Andy Polaine
Bio
In 1994, Andy Polaine co-founded the award-winning new-media collective Antirom in London and worked with clients such as the BBC, Levis Strauss and Co., Tomato and The Science Museum as well exhibiting several interactive installations and performances around the world.
Andy was also a producer at dotcom giant, Razorfish, in the UK before moving to Australia where he started the interactive department of visual effects company, Animal Logic.
He became a Senior Lecturer in Interactive Media at The University of New South Wales, Sydney and Head of the School of Media Arts and its Digital Media programme before leaving to move to Germany, although he still teaches for UNSW online.
He has also been a Guest Professor at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany and his research spans cultural futures as well as interactivity and play.
Aside from his academic life he works as an interaction designer, education consultant and writer and co-convenes the Omnium Creative Network, a critical forum for ethical art and design projects.
Session
Playful Revolutions
We all love to lust after the latest and greatest, but it's easy to get bogged down in the technology and forget to play.
In this session Andy will take a look at how play and playfulness have underpinned most of the projects he has been involved in over the past 13 years from Antirom to the present day.
He will explore how play can be revolutionary when developing ideas and projects and how clients can be won over by the things you normally keep under wraps in your 'personal work'.
In addition to looking at projects he has been directly involved with he will also run through some of his favourite "Things I Wish I Had Made" on the premise that there are always people out there who are better than you, so why not use their examples instead?