semeiotica
evolutionary design ecology

About

The name of this blog is semeiotica, Italian for symp·to·ma·tol·o·gy (sĭm’tə-mə-tŏl’ə-jē) n. It’s the medical science of symptoms -or- the combined symptoms of a disease.

However, I didn’t really know that and thought it a neologism. I was trying to remix the ideas of semiotics, meiosis, and maybe even erotica. Low and behold a new word was born…or reborn that is.

Here I describe and catalog design ecologies and relationships among art, design, science, risk, networks, cognition and biology. Sometimes they intersect. Sometimes they conflict. Conflict begets development. Development demands synthesis.

I currently  describe what I do as design ecology. Design ecology is concerned with the abundance and distribution of interactions in the design process. Identifying these interactions and their histories facilitates better decision making towards positive futures. I look for opportunities to develop social capital and design strategy for organizational change at the intersections of ecosystem health, risk assessment, design, cognitive development, and economic agency.

My goal is to recognize and leverage interactions between infrastructure, consumption, and meaning in order to create pathways for understanding risk and adaptation in diverse communities.  Accomplishing this means building knowledge-based cooperative networks across disciplines and social groups to reveal and manage uncertainty and opportunities in energy, water, climate change, and economic development.  I import and utilize a variety of tools, practices, and perspectives, including my own proprietary processes, to reframe problems and arrive at more robust ways of working and interacting at multiple scales.

My research focuses on the application of new media and other cognitive tools to difficult problems including sustainability, public health, policy development, and institutional infrastructures. As an American living in India for the last three years, I spent the first six months contributing design research and editorial oversight as part of CKS Consulting to The Emerging Economy Report, a compendium of in-depth data, analysis, and design insight for service innovation in the emerging markets of Brazil, Egypt, South Africa, Kenya, India, China, and Indonesia.

As a Faculty Artist-in-Residence at the Center for Experimental Media Arts in Bangalore, India, I lead design courses, studios, and workshops on interdisciplinary themes from  teaching and learning, to the life sciences, games and simulations, design for corruption, information and interaction design, film and critical theory, and the design product-service systems.

Now a Design Ecologist in the Next Generation Infrastructure Lab at the Center for Study of Science, Technology, and Policy (also in Bangalore), I contribute to policy analysis and research on tactical media, public engagement, scenarios, and simulation games for sectors ranging from energy to climate change and institutional infrastructures. I have an M.F.A in Art and Design from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and a B.A. and M.A. in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior from Indiana University, Bloomington.

My current projects include Watercasting a two-year project funded by the Wellcome Trust to look at new modes of participatory media for public health engagement, New Media development at the Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy, and a research project to design cognitive tools for collaboration using scenarios and games to support Vulnerability and Adaptation Assessments for Climate-driven Health Outcomes in data-poor contexts.

Other than that, most of my research interests are reflected in the pages of this blog.

email me!