Alive2013 Ruairi Glynn - Irresistible Anima

If you’ve ever encountered skillful puppetry, you’ll find yourself willingly suspending your disbelief, projecting life into things that in all rational terms are devoid of life. Jean Piaget established that children of 2 till 7 in age demonstrate the highest degrees of animist perception but even as adults we still find ourselves projecting life into the most unlikely of things – particularly when they demonstrate movement or degrees of purposeful and intelligent behaviour. In a world increasingly inhabited by artificially intelligent systems, contextually aware gadgets, sensory spaces and robotic agents, will our sense of our built environment as inert and lifeless change to one rich in synthetic personalities, and strange forms of artificial life? How as designers we can design and build objects and spaces that move and transform and in turn create novel experiences and meaningful interactions will be the central theme around which I will base this Lecture, presenting my work, the work of artists and engineers who have inspired me and the prototypical investigations of students of mine at the Bartlett School of Architecture & Central Saint Martins College of Design.

www.ruairiglynn.co.uk