Christopher Alexander in practice part 2

From reading to doing After describing how I got introduced to the writings of Christopher Alexander this post tells the story of how I put his theory into practice. I was unfamiliar with his design methods and unsure where to start. I organised a couple of workshops (Fig. 1 & 2) together with Baltan Laboratories […]

Christopher Alexander in practice part 1

Looking for inspiration In the early stages of my master I went to visit artist TeZ in his studio in Amsterdam. His studio is a pleasantly chaotic mixture of a science lab, sound studio and maker space. I had met TeZ a couple of years earlier and we immediately recognised our mutual interest in body […]

Introduction to the concept of emptiness as a basis for a techno-spiritual design

Abstract In this essay I want to explore what is meant by emptiness in Buddhist theory and how this concept can be applied to all material and immaterial phenomena. I will explain how deeply understanding of this concept may lead to the end of suffering. I will briefly introduce the wisdom interventions I intent to […]

Activities, time and mind-state

After exploring mind-states in different places at home I wanted to find out what is the best time and the best activity to base a wisdom intervention on. I started logging my own activities using the method of experience sampling. This method lets you check a certain set of variables at random intervals throughout the […]

Exploring mind-states at home

This is the first report of the research I am doing towards creating a Wisdom Interface. The goal of this interface is to generate moments of insight during everyday activities. In order for these wisdom interventions to be effective I have to know what would be the best location to stage the interventions. For an […]

Silence Suit: sustainably integrating spirituality and technology

This spring I wrote this article together with designer Vera de Pont. It was presented at the “Searching for the New Luxury” conference by the Fashion Colloquium. Unfortunately it will not be published in their journal. But we had a nice time writing it and we hope the content is of use to others. Abstract […]

Soft Meditation, first prototype

For the past couple of weeks I have been working on the first version of my Soft Meditation piece. This is a performance in which I meditate and live data is transformed into an animated, artistic visualisation. Background For the past year I have been developing, together with a team, Meditation Lab Experimenter Kit. A […]

Putting it to the test

Last week was very exciting. I put my system to the test during group experiments. I did 10 sessions in total at three different locations and gathered data from 23 different participants. People could register for beginner or advanced sessions with consisted of 20 or 60 minutes of meditation respectively. New for me was working […]

The artist as boundary crosser in the collaboration process to create a mixed media art piece

This article I wrote with my intern Meike Kurella for the Design Research Society conference 2018. The article was rejected but we would still like to share our findings here. Summary In this article we explore the role of an artist in a multidisciplinary team with regard to the effectiveness of the communication and the […]