Carla Diana
Bio
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 design robots and everyday objects that come to life through electronic behaviors. I work with companies of all sizes in addition to developing my own products and artwork, playing in the space where physical and digital meet.
Carla is the the creator of interactive sound project Repercussion.org, industrial designer for the iconic humanoid robot, Simon, and developer of Directives Digital Furniture (downloadable, laser-cut, design on-demand pieces).
In her studio she works on exploratory design projects in areas such as domestic robots, wearable devices and interactive toys. Her seminal article, "Talking, Walking Objects", appeared on the cover of the New York Times Sunday Review in January 2013, and is a good representation of her view of our robotic future.
Her recent project, LEO the Maker Prince, is the world's first combination book and open source design collection aimed at introducing the world of 3D printing to kids.
From 2002 to 2007 Carla was Professor of Interactive Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design, where she co-wrote the College's first Interactive Design program and developed Physical Computing courses.
In addition to her professional design work, Carla is a faculty member in the University of Pennsylvania's Integrated Product Design Program where she developed the first courses focused on smart objects.
Session
From Real to Virtual and Back Again
Carla Diana is a designer, artist and educator whose work blurs the boundaries between a variety of disciplines, all dealing with creative technology in some way.
In this session, she will talk about her experience as an industrial and interaction designer dealing with user experiences that are both digital and physical at the same time.
Through a showcase of client work, personal research and art installations, she will demonstrate how ideas and experiments from a variety of seemingly disparate influences can combine to form new solutions that are much richer and deeper than those attained through traditional professional processes alone.
