Cusp Conference is an annual gathering of thinkers, innovators, creators, skeptics, believers, visionaries and explorers from the arts, sciences, technology, business and design.

A conference "about the design of everything" created and hosted by design firm smbolic (formerly SamataMason) and held at the Museum of Contemporary Art Theater in Chicago

Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago

The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is a contemporary art museum near Water Tower Place in downtown Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is one of the world's largest contemporary art venues...

, Cusp is centered around the idea that virtually everything that exists has been designed - by humans, by nature or by some other force.

Cusp Conference presenters have touched on topics as diverse as landscape waste, contemporary dance, electric vehicles, democracy, social media , education , intellectual property law, medicine , virtual worlds, typography, green architecture, evolutionary biology , smell and taste and serious games.

History

Launched in 2008, Cusp Conference presenters and performers have included Lynda Barry

Lynda Barry

Lynda Barry is an American cartoonist and author. One of the most successful non-mainstream American cartoonists, Barry is perhaps best known for her weekly comic strip Ernie Pook's Comeek. Barry's cartoons often view family life from the perspective of pre-teen girls from the wrong side of the...

, Andy Bichlbaum , Baba Brinkman

Baba Brinkman

"Baba" Dirk Murray Brinkman Jr is a Canadian rapper and playwright best known for recordings and performances that combine hip hop music with literature, theatre and science.- Biography :...

 , Josh Elder

Josh Elder

Josh Elder is an American journalist, lecturer and writer, primarily of comic books and graphic novels.-Biography:...

, Hartmut Esslinger

Hartmut Esslinger

Hartmut Esslinger is a German-American industrial designer and inventor. He is known for his design company Frogdesign, particularly his work for Apple Computer in the 1980s.-Life and career:...

, Justine Ezarik

Justine Ezarik

Justine Ezarik , is an American viral video comedian, and Internet personality. She is best known as iJustine, a lifecaster who communicates directly with her thousands of viewers on her Justin.tv channel, ijustine.tv. She has made more than 400 videos, including videos on such subjects as Lost and...

 , Richard Farson

Richard Farson

Richard Farson Ph.D., is a psychologist, author, and educator. He is the president and chief executive officer of the Western Behavioral Sciences Institute, which he co-founded in 1958 with physicist Paul Lloyd and social psychologist Wayman Crow.The non-profit WBSI explores ways in which human...

, Mayor John Fetterman

John Fetterman (politician)

John Fetterman is an American politician who is mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania. Fetterman is a native of York, Pennsylvania. He attended Harvard University where he earned a master's degree in Public Policy. He moved to Braddock in 2001 to work for AmeriCorps, won the mayoral election in 2005, and...

 , Douglas Gayeton

Douglas Gayeton

Douglas Gayeton is an award-winning American multimedia artist, filmmaker, writer, and photographer who divides his time between a farm near Petaluma, California and Pistoia, a medieval Tuscan town....

 , Kirsty Hawkshaw

Kirsty Hawkshaw

Kirsty Hawkshaw is a British dance/electronica/house/trance musician and songwriter. She is known for her participation as lead vocalist for the group Opus III, and her collaborative work with other musicians and producers....

 , Dr. Alan Hirsch

Alan Hirsch (neurologist)

Alan Hirsch is a neurologist and psychiatrist working on the treatment of smell and taste loss. He is the Neurological Director of the Smell & Taste Research and Treatment Foundation in Chicago, U.S....

, Dr. Carl Hodges

Carl Hodges

Carl N. Hodges is an American atmospheric physicist and founder of the Seawater foundation. He is the main driving force behind ideas of using sea canals to irrigate deserts....

 , Dr. Ayanna Howard , Michelle Kaufmann

Michelle Kaufmann

Michelle Kaufmann is a leading green architect and designer with Michelle Kaufmann Studio.In 2002, Kaufmann founded Michelle Kaufmann Designs, a full service architecture firm specializing in sustainable design. The firm designed and built single-family and multi-family green homes using...

 , Robert F Kennedy Jr. , Neo-Futurists

Neo-Futurists

The Neo-Futurists are an experimental theater troupe founded by Greg Allen in 1988. Neo-Futurism, inspired by the Italian Futurist movement from the early 20th century, is based on an aesthetics of honesty, speed and brevity.-Aesthetic:...

, Dr Paul Polak

Paul Polak

Paul Polak is the co-founder and CEO of Windhorse International, a for-profit social venture with the mission of inspiring and leading a revolution in how companies design, price, market and distribute products to benefit the 2.6 billion customers who live on less than $2 a day...

 , Daniel Bernard Roumain

Daniel Bernard Roumain

Daniel Bernard Roumain is a classically trained composer, performer, violinist, and band-leader noted for blending funk, rock, hip-hop and classical music into an energetic and experiential sonic form. DBR is of Haitian-American heritage and he attended Dillard Center for the Arts in Fort...

, Smoking Popes

Smoking Popes

The Smoking Popes are an American pop punk from the northwest suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, formed in 1991. They play punk-influenced pop music with crooning vocals...

  , Rita J. King

Imagination Age

The imagination age is a concept that states that the economy and culture of advanced economies is moving beyond the information age in to an age where creativity and imagination over analysis and thinking will become the primary creators of economic value. Imagination, over Information is seen as...

 , Yves Behar

Yves Behar

Yves Béhar is a designer, entrepreneur, and sustainability advocate. He is the founder of fuseproject, the San Francisco and New York based design and branding firm he established in 1999...

, Design for America - Mert Iseri and Richard Saul Wurman

Richard Saul Wurman

Richard Saul Wurman is an architect and graphic designer who is considered to be a pioneer in the practice of making information easily understandable. Wurman has written and designed over 80 books, and created the TED conferences, but remains associated only with TEDMED.-Early life and...

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External links

• CuspConference.com - official website
• 2010 Cusp Conference on DesignChat - video interview