Livable Futures

Biography

Matthew Lewis is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Design at The Ohio State University. He holds a joint appointment with the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD) in the College of Arts and Sciences where he has taught and collaborated on faculty, staff, and student research projects since 1992. He is additionally affiliated with the Translational Data Analytics Institute (TDAI), the campus hub for big data analysis and visualization research.

His current research is in the areas of emerging technologies and generative processes in the arts and design. In particular, he is investigating the use of novel data acquisition, fabrication, and display systems for interactive performance, installation, and data visualization applications. He has taught courses on creative coding, interactive performance and installation technologies, virtual environments, 3D animation, digital lighting, and procedural animation. He has presented generative art and design research and artwork internationally.

Q & A

What makes more livable futures for you?

Finding ways of maintaining a little space to move, flexibility, and multiple degrees of freedom appears to be a reoccurring theme. Increasingly, any time I try to settle into a balanced position between extremes, I find myself edging back into the systems thinking territory of "actually it's more complicated". Adopting and promoting an expectation of complexity and instability rather than static simplicity seems productive. In this context, it has been rewarding to give my students space and opportunities to shift from building narrow (fragile) expertise, to gaining the ability to constantly learn as needed. Learning to be ok as an "eternal newbie" (as Kevin Kelly suggests) seems critical (i.e., beginner's mind, growth mindset...)

I remain very curious about "livability" in futures that provide near infinite access to knowledge of possibilities and impacts. I think of those scenes where a fictional character finally attains access to all knowledge and is promptly driven mad. Paralysis seems perhaps more likely: How often do successful interview subjects claim, "I never would have even started this project if I had known at the beginning..." As more reliable information about future impact becomes accessible, learning from prior work, due diligence, look before you leap, all become infinite tasks. "Move fast and break things" has proven to be a bad idea, but all action may require some willful ignorance balanced (somehow) with responsibility.

What are you reading, viewing, listening to right now?

Predictably, I sip from the firehoses of emerging technology books, podcasts, and twitter. Some recent/current books include, "Everyday Chaos", "Ghost Work", and "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism". Super-accessible tech culture podcasts include: "YOU: Technology + Identity", "Function", "Chips with Everything", and "Why'd you push that button". I've been obsessively viewing lots of DIY/Maker/Hacker electronics videos on youtube, out of proportion with the time I've actually found for DIY/making/hacking.

What practices are sustaining you?

A long time aikido practice keeps me not so much centered, as more comfortable being off-center: lots of effortless falling, improvisational movement, and attention to breathing despite multiple attackers. Great fun! I have always been most productive working in coffee shops, listening to streams of unfamiliar noisy/droney/ambient music (yesterday: "Terra Ephemera", by Everyday Dust & [MIIIIM]). Making time to program has always been very rewarding.