International Design Conference in Aspen Examine the floating world of design at Design Digital

Furniture World Magazine

"Design Digital, the 49th annual International Design Conference in Aspen, will examine the floating world of design in the electronic age," announces architect Harry Teague, president of IDCA. From June 16-19, 1999, the international design community will gather to investigate the new digital landscape, what it is today and what it will be in the future. Design Digital is the second in a trilogy honoring the Aspen Idea, the integration of body, mind and spirit, and celebrating the 50th anniversary of this annual design forum. "After over a century of living in a world radically shaped and transformed by mechanical technology, we now find ourselves adrift in a more ephemeral landscape," states Aaron Betsky, chairman of the 1999 conference and curator of architecture, design and digital projects at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The conference is being organized by Mr. Betsky and Paola Antonelli, associate curator of architecture and design at The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Ed Bastian, president of Aspen Interactive Media, Aspen, Colorado; and S. Joy Mountford, Interval Research Corporation, Palo Alto, California. IDCA will look at the changing role of designers, how working within an electronic environment affects the process of design and how the constellation of landscapes, processes and aesthetics affects the product. Participants will explore the role of the designer as interpreter between the user and the object when it becomes difficult to define either. And the role of the designer in manifesting the conceptual into the virtual and the virtual into the physical will also be explored. Attendees will examine the future and the physical reality of this new world. They will look at the ability of designers to influence and shape a future course. And they will explore how designers are pioneering new languages, images and environments and how these interfaces between man and machine are working. Designing digitally at three scales will be addressed: the mouse ... navigational tools for the electrosphere from cars to interface; the house ... structures in which we live, work or play; and the city ... the real or virtual landscape, the form of our community. Speakers include: Erik Adigard, Michael Bell, Elizabeth Diller, Zaha Hadid, Tibor Kalman, Craig Kanarick, Daniel Libeskind, J. Mays, Bill Mitchell, Bill Moggridge and David Ross. Future conferences include Spirit of Design scheduled for June 14-17, 2000, and 50 Years of Talking Design, June 13-16, 2001. The early registration fee is $600 if postmarked by March 15, 1999; after that date, the registration fee is $750 per person. One additional member of a firm/ organization is $600, and one additional member of the same household is $350. Registration for a full-time student is $200 with current student ID. For registration and more information contact IDCA E-mail: info@idca.org Telephone: 970-925-2257.