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2001 Winner
Maeda directs the Aesthetics and Computation
Group (ACG), where his mission is to foster the growth of what he
calls “human technologists”– people that are capable
of articulating future culture through informed understanding of
the technologies they use.
The ACG is an experimental research studio that
was founded in 1996 as the successor to the late Professor Muriel
Cooper’s Visible Language Workshop. In the short time since
its existence, individual experimental work in the ACG has received
numerous awards and acclaim for a uniqueness in both concept and
craft. A major component of the ACG’s efforts involves outreach
to the design and art community in the form of workshop and events
that introduce the underlying concepts of computing technology,
as exemplified in Maeda’s ongoing Design by Numbers project.
Inspired by Thoughts on Design by Paul Rand,
Maeda tuned his interested in computer science toward the realm
of graphic design, and soon after, left MIT for art school in Japan.
After establishing himself in Tokyo as an expert in issues involving
graphic design and computer technology, as well as earning numerous
design awards for his experimental an commercial work for the digital
medium and print, Maeda returned to MIT in the Fall of 1996 to join
the faculty of the Media Laboratory as professor of design. A 480-page
retrospective of Maeda’s personal work entitled MAEDA@MEDIA
is forthcoming in October, and a collection of his work is visible
at www.maedastudio.com.
In addition to Maeda, the 2001 DMI Muriel Cooper
Prize nominees included: Norman Ball, Director of the Centre for
Society, Technology and Values and an engineering professor at the
University of Waterloo; Nathan Felde, Director of the Media Laboratory
for NYNEX Science and Technology; Barbara Hayes-Roth, Senior Research
Scientist, Knowledge Systems Laboratory, Stanford University; Toshio
Iwai, interactive media artist; and Daniel Rozin, Director of Research
and Adjunct Professor at the Interactive Telecommunications Program
at New York University.
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