Lift conference - workshop and meetings

This year again I am participating the great Lift conference. It is one of the most  exciting and inspiring events in Europe, so I am happy to be back. Today I assist to Bálint Ferenczi who runs a workshop 'Beyond Data' on data embodiment: http://beyondata.tumblr.com/. This is actually the 4th workshop in the row, initiated by Melinda Sipos at Kitchen Budapest and Angela Plohman at Baltan Laboratories, Eindhoven (whom I just had a chance meeting last Saturday). The workshop will call participants to think beyond data visualizations and draw the outlines of different scenarios when data embodiment can be used as a mean of communication or strategy. The workshop outcomes are intended to be used in the upcoming book on 'Beyond Data' to be published in April 2012. I will also contribute to the book with a short essay on how data embodiment as a strategy for citizen engagement.

Funnily I met Manuel Schmalstieg, the originator of the wonderful concept wiki-sprint, which we adopted last year when organizing McLuhan wikisprint at Kunsthalle Budapest. Somehow he discovered that I'm in town, and contacted to meet up for a beer. He showed me a tiny-cute bar, La Petite Reine, and we had a nice discussion about wikipedia art projects, speculative wikipedia entries, and generally what we do.