CREATIVE TECHNOLOGIST SWAN CARPENTER ON BEING FLEXIBLE, EXPLORING BOOKSTORES, AND QUEEN VICTORIA’S FAVORITE ICE.
Swan is an artist, designer, and software developer with a Bachelor of Computer Science and Arts from Carnegie Mellon University. They were born in the UK and raised in Massachusetts. In their free time, Swan enjoys making twisty puzzles (think Rubik’s Cubes), wandering around in the woods, and eating bread.
WHAT IS YOUR ACADEMIC BACKGROUND AND HOW DID YOU END UP AT DEEPLOCAL?
I have a combined degree in Environments Design and Computer Science from CMU. It’s a half-and-half thing. I did a lot of work with a professor that’s closely associated with Deeplocal, and he introduced us.
IN YOUR OWN WORDS, WHAT IS A CREATIVE TECHNOLOGIST?
At Deeplocal, a creative technologist is someone who would be classified as a software developer at other companies. The difference here is that creative technologists are heavily involved in concepting and the creative process. Working with designers is a dialogue. Instead of: “Here’s what I designed. Go make it,” there’s a lot of: “Hey, here are my thoughts. Can we talk about it?” Not just: “Your design is technically unfeasible,” but rather: “Can we talk about the design—just from a design perspective?” Working like this makes you feel more integrated in the project. It’s not a handoff.
WHAT ARE THE TOOLS YOU USE MOST OFTEN FOR YOUR JOB?
I make a lot of use of Gumband, a platform that Deeplocal developed internally for interactive experiences. Also, a lot of JavaScript and TouchDesigner. Specifically, the language or software package that I use at any given time depends on the project because what Deeplocal does is so tailored to the work. We don’t necessarily have a standard framework or project prototype that we reuse. It’s more like starting from zero each time. It changes a lot and there’s more variety.
INDUSTRY-WISE, ARE THERE ANY TRENDS AND/OR EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES THAT YOU’RE EXCITED ABOUT?
It's not necessarily an emerging technology, it's actually been around for over a decade, but I just got introduced to the language Rust a couple months ago, and I'm super excited about it. I feel like it offers an incredible balance between those low-level features I fell in love with when I learned C in college, and compatibility with the web and other contemporary contexts. I'm still a novice with it, but it's gotten me thinking about all sorts of new applications.
ARE YOU WORKING ON ANY SIDE PROJECTS AT THE MOMENT?
I’m cleaning out stuff that was left on my to-do list from school and re-documenting my capstone project. We had documentation for it, but it was very academic and we’re trying to do something more public-facing. When I had a bit more time and less on my plate, I was really into making puzzles like the Rubik’s Cube, but with more complex stuff going on in them. I also worked on an app that takes images and turns them into tartan plaids. On a more general level, I do a lot of small electronics stuff—projects with Arduinos and other microcontrollers and circuit boards.
DO YOU MIND TOUCHING MORE ON WHAT YOUR CAPSTONE PROJECT WAS ABOUT?
I worked on the project with two other students. We called it Zobits, and it was a physical/digital ecosystem simulator game that consisted of 16 small figures, a magnetic pad, and a mobile app. Each of the figures represented an archetypal organism within the ecosystem and players could assemble up to four of them on the pad at a time. The organisms in the pad would begin populating within the world on the mobile app and players could watch as their ecosystems either thrived or slowly withered and died. Through their interactions with the game, players would learn basic ecological principles and hopefully come away with an understanding of why preservation of many endangered species is so important to the wider biosphere.
WHERE DO YOU LOOK FOR INSPIRATION? ANY RECOMMENDED BOOKS, BLOGS, ETC?
There are a couple bookstores in Pittsburgh that I go to a lot. One of them is called Big Idea Bookstore, and it’s got the weirdest books. Mostly political stuff. It’s fun going in there because I always find these tiny, weird books about very niche things. I never go in there looking for anything specific; I always go in there wondering what they have. I feel like I'm a bit unusual because I never really seek out or consume much that relates to creative tech. I read a lot of books, but they're mostly graphic novels, large-format art and architecture books, and niche history books. When I am looking for creative tech inspiration, I feel like it's always very specific to whatever project I'm currently working on.
WHAT’S A FUN FACT ABOUT YOU?
The town I grew up in is right next to a lake. Back in the times before freezers, people used to harvest ice in the winter and then store it so they could have cold stuff when it wasn’t freezing outside. This lake near my old house was used for that, and it was apparently Queen Victoria’s favorite ice. They would ship some of the ice they harvested to the UK so that Queen Victoria could have her favorite ice cubes in her water, or whatever she was drinking. Apparently, two-thirds would melt on the way there. It sounds like the most inefficient thing ever. But, I guess when you’re the queen of a country, you can make requests like that and get your way. I have not consumed ice from that lake, so I can’t confirm if she has good taste.
WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT LIVING IN PITTSBURGH?
That’s something I’ve been thinking about recently. Pittsburgh is kind of messy but in a lovable way. It sort of has it together, but it really doesn’t. Like, bridges collapsing. The infrastructure in Pittsburgh is bad. But at the same time, it just has so much personality; it just does its own thing. People here (unless they are driving a car and you’re a pedestrian) seem to be really nice. When I came for school, I was like “Oh, I’m going to spend all my time on campus because Pittsburgh seems so boring.” But there are so many things to do here. There’s surprisingly good food. A lot of museums—and they’re good. There’s so much green space. The cities I was most familiar with growing up were London, New York, and Boston. They have their designated parks and then the rest is concrete. In Pittsburgh, there are trees everywhere. There are so many sections that are just woods, which is bizarre for someone who grew up in more urban cities.
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