Greetings from the Sarasota International Design Summit, where I’m sitting in the ballroom of the Ritz Carlton Sarasota listening to the summit speakers.
Bruce Damer (pictured) just finished discussing his work, including the development of the iDoublet—a renaissance-inspired garment that holds all of your “wearz” or gadgets, like iPods. (In addition to several music players, Damer was wearing a prototype of a LED Twitter feed, with text scrolling across a small panel at his hip as he spoke.)
Damer spoke about his work simulating complex processes that are not yet realizable in real life. Through his work with NASA, he has—along with a team of collaborators—created animations modeling possible asteroid landing techniques, for example. One of his most recent projects is EvoGrid, an animated model of how a computer-driven artificial evolution environment might look and operate. Though Damer’s own work is quite science- and space-specific, the idea of modeling a process or prototype and experimenting in a virtual world has potential for application in a wide variety of industries. (Including architecture and construction, which the summit’s next speakers will address.)
Megan Voeller is Creative Loafing’s visual art critic. She teaches at the University of Tampa and The Art Institute of Tampa, edits the weekly online newsletter of CreativeTampaBay and blogs at Artsqueeze.com.
This article appears in Oct 22-28, 2008.