I found out a bit too late that Nicolas Nova would be giving a talk at iMAL in Brussels yesterday. Luckily he always puts his slides online
The talk also explained his (seemingly random) blog title: “Pasta&Vinegar”. He states that the hybridization of digital and physical environments is explored both by academic researchers (pasta) and artists and designers (vinegar). In the talk at iMAL he talked about why vinegar is important for pasta
His slides contain lots of interesting and creative ideas, such as blogjects, augmenting animals (e.g. a dog with sensors that controls a WoW character) and a tooth implant that vibrates when you have an incoming call.
If you want to invent something that is to be used 10 years from now, who can you observe? Nicolas states that looking at new media, art and design can give us clues. He also explains that art and design can better convey desire of people for the future, and shows a typical diagram from an IT company that is not appealing to people and too much focused on the technology in the background. He finally refers to the use of technology in art. SIGGRAPH’s Emerging Technologies and Art Gallery are good examples of this and of combining pasta and vinegar.