I have a wide-range of experience researching and teaching in the following fields: interaction design, design anthropology, cultural anthropology, experience design.

CURRENT RESEARCH AREAS

Learning technologies:

  • Mathetics and innovative learning theories and techniques
  • 'Mode 2' knowledge production and transdisciplinarity

Future of publishing. Mixed-media, multi-author, open-ended publications that leverage several technologies to reconceptualize current narrative forms. New editorial products based on:

  • Places (location-based media, augmented reality, responsive environments, urban informatics, ubiquitous content)
  • Bodies (wearable computers, gestural interactions, natural interfaces)
  • Things (SPIMEs, tangible interfaces, object-centered editorial platforms)

Interaction design / design anthropology:

  • Experience design (experience planning, experience briefing, experience roadmap)
  • Anthropological theories and ethnographic methods, aimed at envisioning, prototyping and producing digital interfaces
  • Emergent design

 

RESEARCH PROJECTS

(2009-to date) FakePress - Rome (Italy)

I founded FakePress, a think-tank that aims at exploring the next steps in publishing practices and platforms, united with a research on the possibilities offered by location based technologies and by novel approaches to knowledge dissemination, communication and expression.

Projects developed:

  • Conference Biofeedback: A set of electrodes worn by presenters. Attendants access a web interface where they can express real-time feedback on the speech. Presenters receive low voltage stimulations in case of negative feedback from the audience.
  • Toys++: an augmented-reality based toy. Toys++ is grounded on the concept that the actual activity of building tangible artifacts can speed up learning processes.
  • Crossing the boundaries of sacred worlds: a prototype for an augmented-reality application that allows the use of existing physical components of the Minkisi (a variety of objects used throughout the Congo Basin in Central Africa thought to contain spiritual powers or spirits) as triggers to retrieve and experience new orders of information, in order to represent the spiritual qualities and the composite, stratified, unstable nature of these power figures.
  • Ubiquitous Anthropology: The Ubiquitous Anthropology project aims to surpass the limits of traditional ethnography by exploring new, plural forms of field research representation, taking advantage of innovative scenarios and technologies: location-based media, open-ended stories, and emerging narrative dynamics.
  • iSee, a mobile augmented reality application that allows to interact with the logos of the products found in shops and supermarkets: take a picture of any logo and get instant information on its manufacturer's social responsibility and environmental policies.
  • Atlas of visions, an interactive environment (a 35-meter wide projection composed of 8 collaborating servers and controlled by 4 multitouch surfaces) that is able to let people experience multiple views on the city they live in or that they’re visiting, and to research and investigate on the visions that architects, artists, institutions and, in general, other people have had on urban spaces, through projects, actions, competitions, events, works, performances, research, institutional or political actions.

More information here.

 

(2006) Gandhi Museum - New Delhi (India)

I collaborated to the creation of the Gandhi Museum (funded by MIT Media Lab and India Government), one of the world’s first digital multimedia museums. My role was to facilitate communication between the Indian Board and participating Italian companies. More information here.

 

(1999) Opera Malinowski – Rome (Italy)

I co-organized a theatrical performance written by Massimo Canevacci.

The main character was Malinowski, an anthropologist who conducted some classical studies on Trobriand's Islands. In his diary, Malinowski showed his profound crisis during the field research.

Opera Malinowski was conducted during the course of Cultural Anthropology at University of Rome and the students took part in the performance. The idea was that through this performance the students could learn better how many difficulties a field research brings. The students personally experienced the troubles and the joys of an anthropological research by getting immersed into a performance that reproduced the conditions of a field research. More information here.