Presenter
http://web.media.mit.edu/~tad/
Tad’s web site
Tad Hirsch is an artist and designer whose work explores relationships between science and engineering on the one hand, and social and political issues on the other. He is a design researcher with the People and Practices Research group at Intel, where he examines ways to use technology for natural resource management, sustainable agriculture, and food-based social movements. He is also a founding member of the Institute for Applied Autonomy, an art/technology/activism collective that has been operating since 1998. He has worked with Motorola’s Advanced Concepts Group, the Interaction Design Studio at Carnegie Mellon University, RISD’s Digital + Media Department, and also has several years’ experience in the nonprofit sector. Tad holds a PhD in Media Arts and Sciences from the MIT Media Laboratory, and an MDes in Interaction Design from Carnegie Mellon University.
Tad’s projects have included robots that spray paint graffiti and distribute subversive literature, mapping software that enables people to avoid CCTV surveillance cameras, aircraft-detecting coconuts that place complaint calls to airport noise abatement programs, and a faux-travel agency that critically examines the Central Intelligence Agency’s extraordinary rendition program. He has also developed text-messaging broadcast systems for street protest, community-based language interpretation systems for Chinese immigrants, and telephone-based independent media systems for activists in Zimbabwe.
Tad’s work has been included in festivals and exhibited in museums and galleries throughout Europe and America including the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe, Ars Electronica, The New Museum, The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, and MassMoca. He has been the recipient of several prestigious awards and commissions including an Award of Distinction at Prix Ars Electronica 2000 and Rhizome Net Art Commissions in 2002 and 2006.
