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EDWINA PORTOCARRERO


I work at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction and the built environment, where I expliore the relations between technology, developmental psychology, play, learning and design.

How does our physical surrounding shape our cognitive, social, intellectual, physical, perceptual, and emotional growth?

I hold an MA and a PhD from MIT’s Media Lab, and previously studied lighting design at Calarts. 

Living between analog and digital, handcrafted and mass-produced, my work explores the ways in which objects and materials mediate and augment experience across contexts and cultures, systems, and scales.
Presently I am exploring how telepresence, calm technologies, and transformable architecture can inform the design of networked public ludic spaces in cities-to-be.

"Networked Playscapes" has been granted the Bill Mitchell ++ Prize, an MIT/Conacyt Seed Fund, and has been supported by Laboratorio para la Ciudad, Museo Tamayo and Archivo Arquitectura y Diseño in Mexico City and recognized with the Harold and Arlene Schnitzer Prize for the Visual Arts at MIT.  

Extended Bio, Publications, CV
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Networked Playscapes: redefining the playground
PhD dissertation
Readers: Ethan Zuckermann, Neri Oxman, Edith Ackerman
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inside/out: tools for reflective, creative learning
Masters Thesis Readers: Sherry Turkle, Edith Ackerman, Mitch Resnick
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LATEST


2020


Biblioteca Vasconcelos
Mexico City
Working on a proposal to revitalize the gardens of this architectural jewel. By invitation. With Pedro Cerisola and Pablo Kobayashi.

Abierto Mexicano de Diseño
Mexico City
Designing a piece for this year´s Utopia themed festival to be installed in front of Palacio de Bellas Artes. With Pedro Cerisola, by invitation.


2019


Design for
Social Innovation School of Visual Arts
New York City
Teaching Mapping and Visualization Design - really systems thinking.

MEM Industrial
Mexico City
Developed Urania, modular plaything. To be installed at the Central Library of Mexico City.
INC Mty
Monterrey, NL Mexico
Speaker!
Abierto Mexicano
de Diseño:
Tecno-Pop Laboratorio Arte Alameda
Mexico City
Developed Iris by invitation, with Pedro Cerisola.
Invited alongside ORU to represnt Mexico.
Experience Fighters
Madrid, Spain
Speaker!
Cocolab
Mexico City
Co-creative director for Playgrounds


2018



Studio Adrien Gardere
Paris, France
Spent a semester working at this world renowned museography studio.

Listentree is part of the festival!
Invited to participate, developed Oráculo with Rozana Montiel.
Edwina Portocarrero is a researcher, producer and designer working at the intersection of art, culture, technology and society.
She obtained her Master’s and Ph.D. at the MIT Media Lab where she specialized in the design of tools for creative apperception that harness diversity in levels and vehicles of thought by leveraging ubiquitous computing, network technologies and sensor networks with the social, aesthetic and symbolic qualities of the built environment.
Prior to joining the Media Lab, she attended Calarts’ Lighting Design MFA and Mexico City’s Escuela Nacional de Antropologia e Historia’s Ethnography BA.

Her academic research appears in an array of publications and has been presented at a diversity of conferences, from human-computer interaction and ubiquitous computing to epistemology, art, design, and storytelling. Her work has been exhibited internationally at 2019’s Seoul’s Architectural Biennale, Archivo Diseño y Arquitectura, SXSW, Museo de San Idelfonso, Laboratorio Arte Alameda, MIT Museum, Museo de la Ciudad de Mexico and the Montreal International Documentary Festival among others.

Edwina served as guest project lead of “City as Playground” at Mexico City’s Laboratorio para la Ciudad and was invited as designer in residence at Museo Tamayo’s Education department and at Archivo Arquitectura y Diseño. She is the recipient of MIT’s MISTI Seed Fund, the Bill Mitchell Award and the Harold and Arlene Schnitzer Award in the Visual Arts for her Ph.D. dissertation work: Networked Playscapes. She has been the recipient of the FONCA’s Jóvenes Creadores grant and of CONACYT’s Study Abroad Scholarship.
She recently co-founded Super Market, a design and creative technology production and consulting agency working at the intersection of artistic practice, cultural production and social good. Edwina is currently teaching at NYC’s School of Visual Arts’ Design for Social Innovation program.

Dr. Portocarrero’s past lives include sitting still for countless hours while modeling for world renowned artists, slowly hitchhiking from Boston to Nicaragua, learning cooking techniques and teaching basic literacy skills in a Garifuna village in Honduras, assisting in documentary film making in Brazil, and filming countless hours of kids playing soccer in Rwinkwavu, Rwanda.

PUBLICATIONS


ACADEMIC DISSERTATIONS 

2017 Networked Playscapes:
Redefining the Playground E Portocarrero, Ph.D. Dissertation
Readers: Edith Ackermann, Ethan Zuckerman, Neri Oxman
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
School of Architecture and Planning,
Program in Media Arts and Sciences

2011 inside/out: mirrors for reflective, creative thinking
E Portocarrero. S.M. Dissertation
Readers: Sherry Turkle, Edith Ackerman, Mitch Resnick
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Program in Media Arts and Sciences
CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS

2015 ListenTree: Audio-haptic Display in the Natural Environment
E Portocarrero, G Dublon, J Paradiso, VM Bove
CHI Interactivity
Seoul, South Korea

2014 Listentree: Audio-haptic Display in the Natural Environment
G Dublon, E Portocarrerro
International Community for Auditory Display (ICAD '14)
New York, NY

2012 Designing Tools for Creative LearningE Portocarrero
Constructionism Conference
Athens, Greece

2011 Pillow-talk: seamless interface for dream priming, recalling and playback
E Portocarrero, D Cranor, V M Bove
Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction (TEI’11)
Madeira, Portugal

2011 Calliope: a portable stage for co-creative storytelling
E Portocarrero, Y Wang, VM Bove
International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (ICID’11) Vancouver, Canada

2010 The Never Ending Storytelling Machine: a platform for creative collaboration using a sketchbook and everyday objects
E Portocarrero, D Robert, S Follmer, M Chung
PaperComp’10 at Ubicomp
Copenhagen, Denmark
ARTICLES
2010 The Never-Ending Drawing Machine (NEDM) and Calliope
E Portocarrero, D Robert, M Chung, S Follmer, Y Wang
published in ACM’s Interactions Magazine - New York 18 (6), 8 



IN THE NEWS

TALKS


2019  Designing for Play
Experience Fighters | Madrid, ES
2018 Aesthetics, Cybernetics and Play
Connecting the Dots | Mexico City
2017 Paradigm Shift Forum
Moderator: Sabine Himmelsbach
Mapping Festival | Geneva, CH
2016
MIT Tech Review’s Innovators Under 35
Keynote | Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador

2015
O’Reilly’s SOLID Conference
Keynote | San Francisco, CA
2015
Creative Thinkers
Advertisement Week | New York City, NY
2014  Rethink Play 
Tecnológico de Monterey | Mexico City, MX
2013  “Inventing Futures”
EMTECH Mexico | Mexico City, MX
2011 TechVisions
Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez | Santiago de Chile
2010 Pillow-Talk: Harnessing Dream Recall
Future of Health Technology Summit
Harvard Faculty Club | Cambridge, MA
2010  Technologies for Creative Learning
HASBRO | Boston, MA

WORKSHOPS


2018 Future City Lab
Ars Electronica + Zero0ne
Seoul, Korea  
2015 Networked Playscapes
Epicentro Festival de Innovación
Guadalajara, MX
2014 Networked Playscapes
MIT India Initiative
Ahmedabad, India
2014 Transformational Design
Tecnológico de Monterrey
Saltillo, MX
2014 Prototyping the Imposible Laboratorio para la Ciudad 
Mexico City, MX
2013 Networked Playscapes
Universidad Autónoma de Occidente
Cali, Colombia

RESIDENCIES

2017 Networked Playscapes
Archivo Diseño y Arquitectura Mexico City

2016 Numen for Use workshopDomaine de BoisbuchetLessac, France 

2016 Networked Playscapes
Museo Tamayo - Sala Educativa Mexico City


2015 Urban Play Project Lead
Laboratorio para la Ciudad
Mexico City


2012 Summer at Rober Lepage’s Ex-Machina
La CaserneQuebec, CA

2011 Rober Wilson “My Friend Su” MIT
Cambridge, MA

2010 Reclamation Project
Hotel Maria Kapel
Horn, NL

HONORS


2017 Harold and Arlene Schnitzer Award
in the Visual Arts
Cambridge, MA
2016 BILL MITCHELL ++ FUND
MIT Cambridge, MA
2016 MISTI Seed Fund, MIT & CONACYT
Mexico and Cambridge, MA
2013 Arts Scholar Grant
MIT Cambridge, MA
2013 FONCA Jóvenes Creadores
 Mexico
2012 CONACYT Study Abroad Scholarship
Mexico

2011 Council for the Arts Grant
MIT Cambridge, MA
2010 Council for the Arts Grant
MIT Cambridge, MA
2010 Mondriaan Foundation
Horn, Netherlands
2008 Ahmanson Grant
California Institute of the Arts
Valencia CA
2008 Interdisciplinary Project Grant
California Institute of the Arts
Valencia CA
2007 Merit Scholarship
California Institute of the Arts
Valencia CA