on the promise of giving a talk the following morning.)
It soon became clear that Rene and Dinesh had designed networked communication spaces to be deployed in India after the Tsunami. So we have something very interesting to play with.
Jyothi talked about design of spaces and how they relate to people and it impact on the relation to one's self. If I understood it correctly. There was a lot of talk about spaces/places and relationships... Seems to resonate with many.
Megha talked about teaching and learning and how they relate. She talked about the community aspects of learning environments. I'll let Megha and Dinesh elaborate :)
- TGC -- Santral Istanbul @ Bilgi University (thanks again Onur).
Started with Mythology of Gilgamesh by Yagmur Denizhan
Try to navigate through life by understanding your environment. Develop your techniques and knowledge (technology) for your journey not to dominate your environment. Don't forget to sail with your rudder. Happy sails. There were great thoughts that deserve their own space.
Rene gave a great talk about connecting rural areas to the Internet. But the most interesting part was of course, the reboot mentality. I met Yagmur the other day and spent more time talking about it.
Internet censorship --- :( *sigh* :(
There was a demonstration last weekend.
Lambert presented one line. Wish I could remember what it was. But it was good. It was about the origin of something. So, that counts for something.
It was good to get a group of people together. Nice to have the time and space to talk about technology in such a diverse manner.
Kavita pointed out that it is very important to have meeting that cross professional/discupline lines. To hear Nilufer's needs and to have computer geeks who may help out (a bit). Such real problems are great to work on. We actually did work on this problem a bit. It is super challenging and it IS fun. All I wish would be to have more and more and much more time to do the fun stuff.
I am up for thinking/playing/building networked spaces...
What more can one ask for than to be presented with contexts of intruiging thoughts.
Thanks all.
