Book talk: Artful Design: Technology in Search of the Sublime

Thursday, September 13, 2018

6:00 pm

Bender Room, Green Library

Join us for an evening of thought-provoking discussion as Ge Wang presents his book, Artful Design: Technology in Search of the Sublime (release date: September 11, 2018 from Stanford University Press). Signed copies will be available for sale.

Artful Design: Technology in Search of the Sublime takes readers on a journey through the aesthetic dimensions of technology. Using music as a universal phenomenon that has evolved alongside technology, this book breaks down concrete case studies in computer-mediated toys, tools, games, and instruments, including the best-selling app Ocarina. Every chapter elaborates a set of general design principles and strategies that illuminate the essential relationship between aesthetics and engineering, art and design.

Wang implores us to both embrace and confront technology, not purely as a means to an end, but in its potential to enrich life. Technology is never a neutral agent, but through what we do with it—through what we design with it—it provides a mirror to our human endeavors and values. Artful Design delivers an aesthetic manifesto of technology, accessible yet uncompromising.

About the author:

Ge Wang is an Associate Professor at Stanford University in Music and Computer Science.  He is a designer of instruments, toys, and games; inventor of the ChucK programming language; and director of the Stanford Laptop Orchestra (SLOrk). Ge is co-founder of Smule, a Silicon Valley startup that explores music-making via mobile devices and the designer of Magic Piano and Ocarina, an Apple Hall of Fame App.  He is a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow.

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This book talk is sponsored by Stanford Libraries and is part of the three-day workshop Sustainable Infrastructures for Digital Arts & Humanities: A DARIAH Exchange. More information about this workshop is available at the registration page and conference program site.