announcements:

our final crit will take place at our usual meeting place (porter college, room d240) and time (4:00pm - 6:00pm) on tuesday, march 20th. a number of visiting critics will be present to review your work.

professor: 

warren sack <wsack@ucsc.edu>

thursdays: 2:30pm - 4:00pm (porter d215) and by appointment

time & place: 

tuesdays and thursdays: 4:00pm - 6:00pm (porter college, room d240)

description: 

social information spaces is a studio/production course where students design, implement and analyze both online and physical spaces. its focus is social software such as email, newsgroups, weblogs, social network-based search engines (e.g., google) and social networking sites like myspace, youtube, and flickr. we will consider the demise of public space in this country and consider how software might be designed to help address this problem. in particular we will study the structure and social dynamics of cafes to determine if the introduction of laptops, wireless networks, and mobile phones can be employed to invigorate, rather than silence, public discussion and exchange in the cafes. students will do a series of design and analysis exercises at the beginning of the term, write a proposal for a final project and then spend the final several weeks implementing their proposal for a digital art work to be installed in a cafe or on a cafe's wireless network.