amp was started in 2010 by Tim Durfee and is the name of his project-based design research work at the Media Design Practices MFA program at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, where he is also a core faculty member. amp tests the idea that all forms of production (physical, digital, social, cultural) are becoming “media”–that is, forms of transmission for remote and varied forces, flows, and algorithms. Viewed this way, the inter-relatedness across conventional disciplinary divisions is less metaphorical and more actual. amp attempts to act on these connections in ways that generate new perspectives, new forms, or new modes of knowledge.   Each year amp identifies a theme, and examines it through multiple activities: design studios, installations, guest researchers, public programs, exhibitions, publications, etc. The first amp project, MADE UP (produced when the studio was called LIKE NOW) looked at the reemergence of speculative practice in design. The next project, PLAN C (with Sean Donahue) was itself a speculative inquiry into disaster preparedness. Public Display examines the changing roles and meanings of public space in the age of global imaging and Street View. The current project, The Metropolis of ME (developed with Ben Hooker), examines the urban consequences of a near future where each individual lives within their own unique profile-generated realities.
Durfee conducts his non-academic work as Tim Durfee Studio and with Tim Durfee & Iris Anna Regn, an architectural design collaboration in Los Angeles.