Seeing Through the Lens of 4D Design

Thursday, October 25, 2018, 6:30 - 8pm

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While we can confidently say that the future is here in terms of technological advances, we are a long way from truly understanding its impact. To do so, we need to tinker, explore, and prototype the data-infused experiences that make the physical world around us unfold over the fourth dimension–time. In this talk, Carla Diana ME'89 will discuss the impact of 4D Design, from interactive objects and clothing to mixed reality and robotics, looking at the critical work that today’s design students will do to shape the world of tomorrow.

The event is free and open to the public. General public should reserve a space at https://bit.ly/2EgnSwD. Please note seating is on a first come basis; an RSVP does not guarantee admission as we generally overbook to ensure a full house.

Carla Diana is a designer, author, and educator who explores the impact of future technologies through hands-on experiments in product design and tangible interaction. She has designed a range of products from robots to connected home appliances, and her designs have appeared on the covers of Popular Science, Technology Review, and the New York Times Sunday Review.

Carla DianaCarla has been granted the honor of creating the 4D Design program at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, serving as its first Designer in Residence; it will begin accepting students in Fall 2019. She is an ongoing collaborator with the Socially Intelligent Machines Lab at the University of Texas, Austin, where advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning are manifest in expressive robots.

Carla writes and lectures frequently on the social impact of robotics and emerging technology and created the world’s first children’s book on 3D printing, LEO the Maker Prince. She is a coauthor of a forthcoming book on smart object design to be published by Harvard Business Review Press and currently cohosts the Robopsych Podcast, a biweekly discussion around design and the psychological impact of human-robot interaction.

She holds a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from the Cooper Union and an M.F.A. in 3D Design from the Cranbrook Academy of Art.

Located in the Frederick P. Rose Auditorium, at 41 Cooper Square (on Third Avenue between 6th and 7th Streets)

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.