Purse Lip Square Jaw

Week 436

2010-01-21T15:21:00.001+13:00

I keep reading all these interesting people's weeknotes and I'm going to see if I can get in the habit too. The truth of the matter is that when I have a lot to do I get really bad at recognising what I've already done, and that makes it really hard to motivate myself. So here I am in the spirit of "reflecting on your work, your achievements, and what's on deck." Phil Gyford smartly started writing weeknotes in his 335th week of freelancing, and since I like the idea of recognising how far I've already come, I've decided to start counting from the first day of my PhD studies and that makes this my 436th week of research. I'm not sure what I'm going to write about, or if I'll actually manage to do it every week, but there you have it. "Let the great experiment begin!"

This week was shaped by two big tasks: the design of my new Design Anthropology course and my preliminary proposal for a Marsden Fund research grant.

First, after posting the first draft of my course outline here last week I got some good constructive criticism. But I also got some rather unconstructive criticism along the lines of designers saying it's too much anthropology and anthropologists saying it's too much design -- and that really discouraged me. Plus, most people had suggestions that would completely change it into their dream course, and that also didn't feel very helpful. The end result was me looking at the outline for hours and hours and making nothing more than minor tweaks. But an unexpected breakthrough came yesterday after a meeting with Miki Szikszai, the CEO of Snapper. It turns out that the company is busy moving from ActiveX smart cards to Java smart cards which will allow them to provide a platform for developers interested in RFID. While that in itself is really interesting - and I'll come back to it in another post - the important thing for my course is that I immediately recognised the opportunity to work on something that interests both me and them, and offers students the opportunity to work with a local company on matters of design and culture in everyday life. So I'll be talking more with their developers, designers and marketers to identify some research and design concerns that will help me create briefs that fit into the course objectives. I'll also be going to their Summer of Code SmartCard workshop on 1st February, and will report back on how that, and our meetings, reshape the course.

Second, research applications challenge me at the best of times but add my lack of familiarity and experience with the NZ academic system and I've been faced with a whole new set of unexpected challenges. I circulated my one-page draft to a dozen overseas colleagues and got some really positive feedback and constructive criticism. But I ran into trouble when it came back from local colleagues and not one person was clear on what I am trying to accomplish. Obviously, not being able to identify clear research objectives is an instant fail in the world of funding applications so I started to panic. In fact, I'm still struggling to get it all down on one page -- constantly swearing that the detail people are asking for is better left to the full proposal. But I know that argument will be irrelevant to the Marsden referees because all they have to go on at this stage is that one page. So I'm stuck. Our research office is holding an open session tomorrow afternoon to give people feedback because Monday is a holiday and applications are due next Thursday. This means I've got to come up with another decent draft to take in tomorrow, revise it over the weekend, and run it by a few more people next week. I can do that, right?

CFP: Politics of Design Workshop

2010-01-20T06:43:00.000+13:00

Politics of Design
International Workshop, 24-25 June 2010, Manchester, UK.

"In the last decade numerous STS trained scholars engaged in a venture of unpacking design practices. Yet, to study the practical course of design means to be simultaneously involved in the subject of politics and in the particular sort of politics that is centred on objects (Latour & Weibel, Making Things Public). Recent studies in political philosophy and STS have argued that politics is not limited anymore to citizens, elections, votes, petitions, ideologies and particular institutionalised conflicts (DeVries, What is Political in Sub-politics?), and have reformulated the question of politics into one of cosmopolitics (Stengers, Cosmopolitics; Latour, Politics of Nature) and ontological politics (Mol, Actor Network Theory and After). The �political� is not defined as a way of codifying particular forms of contestation but as opening up new sites and objects of contestation (Barry, Political Machines).

Looking to assess the multifarious ways design can be �political� and the various sites of politics of design, this workshop will explore a range of questions pertaining to theory and methodology:
To what kind of politics can we get access when we strive to unravel design not through ideology but through the work of designers, their rich repertoire of actions, their controversies, concerns, puzzles, risk-taking, and imagination? And likewise, what kinds of politics are embedded in the objects of design, with their multiple meanings of materiality, pliability, and obduracy?

How does design�s potential to bring an ever-greater number of non-humans into politics contribute to the re-composition of the common world, the cosmos in which everyone lives? What are the politics of the relations invoked by design practices? Is design �political� because it brings together land and NGOs, gravity laws and fashions, preservationists and zoning regulations, architectural languages and concerned communities, dives and stakeholders, land registers and modernists, and if so, how?

What are the multiple design sites where political action might be seeping through? How is politics carried out today in sites often unrelated to the traditional loci of political action: in building development companies, planning commissions, building renovation sites, urban spaces, local communities, architectural offices, public presentations of designers? And what can we learn from the different, even unexpected forms of concernedness that we may come across in such contexts?

How and under which conditions does design become one of the means through which politics is being carried out? How does design turn the �public� into a problem - and thus engage and mobilise it - triggering disagreements and generating issues of public concern? How do designers and planners make their activities accountable to citizens?

If the �political� is considered a moment in the complex trajectory of design projects, processes and objects, what are the methods we use to account for them? How can we map, track, trace and document ethnographically and historically these moments of becoming political?"
The workshop is expected to attract a diverse group of scholars from the fields of STS, architecture, geography, political economy, environmental psychology and planning, design studies, sociology, cultural studies and political sciences.

Keynote speakers:
Andrew Barry, Oxford University
Alejandro Zaera-Polo, Foreign Office of Architecture (FOA), London & Princeton University, USA

Applicants should submit a 250-word abstract and a short CV in Word format to Albena Yaneva albena.yaneva@manchester.ac.uk with a copy to Andy Karvonen andrew.karvonen@manchester.ac.uk by February 25, 2010. Accepted participants will be notified by March 1, 2010. Authors of accepted abstracts should confirm their participation in the conference by March 15, 2010 and submit a completed paper of no more than 10 pages that summarises the main points of the presentation by May 21, 2010.

This conference is organised by Albena Yaneva, Simon Guy, Isabelle Doucet, and Andy Karvonen from the Manchester Architecture Research Centre (MARC), the University of Manchester. For additional information about the conference, please contact the organisers through albena.yaneva@manchester.ac.uk.

Design Anthropology Course - Version 1.0 2.0

2010-01-13T09:20:00.009+13:00

After sorting out the differences between what I want to do with my second-year design anthropology course and my third-year design+culture course, I've finally managed to come up with a draft for the first one. I haven't worked out all the details yet, and I'm not at all sure I've got it right, so I'm posting it here in the hope of getting some comments and suggestions that will make it better. By way of introduction, I should point out that I really want to focus on doing design research. I haven't assigned mandatory readings for class each week, but am in the process of compiling a reserve reading list for students who want to learn more. Most of our work, then, will be studio and assignment based. (The assignments are very general here, but will have much more detailed instructions.)

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Designers have always been interested in how people interact with each other and the world around them, but the past decade has witnessed increased attention to how these interests are shared with anthropology. From concerns about how different people live, to ways of understanding material and visual culture, this course will take a critical and creative look at how designers can draw from methods used by anthropologists to better understand the contexts of their designs�and engage with a variety of people, places and objects in productive ways. A combination of lectures, studio practice and hands-on assignments will focus on how anthropologists and designers know and make things. Students can expect to explore new ways of thinking, doing and making, and in the process, develop a foundational toolkit for conducting their own anthropologically-informed design research practice.

LECTURE/STUDIO SCHEDULE

Week 1: Introduction
Week 2: The Ethics of Working with People, Pt I Salmer fra kj�kkenet (Kitchen Stories) Directed by Bent Hamer, Norway, 2003, 95 min. + discussion
Week 3: The Ethics of Working with People, Pt II Ethnographic authority & codes of conduct
Week 4: Collecting Information & Making Things, Pt I Surveys, participant observation & interviews
Week 5: Collecting Information & Making Things, Pt II Cultural probes, prototypes & workshops
Week 6: Documenting Your Fieldwork, Pt I Field notes, maps, sketches, photos, video& audio
Week 7: Documenting Your Fieldwork, Pt II Online & offline archives
Week 8: Making Sense of What You See, Do & Make, Pt I Texts, images & objects
Week 9: Making Sense of What You See, Do & Make, Pt II Ethnographic & design fictions
Week 10: Presenting Your Design Research, Pt I Written & visual ethnography
Week 11: Presenting Your Design Research, Pt II Material & performance ethnography
Week 12: Open topic to be decided by students

EVALUATION

Participation
Students are expected to attend class weekly and actively participate in studio activities and discussions. (Due Weekly � 10%)

Assignment 1 � The Joys and Sorrows of Encountering Others
Students are required to read a selection of fictional narratives that describe cross-cultural encounters and reflect on the history, politics and ethics involved in these relationships. Using these writings and reflections as inspiration, students must write a personal essay (500 words) that describes their understanding of social ethics�i.e. being accountable to, and for, others �and how this might shape their approach to design research. (Due Week 5 � 20%)

Assignment 2 � Domestic Design: Probing Culture
For their major project, students will be provided with a choice of domestic design briefs. In order to collect and analyse contextual information relevant to this project, students are first required to construct and deploy a �cultural probe� (cf. Gaver, Dunne & Pacenti 1999). Students must then use the information collected to formulate a design concept and use scenario. (Due Week 7 � 30%)

Assignment 3 � Domestic Design: Evaluating Prototypes
Students are required to prototype and test their design with 2-3 people who participated in the cultural probe phase of research. Students must use the results of this research to critically evaluate their prototype(s) and present final design specifications and use scenarios. (Due Week 12 � 40%)

So. What's good? What sucks?

UPDATED 14/01/10 Revision to assignments: Assignment 1 changed to Project 1, reduced in length and weight to 10%. Project 2 as follows:

Project 2 �Probing Domestic Culture & Design
For their major project, students will be provided with a choice of domestic design briefs and will be required to work progressively and iteratively through a set of related design research assignments.

Assignment 1 � Understanding Cultural Probes
Due Week 5 � 15%
Students are required to review 3 books and/or journal articles that address the design research methodology of �cultural probes� and submit an annotated bibliography.

Assignment 2 � Designing Cultural Probes
Due Week 7 � 20%
Students are required to design a cultural probe kit that contains the necessary tools for 2 participants to collect and create information relevant to the student�s chosen design brief.

Assignment 3 � Deploying Cultural Probes
Due Week 12 � 30%
Students are required to distribute approved cultural probe kits to 2 people (consenting family and/or friends) for a period of 7 days. Using the results of the probes, students must generate and refine design concepts in order to represent 2 possible design scenarios through writing, drawing, photos, sound and/or film.

I'm particularly interested in pushing/testing the boundaries of cultural probes - especially as tools that are more "informational" than "inspirational" - and so a lot more effort will need to be put into the assignment details, but this points at where I want to go...

WANTED

2010-01-11T15:54:00.001+13:00

I'm looking for a reading (fiction or non-fiction) that explores the ethics of living and working with others. It would ideally touch on matters of culture, history and power - stressing the importance of building rapport, developing empathy and cultivating reciprocity. It should also be suitable (ie. not too long and/or complicated) for second year undergraduate students.

If you have any suggestions, please email or leave a comment here. Thanks!

Everyday RFID

2010-01-05T16:17:00.009+13:00

My first experience with RFID in New Zealand was when I was issued my university ID card - you know, the one that gets you into buildings and lets you check out library books - and I promptly put it in my wallet and forgot about it.

My second encounter with RFID was purchasing a Snapper card for public transit. Recently introduced in Auckland and currently used by one third of Wellington's population, Snapper works just like an Oyster or Octopus card - what's with all these sea creature names, anyway? - that cost me $10 to buy and charges me 25 cents every time I top it up or "feed" it at one of many local Snapper merchants (unless I want to pay online by credit card, for which there is currently no charge). Alternatively, the $25 Snapper Reader plugs into your USB port and is marketed as a way for households to "feed schools of Snappers."

Using Snapper for transit is interesting - especially when you see the "how to" video posted on Go Wellington's public transit Snapper page. I can't embed the video here, so you'll have to follow the link yourselves, but here's an icon and partial text transcription to familiarise you with the interaction designed for "tagging on" and "tagging off":

How to tag on correctly
Place your Snapper flat to the reader
Hold card flat and still
Wait for the green circle

How not to tag on
Don't swipe too fast
Or make quick movements

Remember to tag off
Hold your card flat and still to the reader
And wait for green circle

So basically, the rule is that whether you're coming or going, be sure to touch the reader and don't move until you get the green circle. First, this is interesting when you remember that these types of cards are actually contactless - they can be read up to several centimetres and don't require any touching at all. Second, this is interesting because people seem to want to move the card around so much that they have to be repeatedly told not to. Why do you think that is? Is there really no technological solution that would prevent us from having to adapt or change our behaviour? (Should there be?)

Now let's consider the "tag on" - "tag off" system.Clearly it's necessary to calculate the length of a trip, but I'd love to see the technical process made much more transparent and intelligible than in this description:

Q: Why do I need to tag off?
The Snapper system uses GPS (Global Positioning System), to record which stop you get on the bus and where you get off. This information is used to calculate the correct discounted fare for the journey. If you don't tag off the system assumes that you travelled to the end of the line. The tag off penalty for both GO Wellington and Valley Flyer is the full cash fare. So if you don't tag off your fare is calculated to the end of the line, and you do not receive the 20% discount.

And what happens when cards/readers/people fail?

Q: My card just gives me a red cross not a green circle. What is wrong?
The Snapper may not have sufficient value stored on it to pay for the fare. If you have plenty of value on your card, then it may be that the bus reader has not read your card clearly. Remove your card from the reader and give it five clear seconds before trying again. Remember to hold it flat and still against the reader and wait for the green circle. Then you are good to go.

So I get the red cross about a third of the time I use my card which suggests I don't get close enough to the reader or am totally inept at standing still. I am also unable to carry my Snapper card and my university access card in the same wallet because it breaks the system and I get a fail warning. This reminds me that I don't think it will be very long before I have several RFID cards that will apparently require several different wallets - and that will enable me to move as gracefully as a crash of rhinos. Of course, Snapper have already thought of this and offer local secondary schools the opportunity to embed Snapper tags in their student IDs. But really, is one card/fob that rules them all the only answer?

Incidentally, Snapper isn't limited to buses - taxis will start accepting Snapper payment in March, beginning with the Total Mobility scheme, "a subsidised taxi service for the 7500 people in the Wellington region who, because of a disability, cannot use regular bus or train services." And like Octopus or Suica cards, I can also use my Snapper card to pay for items at Snapper merchants (which are mostly dairies or convenience stores). And now that smart card (RFID-enabled) transit is becoming more widespread or normal, it's the added ability to purchase things via RFID that interests me.

For example, I want to understand if or how it's any different from the introduction of Interac in Canada or Eftpos in New Zealand - both of which arguably replaced cash years ago? And I wonder what we stand to lose in our never-ending quest for convenience?

Take the $40 Snapper USB

"The Snapper USB allows you to feed directly from your credit card and still does everything that a regular Red Snapper does. You can still feed your Snapper USB at any Snapper Retailer, just like a regular Red Snapper and it can be age-enabled so that if you're at school you'll automatically get a child discount on the bus. Attach your Snapper USB to your key ring, mobile phone, handbag, or wallet for easy access any time."

or the new �I Snapper NZ� key tag, which was recently renamed the Snapper Sprat in a public contest. If I can use my existing Snapper card in all the same ways, why would I purchase one of these products? Have they been designed for people who don't use public transit and want something smaller and sexier?

I also noticed that Snapper CEO Miki Szikszai commented on Timo and Jack's Immaterials video, saying that they "would love to see if you could map our devices in this way." This got me thinking about how smart and aesthetically-pleasing videos could be exactly what I want to help customers understand how Snapper uses RFID and GPS - and what is at stake socially and culturally (eg. privacy vs. anonimity, traceability vs. surveillance) if this is the path we choose to follow.

Now I think it's time to introduce myself to the Snapper folks and see what they're up to. Stay tuned?

Update 11/01/10: I added some links above to other smart cards, and here are a few more: myki (Melbourne), SmartRider (Perth), TCard (Sydney). Unlike the Hong Kong, Tokyo and New Zealand cards, the Australian ones (like most others in the world) seem to be exclusively for transit use. I've also made contact with Snapper and am looking forward to a visit with them soon.

CFP - Speculation, Design, Public and Participatory Technoscience: Possibilities and Critical Perspectives

2010-01-04T20:01:00.003+13:00

EASST Conference 2010
2-4 September, 2010
University of Trento, Italy

Speculation, Design, Public and Participatory Technoscience: Possibilities and Critical Perspectives

"Over the past decade there has been an increasing engagement between design and STS. One emerging and novel area of exchange is concerned with exploring the ways in which practices of 'speculative design' and STS concerns of publics, participation, politics as well as expectations come together to inform one another, to critique one another, and to collaborate in developing new modes of co-production of contemporary technoscience. Although such associations are promising, they are nascent and in need of articulation and critical examination. Our proposed track is intended to provide the beginnings of such articulation and critical examination, by soliciting participation from STS scholars, design researchers and from practicing designers.

By speculative design we refer to a set of design practices and outcomes that are moving away from common notions of design as "problem-solving" or "styling", towards framing design as a means for surfacing and materializing issues and contributing to the formation of publics and futures. In this move, design is increasingly cast as a possible mode of intervention into technoscience, thereby establishing renewed associations with STS. With speculative design the performativity of the object comes to the fore as a concern for both designers and theorists, as its objects and outcomes are often brought into being to, and interpreted as, materially and discursively enacting values, identities, agendas and beliefs. A challenge for STS then is to describe and characterize the performativity of the objects of speculative design in new ways that avoid recourse to the familiar positions and debates concerning 'the political of artefacts�.'

In this track we will solicit participation from STS scholars, design researchers as well as practicing designers. Our objective is to present a range of scholarly approaches and exemplary projects in order to explore and outline this field of convergence. Within the track, presentations will be organized thematically. Key questions we hope to address include the following:
How does a convergence of STS and speculative design reframe the notion of intervention?
How does the convergence of STS and speculative design perform issues of politics and the political?
How does speculative design operate to articulate issues, and what are its limitations in these endeavors?
What kind of futures and expectations are performed in the doing of speculative design?
How can we understand novel objects and materiality as forms of engagement and involvement?
What are working strategies for supporting this convergence of STS and 'speculative' design?
What are the limitations of STS methodologies in contributing to the design process and analyzing the objects of design?
What are limitations of design practice and methods to seriously taking up STS concepts and methodologies?"

Abstracts of no more than 500 words should be sent by email (following website instructions) by March 15th 2010.

Session convenors: Carl DiSalvo (Georgia Institute of Technology), Tobie Kerridge (Goldsmiths College, University of London) & Alex Wilkie (Goldsmiths College, University of London)

Thinking about research funding

2010-01-04T14:20:00.003+13:00

The new year is really bringing home how much farther I have to go in getting accustomed to the changes in season and academic calendars here in the southern hemisphere. It's summertime now, and although classes don't start until March I've got lots to do before then: research funding applications to complete, articles to write and revise, courses to prepare...

Securing external funding is pretty much the holy grail of university research, so I'm shooting for a Royal Society of New Zealand's Marsden Fund Fast-Start Grant. This grant is pretty interesting, actually. Unlike Canada's SSHRC grants - which helped support my doctoral research - the Fast-Start programme specifically "enables emerging researchers to establish research momentum." In practical terms, this means that I don't have to compete with established researchers and although the available funding isn't nearly as much as a standard research grant, I can hardly complain about $100K per year for three years. It would give me the opportunity to establish a new research programme, publish some articles and even support a research assistant or bring in a post-graduate student. Plus, scoring one of these grants increases the likelihood of me securing a standard research grant in the future.

Of course, the competition is stiff; I think only around 10-12% of applicants succeed. The first stage involves submitting a CV and one page abstract of my research proposal. If I succeed at this stage, then I'll be invited to submit a more comprehensive proposal and budget. The reasons for failure at the first stage are pretty typical: there is no real hypothesis or aim, the wording is too vague or too jargon-laden, and/or the proposal does not fit the Fund's mandate. The first and third problems are easy enough to avoid, but the second one is tricky. A one-page summary is necessarily vague in comparison to a full description, and while the full proposal is refereed by specialists in my field, the abstract must be written for a research-literate but general audience. Choosing the "right" words for an unknown audience is tough. (I can't help but recall a journal reviewer who told me that using the French-language terms for ANT's processes of translation was "pretentious and unnecessary." And I've gotten enough negative feedback from designers about my "overly critical" or "irrelevant" comments that I sometimes fear and distrust speaking up at conferences.)

In any case, before the holidays I ran the first draft of my abstract by our faculty's research office and more questions than I anticipated came back to me. After meeting over coffee, I learned that I'm much more adept at plain-language speaking than at plain-language writing. I'm also much more successful at conveying excitement when I speak, even if it sometimes sounds like I'm more than a bit daft ("OMG!! This project is so completely awesome I can't believe it!!") So my task this week is to refine my abstract for simplicity and clarity. I need to be more focussed and systematic about explaining the whats, whys, whens, wheres and hows. I need to strike a better balance between referring to the background literature and emphasising how my work is "different and innovative." And last but not least, I need to come up with a concise statement about how my project is best suited to the Marsden Fund and not some other source. All in one page. (Sigh.)

Then I need to run it by colleagues for feedback and make the necessary revisions. The final version is due in three or so weeks. Wish me luck!

CFP - Design, Performativity, STS

2010-01-04T11:25:00.005+13:00

EASST Conference 2010
2-4 September, 2010
University of Trento, Italy

Design, Performativity, STS

"This track provides the opportunity to explore the extent to which forms of enactment, rather than description, might allow us to talk about the different material and temporal textures of design, innovation, interventions and STS. It aims to consolidate and push so far dispersed discussions about the relation of concepts of performativity and design through an exchange of ideas and methods from STS and design practice, conceived broadly to include empirical examples and theoretical reflections as well as art-design-STS interventions (Jeremijenko).

There is a longstanding interest amongst STS scholars in the design of new technologies, products and services (e.g. Cockburn & Ormrod, Shove, Suchman, Woolgar), as well as extensive research on design interventions in the fields of science and medicine (e.g. Clarke, Dumit). In addition designers themselves are moving beyond the design of discrete products and have started to look to STS for ways in which open and thus more uncertain challenges may be conceptualized (Kimbell, Whyte). This track encourages papers from those working in a variety of institutional locations, both inside and outside academic research.

There is now a large body of work that explores how realities and representations are enacted simultaneously in user representations, prototypes, concepts and scenarios. A debate about the implications of the performative aspects of these representational and translation devices is long overdue. How does the current developments of non-representation and �messy� approaches relate to process and the performative (Thrift, Law). How does mess relate to the performative? Are designers working in a non-representational way?

The aim of the track is to expand the debates about performativity in relation to processes of enactment and becoming, the material and temporal. These might include papers dealing with scripting, affordance, liveness, �performance� as well as enactments in relation to technical objects, materials and mess.

Presentations might be ethnographic fieldwork reports, synthetic analyses from secondary data or mappings of the field. However following the implication of the conference theme to take seriously the performing of the social, as well as traditional papers we also invite presentation formats which themselves might take on a more experimental or performative mode in relation to design and STS, or are materially ambitious. What kind of materials might perform the social? In this way we recognise that the material and temporal conditions of the EASST conference situation - it�s own liveness in Trento - might themselves be re-designed to explore performativity. We hope this will encourage design practitioners or those working with art, design and STS materials to take up our challenge to intervene and interrogate STS�s own enactments."

Abstracts of no more than 500 words should be sent by email (following website instructions) by March 15th 2010.

Session convenors: Julien McHardy (Lancaster University), Trevor Pinch (Cornell University), Nina Wakeford (Goldsmiths College, University of London)

Happy solstice!

2009-12-21T15:06:00.014+13:00

Pohutukawa by Sandy Austin

I was a teenager the last time that December 21st was the longest rather than shortest day of the year. So here I am, sitting in the sun, looking out over the bay and the seasonal blooms of the pohutukawa trees. And although I very much miss the people I love, I feel at home here in "the antipodes," happier and more at peace than I can remember feeling in years.

New Zealanders' attitudes towards the holidays are familiar, but it does seem a bit weird to be wearing shorts and planning a bbq. Still, a little historical research turned up some interesting Kiwi traditions, like this popular 1960s song with lyrics that "read like a manifesto of workers� rights":

Sticky Beak the kiwi

Now Sticky Beak the kiwi, that bird from way down under
He's caused a great commotion and it isn't any wonder
He's notified old Santa Claus to notify the deer
That he will pull the Christmas sleigh in the southern hemisphere.

Chorus:
Lots of toys for girls and boys load the Christmas sleigh
He will take the starlight trail along the Milky Way.
Hear the laughing children as they shout aloud with glee:
'Sticky Beak, Sticky Beak, be sure to call on me.'

Now every little kiwi, and every kangaroo, too,
The wallaby, the weka, and the platypus and emu,
Have made themselves a Christmas tree with stars and shining bright,
So Sticky Beak will see the way to guide the sleigh tonight.

Now Sticky Beak the kiwi, that Maori-land dictator,
Will not allow Rudolph's nose this side of the equator
So when you hear the sleigh bells ring you'll know that he's the boss,
And Sticky Beak will pull the sleigh beneath the Southern Cross.

Or this game recommended in the 1934 Evening Post Christmas supplement:

"What to do at indoor Christmas parties is becoming more and more of a problem. Here are some suggestions which may help to add diversion to the occasion: For instance, you can sell some of your guests. This game is called "The Slave Market." You choose five or six players, attractive-looking girls if possible to be sold as slaves, and one good compere to act as auctioneer. You give, say, twenty counters to each of the other players, whose object is to buy as many slaves as possible. If two players manage to buy the same number of slaves, the one who has most counters left wins. Skill consists in "pushing" the bids of other players and lying low for bargains. This sounds easy in cold blood, but is not so easy when the players are subjected to the blandishments of a) Uncle William as auctioneer after a good dinner and b) the slaves. It would be a shame to let Jane's saucy eyes go for a paltry two counters!"

However you celebrate, I wish everyone a very happy holiday, and especially to those of you who face the long, cold dark of winter - may your light burn warm and bright into the new year.

Kiwi Christmas Cards

More technosocial assemblages

2009-12-15T16:55:00.015+13:00

A friend recently commented on how sci-fi it is that we've brought our cat to NZ. I think he meant that it's weird to think about a pet travelling 15,000 km, but it got me thinking about the essay in Two Regimes of Madness where Deleuze explains that:

"Control is not discipline. You do not confine people with a highway. But by making highways, you multiply the means of control. I am not saying this is the only aim of highways, but people can travel infinitely and 'freely' without being confined while being perfectly controlled. That is our future."

I've never understood relations between mobility and control more clearly than through this quote - even if here I'm more interested in institutionalised rather than immanent control. Because just as it's true that people can travel freely insofar as they follow established protocols, these kinds of infrastructure and control also apply to the movement of companion animals (including livestock), albeit in a compounded way.

Several years ago, at the Situated Technologies Symposium, I brought up the technosocial assemblage that constitutes me + my cat + rfid. Although my example was dismissed by the audience as too frivolous (a position related, I believe, to more wide-spread ignorance of, and/or disdain for, the affective aspects of everyday life) I think that there are some interesting things going on here that we don't yet fully understand or appreciate.

First, when Enid Coleslaw travels she effectively becomes a set of two numbers: one that is associated with her rfid microchip and another that is associated with an import/export permit in my name. In this scenario she is simultaneously less and more than "animal." In fact, we - me, her and the microchip - are a hybrid that move together. And our new dividuality doesn't just leave a data shadow or trace, it precedes us and pre-extends our range of motion. This makes me wonder how research on actor-networks and companion species can help us understand the Internet of Things - especially when "networked things" tend to escape traditional definitions (i.e. mutually exclusive categories) of human and animal, subject and object.

Put into the context of my current research, this makes me ask what "sheep" are when rfid-tagged animals generate and report data on animal welfare and environmental sustainability. I also ask what "wool" becomes when it carries information from its source and accumulates more data on labour practices, manufacturing and distribution processes. Further afield, but still related, what does it mean to be a sheep farmer or animal caretaker? What are the differences and similarities between sheep shearers, wool pressers, seamstresses and someone who wears merino underpants?

And while we're at it, what's up with Icebreaker's advertising?

(Click for larger image)

Dispatch #1 from Kiwilandia: A few observations on humour

2009-12-10T15:25:00.000+13:00

The general consensus amongst Kiwis I've talked with so far is that they have a lot in common with Canadians, and the most frequent comparison I've heard involves our sense of humour. My first thought is "most definitely" - and even though I haven't met anyone yet who knows The Kids in the Hall, we do both deal with our large (and sometimes larger-than-life) neighbours with wit and poise.

Take Rick Mercer's old Talking to Americans skit from the CBC's This Hour Has 22 Minutes, which is both notorious and notoriously funny:

Talking to Americans

Now, I've heard that Canadian humour is a bit cruel but I don't really agree. Nonetheless, Kiwi humour does seem a bit gentler. In fact, my new colleague in Sociology, Mike Lloyd, has rather convincingly argued that well-known NZ comedy export Flight of the Conchords can be distinguished precisely by its lack of ridicule and condescension. Still, it doesn't seem to stop them from taking the piss out of the "West Island":

Flight of the Conchords - Racism

Flight of the Conchords - Jemaine sleeps with an Australian girl

And, really, the satirical writing on Kiwianarama is often hilarious and quite biting - although mostly in a self-deprecating sort of way. Still, I think lots of Canadians would both see themselves in, and piss themselves laughing at, this characterisation of NZ national identity politics:

Positive Identity Reinforcement

"If travelling New Zealand, do not, under any circumstances, answer a question such as �Isn�t it great�, with something like �Actually it�s a bit quiet, out of the way, and not as sunny as Australia�. Kiwis have not yet developed either a robust sense of irony, or cast-iron self belief, and you may bring about a deep period of depression in the person asking the question, or, at the very least, a firm fist in the face."

(Although I should note that while the "Winter, what winter?" post is damn funny to read, the phenomenon discussed completely baffles Canadians. Why one wouldn't override a less than ideal climate through housing and clothing is truly beyond our comprehension and therefore not actually funny in practice.)

Upcoming research and practice residencies

2009-12-09T19:10:00.004+13:00

I first encountered Matt Adams, Ju Row Farr and Nick Tandavanitj - a.k.a. Blast Theory - through the Banff New Media Institute and have always been impressed by their projects, so I'm really pleased to see they're accepting expressions of interest for their new residency programme. Researchers and practitioners in the areas of mobile tech, locative media, play & games stand to gain a great deal by working with these folks, and I encourage anyone interested to contact them.

20 Wellington Road Residency Programme (2009 � 2011)

About the Residency Programme

Blast Theory is renowned internationally as one of the most adventurous artists' groups using interactive media, creating groundbreaking new forms of performance and interactive art that mixes audiences across the internet, live performance and digital broadcasting.

In 2008, the company launched 20 Wellington Road, a renovated Victorian icehouse overlooking Shoreham Harbour in Brighton. The building provides offices and studios for the company as well studio spaces for emerging businesses and small companies working in creative industries, digital and media industries. Blast Theory�s goal is to create an interdisciplinary community of international significance.

The Residency Programme is a new model of residency initiated and run by artists. It aims to provide a space for residents to research and develop new work in a supportive and collaborative environment. It provides an opportunity for Blast Theory artists and residents to work alongside each other exchanging information, experience, knowledge and working methodologies in an open and dynamic dialogue.

Criteria

Expressions of interest are invited from individuals working in the following fields:

� Pervasive and location based gaming and interactive media
� The use of mobile and portable devices in cultural and artistic practice
� Games design and theory
� Interdisciplinary and live art practice

Applicants should have an established background in their respective fields and should be able to demonstrate how a residency period at Blast Theory will assist the development of their research and practice.

There are 2 deadlines per year � January 31st and July 31st.

If you are considering making an application, we advise you to contact us before you submit your expression of interest. Please submit your application on the form available to download here along with support material.

And on the topic of cool residencies and workshops, the BMNI continues to deliver. Check out these upcoming opportunities:

BNMI Co-production Residency: Almost Perfect

Program dates: June 03, 2010 - July 03, 2010
Application deadline: December 18, 2009 (yup, that's next week!)

The Banff New Media Institute�s Almost Perfect Co-production Residency is an annual, concentrated experimental prototyping lab exploring the creation and context of location.

The massive scale of Banff National Park�s Rocky Mountains and the expanse of the Great Plains to the east provide a unique opportunity to un-tether from the usual coordinates of place. Geographies of time, scale, and great disruption lay exposed, lending themselves to the call and response of technology and nature. This four-week residency allows for the time and space to consider how modern pervasive technologies allow us to disconnect from our desktop cells and interact with the world in a whole new way.

Through a combination of dedicated studio time, group discourse, peer critique, design exercise and studio visits, Almost Perfect looks to explore location-based artwork and the repercussions of producing work for place, and in particular in outdoor and non-urban contexts. The residency will be led by established locative media practitioners Jeremy Hight, Fee Plumley, Laura Silver. Almost Perfect will not only support the open conceptualisation of new works, but also re-visit influential pieces from this emerging medium's history.

Practitioners from all walks of locative and mobile media practice are encouraged to apply. Project proposals that extend beyond the device out into the environment, be it landscape or datascape, are especially encouraged. For general information on on-going locative media research happening at the Banff New Media Institute please visit the BNMI�s ART Mobile Lab website.

And although not related to locative media, my friends Jonah Brucker-Cohen and Katherine Moriwaki are building on their awesome Scrapyard Challenge Workshops with this programme:

R.I.P. - Recycling Pervasive Media, Intervening in Planned Obsolescence, and Practicing Technological Sustainability

Program dates: July 26, 2010 - August 02, 2010
Registration deadline: July 19, 2010 (as space permits)

As the world�s landfills swarm with millions of tons of discarded electronics, the examination of the critical and creative use of recycled materials becomes ever more important.

R.I.P. � Recycling Pervasive Media, Intervening in Planned Obsolescence, and Practicing Technological Sustainability will tackle the issues of recycling, art making, and sustainability practices. Artists, researchers, practitioners, academics, municipal workers, community leaders, and professionals are invited to come explore new ways of working with municipal waste management facilities to reclaim �good garbage�.

Over the course of this three-part, seven-day program, participants will discuss ideas, create new work, and present projects related to sustainable practice. They will collaboratively introduce each other to methods of recycling digital materials for creative exploration and produce art projects made from found or rescued waste. R.I.P. provides an exciting opportunity to learn and develop frameworks for communities and individuals working with issues of sustainability and waste reduction.

Kia ora from Aotearoa!

2009-11-24T14:59:00.003+13:00

After visa delays and some time visiting family before leaving Canada, we've finally arrived in New Zealand!

Moving 15,000 km across the world and starting work the next day turned out to be a hell of a challenge, but in the eight days since arrival we've found a gorgeous place to live (pics to follow) and my job is promising even more exciting opportunities than I'd imagined.

Although there have been a few moments of cross-cultural confusion and frustration, I don't know if I've ever experienced such high quality customer service in setting up the things that make everyday life work, and the overall friendliness and helpfulness of Kiwis (as well as my expat colleagues) is nothing short of brilliant. I'm still in awe of the beauty of my surroundings and I wake up every morning with a clear sense that life is good.

So far I'm working on a new major research proposal, and I'm being kept busy developing new courses in Design Anthropology and Design+Culture, within our Culture+Context programme. I'll post more on that as it comes together, but I need to catch up on my Space & Culture editorial duties first.

In my spare time I've managed to source some great beer and cheese. I'm also trying to master the 100 Maori words every New Zealander should know and figure out how it is that I always seem to be walking uphill.

Homeward bound

2009-10-20T06:06:00.000+13:00

[cc image by luigi53]

Variations on this picture of Wellington's cable car seem to be the obligatory tourist photo from my soon-to-be new home. Pretty, huh?

Now with only a week to go before the official move I find myself thinking about how much I'll miss my friends and family, but I honestly don't feel like I'm leaving home.

Growing up overseas taught me that home is where you live. I remember quite vividly that the people who were always comparing where we lived to some far-away (and often idealised) "home," or who were always waiting to "go home," were never actually happy where we were.

I don't want to be one of those people, always wanting and waiting to be somewhere else. And I don't want to miss out on finding and making a new home where I am. So instead of focussing on where we're leaving, I'm going to focus on where we're going.

I'm imagining that I'm actually homeward bound.

Shaping things, spaces and emotions

2009-10-10T03:32:00.057+13:00

"Soft-Maps are quilted maps of neighborhoods and parks that represent someone's unique place in the city. Each map is meant to be used: wrap your children in them, have a picnic, pull them close during the next Nor'easter. Not only beautiful, these blankets can be used as a mnemonic tool. As your child grows up with a Soft Map, they learn to read their neighborhood and its landmarks in a tactile, easily remembered way.

Handmade custom Soft-Maps can be designed and constructed at any scale: the small town you grew up in, the city or country you're lonely for, or the college campus where you met your mate."

I love Emily Fischer's blanket maps because they represent lived space in such a mundane but rich way.

I like that the maps can picture any place: somewhere you've lived or somewhere you'd like to live; somewhere real or somewhere imaginary. I like that the maps can include stable structures like streets and buildings, as well as more transitory elements like a particular path taken through a place on a given day.

But any map can do that. What makes these maps special, I think, has everything to do with being soft and flexible, made to wrap the body and comfort it. Intimate objects for intimate spaces.

Leah Evans' textile maps are also gorgeous:

Left to right: Blue Satellite, Soil Survey and Energy Isthmus

But it seems to me that these quilts ask to be hung on a wall, rather than wrapped around a body. It can't just be the bird's eye view�the maps above have that too�so maybe it's the map content? Evans explains:

"It is the use of maps in organizing our ideas of land that interests me most of all. Often, people ask me for specifics about the places and symbols in my work. Most of my pieces are not based consciously on specific places. For me they are intimate explorations of map language and imagined landscapes. Through my research and experience, I have decided that maps create more questions than they answer."

I guess what I'm trying to understand is how the materiality of something affects how we experience it. Both artists' quilts are soft maps, but they aren't affective in the same ways. This suggests that material alone isn't enough, or rather that the affective significance of an object depends on more than its materiality.

It depends on the shape the material takes, the content or meaning expressed, the ways in which is can be used, and...?

Taking on material, empirical and conceptual objects

2009-10-09T01:55:00.000+13:00

Colleagues from the Interaction Research Studio, the Department of Design, the Centre for the Study of Invention and Social Process and the Department of Sociology at Goldsmiths have organised what looks to be a fascinating seminar series on the overlaps and disjunctures between design and the social sciences. If you're in London, please check it out - and then tell me all about it!

Design and Social Science Seminar Series 2009-2010
The Objects of Design and Social Science

Common to both design and (parts of) the social sciences is a shared pre-occupation with objects. On the one hand, design is concerned with making and interpreting objects including the finished article (e.g. consumer products), �experimental� design aids (e.g. prototypes), and projective representations (e.g. scenarios). Recently, design has also begun to re-engage with more speculative objects whose ambiguous functionality contributes to the exploration of the social and the material, the political and the aesthetic. On the other hand the social sciences also work with objects, including categorical objects such as race, gender, and health, empirical objects ranging from the mundane to the exotic, and conceptual objects such as the notions social scientists use to understand and theorize the social. Here, the sociology of science and technology has been especially productive, introducing notions such as boundary objects (Star & Griesemer, 1989), epistemic objects (Rheinberger, 1997), immutable mobiles (Latour, 1990), quasi-objects , black boxes (Latour, 1988) to name but a few. Accordingly, a focus on material, empirical and conceptual objects brings into sharp relief overlaps and disjuncture between the two disciplines and a rich space for dialogue.

This seminar series will seek to bring into view and explore existing objects of both design and social science as well as draw out objects of novelty for both disciplines. In doing so we will seek to engage with emerging issues and topics in both disciplines such as the outputs of speculative and critical design, participation, engagement and publics as well as addressing notions concerning heterogeneity, process and event. This series will continue to serve as a platform for opening up interdisciplinary research futures.

Seminar 1 | Wednesday October 14th
Introducing the Objects of Design and Social Science
With: Bill Gaver, Tobie Kerridge, Mike Michael & Alex Wilkie, Goldsmiths

Seminar 2 | Wednesday November 4th
Buildings as Things
With: Albena Yaneva, University of Manchester

Seminar 3 | Wednesday November 18th
Speculative Objects
With: James Auger, Royal College of Art & Jimmy Loizeau, Goldsmiths

Seminar 4 | Wednesday January 27th
Objects and Services
With: Chris Downs

Seminar 5 | Wednesday February 17th
From objects to issues?
With: Noortje Marres, Oxford University

Seminar 6 | Wednesday March 10th
Object fair
With: Bill Gaver, Tobie Kerridge, Mike Michael & Alex Wilkie, Goldsmiths

All seminars run from 4:00pm - 6:00pm and are hosted by the Interaction Research Studio, 6th Floor, Ben Pimlott Building, Goldsmiths, New Cross, London, SE14 6NW.

People possessing objects possessing people

2009-10-07T06:34:00.011+13:00

[marbles by fdecomite]

In 1920 Virginia Woolf published a wonderful short story called Solid Objects. It's most often described as a tale about a politician who sadly gives up politics, but I prefer to think it's about a man who happily takes up other things.

It begins with his discovery of a piece of glass:

"It was a lump of glass, so thick as to be almost opaque; the smoothing of the sea had completely worn off any edge or shape, so that it was impossible to say whether it had been bottle, tumbler or window-pane; it was nothing but glass; it was almost a precious stone. You had only to enclose it in a rim of gold, or pierce it with a wire, and it became a jewel; part of a necklace, or a dull, green light upon a finger. Perhaps after all it was really a gem; something worn by a dark Princess trailing her finger in the water as she sat in the stern of the boat and listened to the slaves singing as they rowed her across the Bay. Or the oak sides of a sunk Elizabethan treasure-chest had split apart, and, rolled over and over, over and over, its emeralds had come at last to shore."

I love how such a mundane object, just by being touched and taken in, becomes precious.This is transformation in the true sense. But I'm even more taken by Woolf's description of how a person can become possessed by objects as well:

"Looked at again and again half consciously by a mind thinking of something else, any object mixes itself so profoundly with the stuff of thought that it loses its actual form and recomposes itself a little differently in an ideal shape which haunts the brain when we least expect it. So John found himself attracted to the windows of curiosity shops when he was out walking, merely because he saw something which reminded him of the lump of glass. Anything, so long as it was an object of some kind, more or less round, perhaps with a dying flame deep sunk in its mass, anything - china, glass, amber, rock, marble - even the smooth oval egg of a prehistoric bird would do. He took, also, to keeping his eyes upon the ground, especially in the neighbourhood of waste land where the household refuse is thrown away. Such objects often occurred there - thrown away, of no use to anybody, shapeless, discarded. In a few months he had collected four or five specimens that took their place upon the mantel-piece."

What a lovely way to be reminded that if we are able to transform objects, then objects, too, are able to transform us. Continuing with the story, we can further witness John's almost ecstatic transformation:

"One day, starting from his rooms in the Temple to catch a train in order to address his constituents, his eyes rested upon a remarkable object lying half-hidden in one of those little borders of grass which edge the bases of vast legal buildings. He could only touch it with the point of his stick through the railings; but he could see that it was a piece of china of the most remarkable shape, as nearly resembling a starfish as anything - shaped, or broken accidentally, into five irregular but unmistakable points. The colouring was mainly blue, but green stripes or spots of some kind overlaid the blue, and lines of crimson gave it a richness and lustre of the most attractive kind. John was determined to possess it; but the more he pushed, the further it receded. At length he was forced to go back to his rooms and improvise a wire ring attached to the end of a stick, with which, by dint of great care and skill, he finally drew the piece of china within reach of his hands. As he seized hold of it he exclaimed in triumph."

And eventually, we see that his possessions come to possess him:

"[T]he meteorite stood upon the same ledge with the lump of glass and the star-shaped china. As his eyes passed from one to another, the determination to possess objects that even surpassed these tormented the young man. He devoted himself more and more resolutely to the search. If he had not been consumed by ambition and convinced that one day some newly-discovered rubbish heap would reward him, the disappointments he had suffered, let alone the fatigue and derision, would have made him give up the pursuit. Provided with a bag and a long stick fitted with an adaptable hook, he ransacked all deposits of earth; raked beneath matted tangles of scrub; searched all alleys and spaces between walls where he had learned to expect to find objects of this kind thrown away. As his standard became higher and his taste more severe the disappointments were innumerable, but always some gleam of hope, some piece of china or glass curiously marked or broken lured him on. Day after day passed. He was no longer young. His career - that is his political career - was a thing of the past. People gave up visiting him. He was too silent to be worth asking to dinner. He never talked to anyone about his serious ambitions; their lack of understanding was apparent in their behaviour."

And so, in the end, John was left to his things. One abandoned; the other kept. Both transformed.

Making the insubstantial substantial

2009-09-29T02:36:00.003+13:00

This weekend I went through my MA research in search of Penny Dransart's incomparable work on Andean camelid herding, and got distracted by my books on ancient Peruvian textiles. Most often made with alpaca wool, their weaving techniques were incredibly sophisticated, and I've never seen their match.

Now imagine the awe a textile geek like me experienced this morning when I saw the cloth pictured above. I didn't even know weaving like this was possible, and curators know of only one other textile of its kind, which was exhibited in 1900 and subsequently lost. So what makes it so impressive? It's made entirely of spider silk!

Made in Madagascar from the silk of more than one million female golden orb spiders, it took almost one hundred people four years to produce�and yes, that is its natural colour. (Stunning!)

"The task of silking a spider starts with a small machine � designed centuries ago when the first attempts to silk spiders were begun � that holds the spider down. 'The spiders are harnessed ... held down in a delicate way,' Godley says, 'so you need people to do this who are very tactile so the spiders are not harmed. So there's a chain of about 80 people who go out every morning at four o'clock, collect spiders, we get them in by 10 o'clock. They're in boxes, they're numbered, and then as they get silked, about 20 minutes later, they get released back into nature'."

"Peers picks up the thread of the story. 'It's called dragline silk,' he says. 'A spider can produce up to seven different types of silk. The dragline is what frames the web; it's the thicker silk on the outside. Also, it's extremely strong. The first panel that we wove, we were quite stunned by the fact that it sounded a bit like guitar strings, pinging like metallic guitar strings. I mean, it is a very, very unusual material.' A very careful person simply pulls the thread out of each spider and wraps it on a spindle. It's then put on a hand loom and woven. The main threads consist of 96 twisted silk lines. The brocaded patterns in the tapestry � stylized birds and flowers � are woven with threads made up of 960 spider silk lines. Peers says they never broke a single strand, yet the tapestry is as soft as cashmere."

"This intricately-patterned spider silk features stylized birds and flowers and is based on a weaving tradition known as lamba Akotifahana from the highlands of Madagascar, an art reserved for the royal and upper classes of the Merina people (who are concentrated in the Central highlands). Silkworm silk has been used for a long period in Madagascar, however, there is no tradition of weaving spider silk in Madagascar."

The textile is currently on display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. There's also a short video about it at the link above, worth watching if only to hear about how sticky the material feels. Cool.

Towards Rural Computing and the Internet of Companion Species

2009-09-24T07:55:00.010+12:00

After spending seemingly endless years researching and writing a dissertation, I don't think it's unusual to want to get as far away from the topic as possible. So I'll be the first to admit that this time last year I didn't want to hear the phrase "urban computing" ever again, and if anyone asked, I said that I was more interested in rural computing.

Sheep Crossing by Dana Spencer

At the time, the imperative to get on with urban computing was bound to people quoting that well-known and UN-endorsed statistic about half the world's population becoming urban. (If only people showed that kind of interest in, and commitment to, issues that affect women�also half the world's population!)

So when I read Russell Davies' recent post on what he's called "ruricomp," I perked up. In fact, I even made a little cheering sound when I read this bit:

"Half of us - an entire half - still don't live in cities. This may be a shrinking proportion of the world but it's still a lot of people, and (apart from some privileged bits of the West) it's the poorest, less mobile, less educated proportion. Most people are moving to cities to escape poverty, surely the people left behind merit some attention."

Yes! As I've said many times, who and what get excluded from design visions are just as interesting and important as what and who are included. Western philosophers have long held that a society can be judged by how it treats its weakest or least fortunate members (in other words, who we ignore or abandon) and contemporary notions of cultural citizenship rely precisely on how well we interact with people who are different from us.

During my doctoral defense, the examiners were quite concerned about a design imperative that, at worst, seemed to condemn rural spaces and people to irrelevance and, at best, reinforce some of the current divides that actually serve to disadvantage both "sides." I found myself ill-equipped (and unwilling) to provide an argument in favour of predominantly urban, or even exurban, computing. And I began to think more seriously about what might constitute non-urban or rural computing.

Those who know me know how much I love animals, and so it won't come as a surprise that when I think of rural life I think about all the animals. More specifically though, I think of where the Internet of Things might meet Donna Haraway's notion of companion species. How are we all connected? What do we make (of) each other?

I was doing research on farming and country life in New Zealand, the crises currently facing the wool industry, and how Icebreaker has been so successful in marketing their merino products by tracking their wool back to individual farms through their wonderful baacode service.

We know that RFID is widely used in livestock management, but that's not what Icebreaker is working with. So what if they were? And what else could we come up with if we started doing new technology design research in more rural contexts? What new relationships and opportunities would we discover?

While my first reaction to Icebreaker's current catalogue cover was "Oh Hell, No!" it's basically the same statement that led me to my new research project, Counting Sheep.

I'm interested in better understanding how the Internet of Things relates to agricultural production, and some of my first fieldwork will tackle wool-related cultural industries like the Golden Shears shearing and wool handling championships in Masterton. Next year marks the 50th anniversary, so I'll be in full ethnographer mode for the early March events, and again at the amazing Running of the Sheep event in Te Kuiti, in April.

I'm not sure what kinds of connections between sociality, spatiality and materiality I'll find, but I come from a country that has a strong rural constituency and I'm going to another, so I think it's high time to see if Russell is right:

"[M]aybe we could think about network technologies as a way to reintegrate rural and urban rather than accelerate the dominance of one over the other ... If we can stop the countryside becoming a Cursed Earth, we might not need a Mega-City."

What do you think?

Visualisation, materialisation and affect

2009-09-16T06:08:00.012+12:00

This is Luke Jerram's glass sculpture of the H1N1 (swine flu) virus, from his gorgeous Glass Microbiology series, which includes E. coli, SARS, smallpox and HIV (in order, below).

"These transparent glass sculptures were created to contemplate the global impact of each disease and to consider how the artificial colouring of scientific imagery affects our understanding of phenomena. Jerram is exploring the tension between the artworks' beauty and what they represent, their impact on humanity."

"The question of pseudo-colouring in biomedicine and its use for science communicative purposes, is a vast and complex subject. If some images are coloured for scientific purposes, and others altered simply for aesthetic reasons, how can a viewer tell the difference? How many people believe viruses are brightly coloured? Are there any colour conventions and what kind of �presence� do pseudocoloured images have that �naturally� coloured specimens don�t? How does the choice of different colours affect their reception?"

"In response to these questions, Jerram has created a series of transparent, three dimensional sculptures. Photographs of these artworks will be distributed to act as alternative representations of each virus."

"The sculptures were designed in consultation with virologists from the University of Bristol using a combination of different scientific photographs and models. They were made in collaboration with glassblowers Kim George, Brian Jones and Norman Veitch."

This is a video of glass blower Kim George, working on Jerram's HIV virus design. Choosing glass as his sculptural material is really interesting, not least because it's difficult to work with:

"I'm also pushing the boundaries of glassblowing. Some of my designs simply can't be created in glass, Some are simply too fragile and gravity would cause them to collapse under their own weight. So there's a very careful balancing act that needs to take place, between the limitations of current scientific knowledge and glassblowing techniques."

But the translucency of glass is also important: first, because the actual viruses are transparent organisms, and second, Jerram is colour-blind so he has a different, even idiosyncratic, relationship to colourised representations, and this impacts the way he works.

But the matter of authenticity, or authentic representation, is quite complex in this case. While his sculptures may be "truer" representations precisely because they are not coloured, they are even more distanced or abstracted from the "original" viruses in the sense that his designs are based on other pictures and models. Nonetheless, in the Guardian article on Jerram's work, it's suggested that the clear glass sculptures look "less threatening than popular scientific imagery would have us believe" and this gets straight to the question of affect.

A quick Google image search yielded these two representations of the HIV virus. While the basic shape is similar, the different colours and textures suggest slightly different�if equally vivid�organisms. I'm not sure I find either one particularly "threatening," but the one on the right is a bit creepier because it seems to have little hairs or tentacles (which, obviously, creep me out).

But back to the matter of colour. The top image is one of Jerram's HIV sculptures and the one underneath it is David Sayer's coloured photograph of another one. While both objects are effectively the same, the artificially coloured one appears more dramatic�which must surely be part of the reason the photo received an award from the Institute of Medical Imaging in 2007. But drama (or fear) is not the only way to move people, and isn't beauty really just the ability to move and be moved?

For example, Jerram posts a letter he received from a stranger:

Dear Luke,
I just saw a photo of your glass sculpture of HIV.
I can't stop looking at it. Knowing that millions of those guys are in me, and will be a part of me for the rest of my life. Your sculpture, even as a photo, has made HIV much more real for me than any photo or illustration I've ever seen. It's a very odd feeling seeing my enemy, and the eventual likely cause of my death, and finding it so beautiful.
Thankyou.

This person was clearly affected by Jerram's sculpture, and did not find it easy to resolve the emotional conflict arising from seeing some sort of beauty in his/her killer. And I wonder, was this affect/effect easier or harder to come by without colour?

But I also wonder if we're just more effectively convinced by three-dimensional material objects? This becomes particularly interesting in the area of (scientific) data visualisation, which quite simply is not data materialisation. I've written many times on the importance of objects in social interaction, and Jerram's sculptures bring to mind Elias Canetti's crowds�but those are connections which I'll have to flesh out another time.

Lucky London-based folks have the opportunity to see all of Luke Jerram's virology sculptures at The Smithfield Gallery from 22 September to 3 October, 2009 and his H1N1 sculpture was recently acquired for the Wellcome Collection.

via

Update 16/09/09: I can't believe I forgot about GIANTmicrobes - here are the plush versions of E.coli, H1N1 & HIV. Talk about different affective potential!

Update 12/10/09: My favourite science mag, Seed, has a short article on Jerram's work and his focus on "the animation of otherwise hidden phenomenon." David Ng also chimes in with some thoughts on the "complicated relationship between science and art" - something that might be of particular interest to designers making "conceptual" pieces and the challenge of answering the more empirical or technical concerns of scientists and engineers.

Textiles, patterns and bodies

2009-09-15T06:21:00.003+12:00

A few years ago, at a wearable technologies conference, I gave a talk on seams and scars (pdf). It's not a great paper, but I always liked how it connects textiles, bodies and patterns to ask questions about time, beauty and goodness (i.e aesthetics and ethics).

When I was checking out the Central Saint Martins MA Design for Textile Futures programme's 2009 degree show this morning, I also saw some photos from the Fine Art - Byam Shaw degree show. It's a shame they posted photos without any descriptions or attributions, but I was really taken by this embroidered (christening? funeral?) gown:

It seems so creepy-but-pretty, like a body inside-out, a cadaver, or an old anatomical model. (That last link via the always-awesome Morbid Anatomy blog, which reminded me to also hunt down a link to Bioephemera: Art + Biology.)

On a related note, I also recently learned about Ninette van Kamp's Souffrez Pour Moi project:

"Van Kamp's pieces use artfully placed seams, beads, and textured fabric to create intimate, temporary patterns in the skin. Using luxury fabrics and materials these special jewel-encrusted undergarments explore how beauty and suffering are subtly intertwined."

I really like patterns on the skin and these temporary ones are quite lovely. Much more appealing than the pillowcase creases I find on my face most mornings, these designs remind me of dermographia, a skin condition that allows for incredibly beautiful patterns to be etched onto the skin�just check out excalipoor's arm or Ariana Page Russell's skin one and skin two series:

While it's clear that the human body is inscribed both metaphorically and physically every day, it doesn't seem difficult to further treat the body (or skin) as a canvas or living textile. In addition to a very long cross-cultural history of tattoos, branding and scarification, notable artistic explorations include Shelley Jackson's SKIN project, "a story published on the skin of 2095 volunteers," well-known examples of body painting like Veruschka's modelling work in the 1960s and Greenaway's 1996 film The Pillow Book, and the more mundane expressions collected in the Words on Skin Flickr group.

Ultimately, I think this is all interesting because it gets me back to concerns about how people and things are made. What do we flaunt, and what do we hide? What do these choices say about what we value?

PLSJ resurrected

2009-09-14T08:39:00.008+12:00

After more than a year since my last post, I've decided to pick up blogging again. (Yay!) But before I really get into it, I have some news to share.

In November I take up a new permanent position as Senior Lecturer in Design Research at the School of Design, Victoria University of Wellington. Besides being super excited about moving to New Zealand, I'm proud to be joining such impressive colleagues and students doing world-class design.

I'm looking forward to my first year of teaching in the new Culture+Context specialisation programme�which means developing courses in design+culture and design anthropology, as well as co-teaching a design research class. I'm also really looking forward to growing the Design Culture Laboratory and getting started on my new research project, Counting Sheep: Using RFID to Explore NZ Wool Industries.

One of the things that got me most excited about this job is the incredible�and I should add unique�opportunity I'm being given to truly unite my studies in sociology, archaeology and anthropology. I'm looking forward to working with historical and emerging material cultures in terms of situated and embodied practices, and really thinking, doing and making stuff on an everyday basis.

On a related note, I have to thank Timo Arnall for giving me the opportunity to start making these connections while working on the Touch project. Earlier this year I completed re/touch, a website that "brings together hundreds of cross-cultural examples of social norms and values involving touch to help designers and researchers create design briefs, refine interaction scenarios, define game play or otherwise get inspired to think, make and do things touch-related." The Oslo super-team designed an interactive exhibition for re/touch that showed at Nordes 09 a couple of weeks ago, so keep an eye on the project blog for more on that. And more later on my current work, which involves a material culture analysis of the project's RFID objects collection.

In other news, I've also expanded my duties with the Space and Culture journal, where I now serve as Web and Book Review Editor. That means I've really got to up my game at the space and culture blog, and I'll be looking for people interested in reviewing books for us. (Hint, hint, free books!)

And last, but not least, I've actually started writing and publishing stuff again. Teaching six classes last year made it difficult, but I've got an article called �Locating Media Futures in the Present, or How to Map Emergent Associations and Expectations" coming out in Aether: The Journal of Media Geography, as well as a chapter on "The Affective Politics of Urban Computing and Locative Media" in Throughout: Art and Culture Emerging with Ubiquitous Computing, Ulrik Ekman's awesome edited volume for MIT Press. I've even got a couple more articles under review, which should finally take care of all my dissertation-related research. Of course, I'll post copies of everything here as soon as I can.

So. That's more than enough for now. I've got loads of stuff to do, but I'll be back soon!

Of endings and beginnings

2008-08-15T01:42:00.006+12:00

First things first. Thanks so much for the many warm and supportive comments posted since my defense. I am very grateful for having had such extraordinary readers for so many years.

As you know, this blog began as a record of my experiences as a PhD student. And as some of you may recall, it was always my intention to end the blog with the completion of my doctorate--so this is my final post.

Over the next few weeks purse lip square jaw will be redesigned. My dissertation will be made available online in its entirety, and although the blog will not be updated, the complete archive will remain here.

Of course, I will continue to blog at spaceandculture and I am very excited to be starting on new adventures.

Next week I take up a year-long position as Assistant Professor in Design & Computation Arts at Concordia University in Montr�al, where I will be teaching the social and cultural dimensions of new technologies, art and design practice. I hope to bring the sensibilities of sociology and anthropology to design and computation arts, and I'm looking forward to working with, and learning from, truly world-class colleagues and students.

The redesigned purse lip square jaw will provide links to all my courses, as well as to a new research project on the cultures of design and some upcoming publications.

Thanks again for all the support--it's been an incredible six years--and I hope to still see you around.

Now: Hey! Ho! Let's Go!

UPDATE 25/08/08:
The plsj tumblelog collects things I notice, and it's more fun than this blog.

Dr. Purse Lip Square Jaw

2008-07-12T07:13:00.005+12:00

It's official!

After more than two hours of intense questioning, the examining committee declared that my dissertation would be accepted with no revisions required, and recommended for a University Senate Medal for Outstanding Academic Achievement.

First order of business as Dr. Galloway?

Get my freak on ;)

A never-ending story

2008-06-20T00:46:00.006+12:00

I've got some consulting work to finish, a bit of reading and writing to do, classes to start planning, and 87 email in my inbox that need answers.

All I want to do is roll Katamari.