_Energy Parasites_ are handcrafted objects designed to opportunistically harvest small bits of energy across public landscapes. Agnostic to energy origin or ownership, these artifacts redirect their captured energy through a variety of means, including expressing it or storing it for later re-acquisition and usage. Central to this experience is the materiality of energy. 

_Energy Parasites_ foreground energy use and opportunities for re-use. They are both adversarial and helpful as they question conceps of energy ownership and opportunities for energy harvesting. Central to this is the reframing of energy as a material that can be infused and embedded with properties such as when, how, and the texture of the energy production. Can energy bne sentimental, emotional, or uncomfortable?

Links: http://www.livenv.net/energy-parasites

**Eric Paulos** (US) is the director of the Living Environments Lab and an Assistant Professor in the Berkeley Center for New Media (BCNM) with a faculty appointment within the Electrical Engineering Computer Science Department at UC Berkeley. Previously, Eric held the Cooper-Siegel Associate Professor Chair in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Eric is faculty within the Human-Computer Interaction Institute with courtesy faculty appointments in the Robotics Institute and in the Entertainment Technology Center. Previously he was a senior research scientist at Intel in Berkeley, California, where he founded the Urban Atmospheres research group—challenged to employ innovative methods to explore urban life and the future fabric of emerging technologies across public urban landscapes. His areas of expertise span a deep body of research territory in urban computing, sustainability, green design, environmental awareness, social telepresence, robotics, physical computing, interaction design, persuasive technologies and intimate media. Eric received his PhD in electrical engineering and computer science from UC Berkeley, where he helped launch a new robotic industry by developing some of the first Internet tele-operated robots including space browsing helium-filled blimps and personal roving presence devices (ProPs).