IFACCA and CNCA Chile are delighted to announce Hayes Raffle, Staff Interaction Designer at Google [X], working on Project Glass, as a keynote speaker for the 6th World Summit on Arts and Culture.
Hayes Raffle is an award-winning product and interaction designer working to combine the simplicity of traditional object-design with the flexibility of digital systems.
He will provide the perspective of an inventor, designer, artist and scientist on the possibilities of creative thinking, and new technologies as tools which help to solve current challenges.
The digital age: ways of rethinking our cultural policies
Culture is no longer understood as something which belongs exclusively to art related disciplines, but as something which crosses all aspects of society. Cultural policies, therefore, must respond to this, taking into consideration research on public policy, and creating new fields of action, such as cultural geography, social innovation, urban and community planning, industrial design, and the advances of our digital age.
Without a doubt, the digital era has revolutionized the way we think about public policy. The possibilities, which digital inventions can create in areas such as democratization and access, inevitably change the way we face the challenges of the future.
As the topic for the World Summit's first day is "Critical Times", creating a space for reflection and analysis, the discussions of the second day will consider the possibilities of the concept of "Creative Spaces". These are spaces in which creativity becomes the main vehicle to transmit knowledge and to fuel innovation, entrepreneurship and development.
With over a dozen years of professional and academic experience, Hayes Raffle's expertise includes industrial design, human-computer interaction, fine art and cognitive science. He completed his B.A. cum laude in fine art at Yale University, and his Ph.D. and M.S. at the MIT Media Lab where he invented new technologies for artistic and musical composition, materials for tangible interpersonal communication and toys for children to learn complex ideas through play. Placing high value on both functionality and aesthetics, he specializes in approaching problems with refreshing solutions.
See below for Mr Raffle's response to the following question:
Could you give us an idea -maybe a concrete case- of how the design of creative solutions can contribute to the cultural development of a particular community?
When I think about development, I immediately think of children. One reason I've spent so much of my career designing toys, tools and technologies for children is that they are voracious learners, bringing a beginner's mind to everything. I particularly love Norman Brosterman's account of how Froebel's kindergarten gifts provided a foundation for a generation of creative people to invent the Modernist movement in the arts. I think the impact of inventing creative technologies for children today is to help them to discover patterns and processes that shape their own creative interpretations of the world.