Chinese Whispers

Full Conference   One-Day Full Conference  

Educators Paper

Chinese Whispers refers to the concept of mediating between remote studios with new forms of hybrid designing and real-time online collaboration. A sequence of experiments explored the concepts of linkage and slippage that occur at the boundaries of converging technologies as a means of generating innovative and unexpected design outcomes (real and virtual, tangible and intangible). The project is framed in a contemporary context with background research into current concepts and theories centered on learning ecology and user-generated design into future trends and state-of-the-art technologies.

Chinese Whispers involved linking hardware and software that are not immediately compatible in a remote networked environment to facilitate an educational design process in both remote and real environments. Through this process, students engaged in 3D scanning, downloading, visualising, analysing, remote simultaneous modelling in stereo, and deciding when to hit "3D print" at any given stage to invent a new design methodology.

Simon Fraser
Tim Miller
Morgan Barnard
Kris Henning
Victoria University of Wellington School of Design

Mark Billinghurst
HIT Lab NZ