Collaborative creativity: Altlab and OpenMaterials.
AltLab is a collective dedicated to independent research and experimentation in alternative media. Community-based and community-building by nature, it seeks to promote active participation, knowledge sharing, and collaboration among individuals such as artists, programmers, engineers, hobbyists, scientists, and all those who wish to freely explore creative and emancipatory uses of technology. Just like many other hackerspaces which have emerged all over the world in recent years, AltLab has also been founded on the notions of software/hardware libre and the belief in collective independent platforms for open and active knowledge-sharing and experimentation.
OpenMaterials is a collaborative research project dedicated to open investigation and experimentation with DIY production methods and uses of materials.
In the spirit of the open source software and hardware movements, we hope to promote materials to be researched and developed in a public, collaborative manner. We see materials as an open resource, and wish to establish an open process for exploring and sharing knowledge, techniques and applications related to materials science.
Inspired by Eric Raymond’s comment in ‘The Cathedral and the Bazaar’, regarding the bazaar style which he described as “a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches”, we hope to encourage discourse and experimentation with the broadest range of materials and processes possible.
Catarina Mota.
Currently a PhD candidate at CoLab’s Digital Media doctoral program with a research focus on artistic physical interfaces and DIY culture.
Catarina holds a BA in Communication Sciences, with a major in Film, from the New University of Lisbon, and a master’s degree from New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), where she was also a research fellow (fellowship sponsored by ITP and Interval Research Corporation). At ITP she specialized in physical computing and interactive installations. Her installations include a storytelling eye-tracking system, an immersive narrative environment, and a few sets of interactive portraits. Additionally,
Catarina has studied film at the New York Film Academy, photography at New York’s School of Visual Arts, and received training in video, documentary, and digital animation.
As a a multimedia consultant she has 10 years of experience in interaction and interface design, information architecture, and rich media content for both the web and physical environments. She has served as creative director, lead information architect and designer on numerous projects for museums, companies, schools, and governmental institutions based in Portugal, New York and Los Angeles.