Purse Lip Square Jaw

Internet of Objects vs. Internet of Things vs. Web of Things vs. Things on the Web vs. Real World Web vs. Whole World Web

2010-04-24T12:34:00.003+12:00

Some people find the naming of things to be incidental, uninteresting or even irrelevant, but from a sociological perspective the struggle to find the "right" name is critical to understanding people's interests, concerns and claims over domains of knowledge and practice. (For example, to declare the name of something an issue that needs correction, or as a problem to be solved, can be seen as the first step in what Michel Callon and Bruno Latour have called a sociology of translation--the successful result of which comprises an actor-network.) And I have a particular research interest in Pervasive Computing, the "Internet of Things" and/or the "Web of Things" as contested domains of knowledge and practice, so I was really interested in a conversation I followed on Twitter this morning.

Now, it's actually pretty hard to sequentially represent a Twitter conversation between several people so the transcription below only approximates how it unfolded in real-time. Plus, there were participants whose Twitter accounts are not public, and so not included here. But the perceived issues of the debate are what's most interesting to me, along with who or what drops out of conversation.

tomcoates: Trying with @bobbiejohnson to think of a better phrase than 'internet of objects' for pervasively networked, web of data aware devices...

jennielees: @tomcoates i prefer 'the internet of things', or if you're oreilly-oriented, 'web cubed'..

tomcoates: @jennielees The problem with the 'Internet of Things' is that I think it triggers a whole bunch of weird assumptions. It doesn't quite fit.

kevinmarks: @tomcoates I take it you don't like @bruces's 'spime' then?

tomcoates: @kevinmarks I'm not anti-spime as a useful descriptive term, although that's not completely what we're talking about here.

tomcoates: @kevinmarks Spime�as I understand it�is more of an object that can be tracked through space and time, rather than as a two-way transport.

jackschofield: @tomcoates It's already known as the Web of Things! http://bit.ly/9Adjed (@bobbiejohnson, er, who? ;-)

tomcoates: @jackschofield Yeah, I don't really buy that one either. It implies a web between things, not a relationship between things and the web.

tomcoates: @jackschofield Honestly, I'd prefer Things on the Web, although that's also semi-confusing, I accept.

tomcoates: Suddenly struck by the phrase "Real World Web" as a semi-reasonable phrase to describe the shift towards connected devices and environments

jackschofield: @tomcoates If you want to rename everything that could have a better name, you'll be busy for decades, and it won't make the world better.

tomcoates: @jackschofield I'm 100% with you - I'm not greatly in favour of having long, drawn-out semantic arguments about the names of things.

tomcoates: @jackschofield Generally much more important to get on with the process of building stuff.

tomcoates: @jackschofield But certain ideas just don't kick off if their naming is wrong or you can galvanise a community by renaming it.

tomcoates: @jackschofield The three obvious (positive) examples that leap to mind are the coining of 'social software', 'web 2.0' and 'ajax

jackschofield: @tomcoates True, though the actual meaning of Web 2.0 is arguable, and ajax's meaning is not obvious or recognised by most users...

jackschofield: @tomcoates What do the French, the Germans, the Japanese, the Chinese etc call Web of Things? One of those might suggest a better word...

egoodman: @tomcoates Maybe Whole World Web? The claim that some worlds are "realer" than others always bothers me. Life online is pretty damn real.

tomcoates: @egoodman I know exactly what you mean, but I think the danger is that you have to spell out what's different about the term.

tomcoates: @egoodman Whole World Web can be read really easily as the same as World Wide Web - both *could* refer to the physical world...

tomcoates: @egoodman That's the bit I'm trying to get to - how do you have a phrase that captures (1) the full range of meaning (2) is self-explanatory

tomcoates: @egoodman I think web of objects or things is nasty though - sounds like a separate distinct web from the web of pages or data...

egoodman: @tomcoates Agreed to all. Although in the beginning, World Wide Web was also a mysterious term.

egoodman: @tomcoates Mixed r=eality web? Hybrid web? ... now I'm just spiralling down, aren't I.

tomcoates: @tigoe I would go further and say the "Internet of Things" term has never been useful. Generally, though, I agree with you.

tomcoates: @tigoe My problem with The Internet of Things is that it feels separate and analogous to the Internet, when there's no distinction.

tomcoates: @tigoe What we need is a term that points towards the extrusion of the data-rich network into objects, while acknowledging the wider whole.

tomcoates: @tigoe For me, the interesting thing is not the 'things' but the way the network pushes its way into / through them.

tomcoates: @tigoe I think that's why I like the Real World Web pitch - because it points to that extension of the web. A new phase of The Internet.

Any thoughts?

Of moggies and pussies

2010-04-13T17:22:00.003+12:00

In New Zealand and the UK, domestic cats - and especially outdoor cats - are called "moggies." I was curious about the etymology of the word, and a quick look-up turned into an hour reading about the historical associations amongst cats, women and (by extension) effeminate men in colloquial English.

In terms of my current research, I'm fascinated by how "moggie" has been applied to both stray cats and stray women. For example, "moggie" as slattern or slut points at a socially inappropriate woman, a woman out-of-line, a behaviour out-of-place. "Moggie" as unkempt streetwalker further conjures women out-of-bounds, lacking in both physical and social pedigree. To later apply this term to an animal isn't surprising if we believe that the earlier sense stripped a woman of her humanity. The use of "moggie" to refer to creatures not receiving care (they live on the streets) nor being worthy of care (they are sub-human) also fits with the word's earlier use. Similarly, the early historical use of "puss" and "pussy" to describe fickle, spiteful or sly women created cultural associations between women, animals and the unpleasant qualities of each. Although "puss" and "pussy" moved away from such negative connotations and became terms of endearment for gentle, pretty and playful women, they also became derogatory terms for men whose behaviour was deemed to be overly feminine.

All of which is to say that, with one exception, both "moggie" and "pussy" have most often suggested a cultural status that is hard to place, if not entirely out of place. In trying to locate or situate outdoor cats in cultural and spatial contexts, these words and histories generate interesting connections and possibilities. I'm not sure where they'll take me, but I'm pretty sure the curiosity won't kill me.

(Photo by Mel Hodgkinson)

**

In case word geeks want details, this is what I copied from the OED:

MOGGIE, N.

1. a. colloq. (orig. and chiefly Sc. and Eng. regional). Originally: a girl, a young woman. Later: an untidily dressed woman. Now rare.

1648 W. LILLY Astrol. Predict. 60 Expect not so fair an enemy as Cromwel, nor such fair quarter as now is given thee: Jockey, Jemmy, and Moggy thy she-souldier, must than all to the sword. c1680 Scotch Moggy's Misfortune (broadside), With her Chearful Hops, that Shakum Giue will bury his Wife, and then make Moggy a happy Mother. 1699 E. WARD London Spy I. VII. 15 In another Hut, a parcel of Scoth [i.e. Scotch] Pedlars and their Moggies, Dancing a Highlanders Jig. 1886 R. E. G. COLE Gloss. Words S.-W. Lincolnshire, Moggy, a slattern, dressed out untidily: �She did look a moggy.� 1980 AA Bk. Brit. Villages 263/3 At Ickwell Green..the May Queen is accompanied by moggies (raggedly dressed women).

3. colloq. (chiefly Brit.) A (domestic) cat, esp. a non-pedigree or otherwise unremarkable one.

1911 J. W. HORSLEY I Remember xi. 254 Cockney slang..�moggies� for cats. 1958 L. LITTLE Dear Boys I. xii. 211 �Do you mean you actually killed them [sc. cats]?� Sid asked disgustedly. �That's right,� said Jake.., �that's what we did. Dozens of the bloody things... Until we ran out of moggies.� 1966 New Statesman 27 May 788/2 He dries his hands on a moggie and uses a kitten to blot a false death certificate; �just a fur ball, it's nothing,� he says. 1967 New Scientist 4 May 257/2 In the desert, there are several little wild cats superficially indistinguishable from domestic moggies. 1973 People's Jrnl. (Inverness & Northern Counties ed.) 4 Aug. 4/3 Oh, and before I leave this topic of pussies, my neighbour across the lane also had a good laugh from the moggie next door to her. 1994 Cats 5 Aug. 7/2 Some lucky owners may have a moggie which looks like a Maine Coon, or any other pedigree breed.

PUSS, N.

1. a. A conventional proper or pet name for a cat, freq. (sometimes reduplicated) used as a call to attract its attention.

a1530 J. HEYWOOD Iohan & Tyb (Brandl) 590, I haue sene the day that pus my cat Hath had in a yere kytlyns eyghtene. 1565 Kyng Daryus (Brandl) 181, I can fere the knaues with my grannams Cat. Pusse pusse, where art thou? 1568 Newe Comedie Jacob & Esau II. iv, in W. C. Hazlitt Dodsley's Sel. Coll. Old Eng. Plays (1874) II. 223 Esau left not so much [of the pottage] as a lick for puss, our cat. 1591 R. PERCYVALL Bibliotheca Hispanica Dict. s.v. Mi�a, The terme to call a cat, as we saie �pusse�. 1648 R. HERRICK Hesperides sig. L6, Foretelling..weather by our aches... True Calenders, as Pusses eare Washt o're, to tell what change is neare. 1712 E. COOKE Voy. S. Sea 214 The Spaniards, when they call them, say Miz, as we do Puss. 1792 S. T. COLERIDGE Coll. Lett. (1956) I. 25 Puss like her master is a very gentle brute, and I behave to her with all possible politeness. 1801 S. OWENSON Poems 73 View puss by fire her station take. 1897 B. STOKER Dracula vii. 89 The dog..was in a..fury..its hairs bristling out like a cat's tail when puss is on the war-path. 1956 Post-Standard (Syracuse, N.Y.) 4 Oct. 1/2 Mrs. Doctor looked out the window and poor Puss was stretched stark dead on the lawn. 2000 Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat & Chron. (Nexis) 20 May 1B There is an unwelcome silence at home now that my Puss is gone... I am planning to adopt another kitty as soon as I can. 2004 Daily Mail (Nexis) 13 We �know� when the cat is out there waiting to come in. Open the doorn - Here, �puss, puss, puss� - but there she is already.

b. colloq. (orig. nursery). A cat. Cf. PUSS-CAT n., PUSSY n. 2a.

1598 J. FLORIO Worlde of Wordes, Muccia..a yoong cat or kitlin or pusse to play with. 1605 G. CHAPMAN et al. Eastward Hoe IV. i, When the famous fable of Whittington and his pusse shal be forgotten. 1694 P. A. MOTTEUX Wks. F. Rabelais (1737) IV. xvii. 71 The Bite of a She Puss [Fr. chatte]..was the Cause of his Death. 1744-5 MRS. DELANY in Life & Corr. (1862) 342 Have I told you of a pretty tortoiseshell puss I have? 1818 R. HERBER Let. 31 July in A. Heber Life (1830) I. xv. 490 On being asked whether New Zealanders eat cats, he answered �New Zealanders eatee hog, him..eatee warrior and old woman, but him no eatee puss!� 1835 W. COLTON Ship & Shore 192 Our unfortunate puss had been taken on board at Malaga, and since her embarkation we had not been visited by one favorable breeze. c1840 W. E. FORSTER in Reid Life (1888) I. v. 135 A most delightful black kitten..; a most refined, graceful, intellectual, amusing puss. 1935 R. GRIFFITHS Imagination in Early Childhood x. 183 The puss saw the rat, and went like this (crouching) and the rat didn't see 'im. 1993 Star-Ledger (Newark, New Jersey) 5 June 5/4 He said the puss was shot Wednesday night and was found..by workers from Irvington Animal Control the following morning.

3. a. A girl or woman, esp. one exhibiting characteristics associated with a cat, as spitefulness, slyness, attractiveness, playfulness, etc. Originally used as a term of contempt; in later use also as a pet name or term of endearment. Cf. PUSSY n. 1a. Now rare.

1602 T. DEKKER Satiro-mastix sig. F3, Ile give thee none but Sugarcandie wordes, I will not pusse; goody Tripe-wife, I will not. 1612 B. JONSON Alchemist V. iii. sig. L3v, The baudy Doctor, and the Cosening Captaine, And Pus my Suster. 1630 T. DEKKER Second Pt. Honest Whore I. iii. 106 This wench (your new wife)..This Shee-cat will haue more liues then your last Pusse had. 1663 S. PEPYS Diary 6 Aug. (1971) IV. 264 His wife, an ugly pusse but brought him money. 1732 H. FIELDING Mod. Husband IV. 55, I think her an ugly, ungenteel, squinting, flirting, impudent, odious, dirty Puss. 1753 School of Man 95 The ingratitude, the villainy, says he, of the little Puss. 1780 C. DIBDIN Shepherdess of Alps III. iv. 62 Piqued at the little angry puss, Cried he, she sets me all on fire! Then plagues himself, and makes this fuss, Only to raise her value higher. 1846 DICKENS Battle of Life i. 13 �Somebody's birth-day, Puss,� replied the Doctor. 1861 T. A. TROLLOPE La Beata I. v. 102 To think that the little puss should defend herself so coolly. 1881 W. BESANT & J. RICE Chaplain of Fleet II. ix. 173 They could not have believed their daughter so sly and deceitful a puss. 1919 R. FIRBANK Valmouth xi. 189 �Oh, she's a regular puss; my word she is.� A regular civet if ever there was, Mrs Thoroughfare wickedly commented. 1940 M. SADLEIR Fanny by Gaslight I. 46 How's that, William? The puss says she will come too! 1951 G. HEYER Quiet Gentleman xii. 183 Shocked! Ay, so she might be, the naughty puss! 1978 M. M. KAYE Far Pavilions II. ix. 148 All the young fellows lining up to take his pretty little puss out riding and dancing.

PUSSY, N. and ADJ.

A. n.

1. a. Chiefly colloq. A girl or woman exhibiting characteristics associated with a cat, esp. sweetness or amiability. Freq. used as a pet name or as a term of endearment. Cf. PUSS n.1 3, PUSSYCAT n. 3.

c1557-65 in T. Wright Songs & Ballads (1860) lxxiv. 209 Adew, my pretty pussy, Yow pynche me very nere. 1583 P. STUBBES Anat. Abuses I. sig. Hv, You shall haue euery sawcy boy..to catch vp a woman & marie her... So he haue his pretie pussie to huggle withall, it forceth not. 1836 THACKERAY Let. 2 July (1945) I. 314 How have you passed the night dear Pussy? 1852 H. B. STOWE Uncle Tom's Cabin xvi, �What do you think, pussy?� said her father to Eva. 1932 A. CHRISTIE Thirteen Problems xi. 193 �The dame de compagnie, you described, I think, as a pussy, Mrs. Bantry?� �I didn't mean a cat, you know,� said Mrs. Bantry. �It's quite different. Just a big soft white purry person. Always very sweet.� 1941 A. CHRISTIE N or M? iii. 38 Old boarding-house pussies. Nothing to do but gossip and knit. 1952 M. TRIPP Faith is Windsock iv. 73 �Your rear gunner is a hit with the ladies.� �Jake knows how to make the pussies purr; it's an old Jamaican custom.� [1959 M. RICHLER Apprenticeship Duddy Kravitz I. ix. 50 Milty ran off crying... �What is it, pussy-lamb?�] 1986 D. POTTER Singing Detective II. 45 But tonight there isn't a pussy in sight. Not even a four-legged one. All good people have gone home.

2. a. nursery and colloq. A cat. Freq. used as a proper or pet name. Also used occas. as a call to attract a cat's attention (cf. PUSS n.1 1). In quot. 1873 (humorous): a tiger (cf. PUSS n.1 2).

1699 T. D'URFEY New Songs & Ballads 7 As Fleet as my Feet Could convey me I sped; To Iohnny who many Times Pussey had fed. 1726 MRS. DELANY in Life & Corr. (1862) 124 My new pussey is..white,..with black spots. 1764 K. O'HARA Midas 21 And pussey Can counterfeit sleeping, When mousey Steals tip-a-toe creeping. 1800 MR. UPTON in Myrtle & Vine III. 8 Says I, �Pray who's been here?� When she, who thought me boozy, Cries, �Nobody, my dear, 'Twas only Tom our Pussey!� 1821 J. CLARE Village Minstrel I. 167 Ah mice, rejoice!.. 'Tis yours to triumph, mine's the woe, Now pussy's dead. 1873 Routledge's Yng. Gentl. Mag. 535, I should have liked to have potted a pussy, particularly such a blood~thirsty brute as this one seems to be. 1889 J. K. JEROME Idle Thoughts 119 He strokes the cat quite gently, and calls it �poor pussy�. 1915 L. M. MONTGOMERY Anne of Island xxxviii. 297 �What are you going to do with Rusty?� asked Phil, as that privileged pussy padded into the room. 1927-9 H. WHEELER Waverley Children's Dict. VI. 3486/1 Another pet name for a cat is pussy. 1960 P. WILLMOTT & M. D. YOUNG Family & Class in London Suburb ix. 107 Next door but one has pussy when we go on holiday. 1992 Los Angeles Times (Orange County ed.) 11 June O.C. Live! 4/2 They'll choose the pussy with the longest whiskers..and the splashiest color. 2006 Herald Sun (Austral) (Nexis) 26 June 16 Pussies were purring as they were snapped up for as little as $40 at the society's annual cat clearance.

B. adj.

2 colloq. and slang. Exhibiting characteristics associated with a cat; cat-like. Also (in later use chiefly): weak, cowardly (cf. sense A. 1b).

1842 Amer. Pioneer 1 182, I walked up very carelessly among the soldiers..and concluded they could never fight with us. They appeared to me to be too pussy. 1863 C. KINGSLEY Water-babies v. 213 She was the most nice, soft..pussy, cuddly, delicious creature who ever nursed a baby. 1863 C. KINGSLEY Water-babies v. 241 Little boys..who have kind pussy mammas to cuddle them. 1930 D. L. SAYERS Strong Poison xvi. 197 Mrs. Pegler, a very stout, pussy old lady with a long tongue (!) 1977 M. TORRES in R. P. Rettig et al. Manny iii. 101/1 I'm not about to turn out. You picked on the wrong guy. I'm not pussy! 1985 E. LEONARD Glitz xx. 173 But when Weldon turned and threw his beer in Bad Isham's scarred face it surprised Isham. It seemed a pussy way to get things going. 2003 Ice Oct. 111/2 No-one dared take me on. It's why I had to start backyard wrestling - everyone was too pussy to start something.

Locative media and mediated localities

2010-04-08T13:37:00.008+12:00

The latest issue of Aether: The Journal of Media Geography is now out. Guest edited by Tristan Thielmann (University of Siegen), the topic is locative media and mediated localities:

Locative Media and Mediated Localities (pdf)
Tristan Thielmann
Locative Networking (pdf)
Greg Elmer
Locating Media Futures in the Present (pdf)
Anne Galloway
From Radar to Reader (pdf)
Christoph Rosol
Hidden Treasure (pdf)
Katharine Willis
A Moment of Experimentation (pdf)
Sophia Drakopoulou
Modes of Being in Mobile Telecommunication (pdf)
Miya Yoshida
The Power of Momentary Communities (pdf)
Michael Salmond

There is all sorts of interesting work here worth taking at look at, and I'll be presenting some related research at the Media in Action Conference in June.

In related news, I'm almost done revisions for an essay on the affective politics of urban computing and locative media for Ulrik Ekman's forthcoming book Throughout: Art and Culture Emerging with Ubiquitous Computing. And, for the last of my dissertation-related research, I've got a journal article currently under review. I'll post both pieces here as soon as I can.

Update 09/04/10: Serial Consign has posted an interview with locative media artist, scholar and educator Jeremy Hight that includes some interesting thoughts on technologically mediated spaces and narratives:

"We also are seeing what really excites me as a writer and researcher which is new ways to write and publish within maps and their augmentations, so not just locative narrative but even...a literary journal in the augmentation where Route 66 once ran or inside an immersive visualization of an abandoned building that is placed on its space in the map."

Still struggling to find my teaching + research + blogging rhythm, here are a few things that have recently caught my eye

2010-04-08T12:21:00.008+12:00

The upcoming pain of migrating this blog

On the (in)visibility of the quantum world and the debate over animal "personhood"

In search of indigenous research methods and Maori research ethics

Neighbourhood cats and Street fauna of Wellington; Have you ever bought a gadget that your dog actually needed?

Jaroslav Jurica's Rubikon pinhole rebel camera

Commentary about how asinine it is that female academics are told to "smile more" in their teaching evaluations. (Also a personal pet peeve; my professional male friends never have to deal with this sort of bullshit.)

George Spratt's 1850 Obstetric Tables, Joanna Ebenstein's "Private Cabinets" photo series and the Congress of Curious Peoples

And, well, actually, everything I've posted over here.

Week 442

2010-03-07T09:45:00.008+13:00

Since it's been almost six weeks since my last weeknote, I feel as though I'm giving confession!

The most significant thing that's happened in this time is the start of classes. I ended up choosing to focus on a set of cultural domains that shape and are shaped by design, and I think that my Design Anthropology course is off to a good start. I also decided to assign one major project in three parts, so the students will be designing and creating (but not deploying) their own cultural probes. The goal here is to gain broad theoretical exposure, and deep practical exposure, to culturally-based design research. This trimester I'm also a tutor for our third year design research paper, and I'm really looking forward to getting into studio-based learning and teaching.

In other university-related news, I've taken up my position as Convenor of the School of Design's Research Committee, which promises to be very interesting. The question of what constitutes the process and product of design research is complex, and given that our first-year curriculum and Design Innovation programme combine industrial design, media design and culture+context, it's easy to see how our faculty's research activities are quite varied. Finding ways to value a range of material, empirical, theoretical, creative and performative processes and products should provide no small challenge - especially with New Zealand's next Performance-Based Research Fund round quickly approaching.

I'm also enjoying the overlap between teaching and research that occurs with post-graduate supervision and examination. I'm impressed by the quality of student work here, and can't wait to see how this develops in the next few years. Given my own research interests, I'm also fascinated by my colleague Ross Stevens' explorations and teaching in Design Led Futures and we're trying to figure out ways of collaborating - including, I hope, a paper for the speculative design track at EASST 2010.

In other news, I'm starting work on a small research project on the ontological and social status of "outdoor" cats in urban areas. Domesticated but definitely not livestock, "outdoor" cats exist somewhere between pets like "indoor" cats and "urban wildlife" like possums. I'm most interested in the relations here between humans and non-humans, and how material culture - everything from katkabins to tweeting rfid cat doors - is designed and used to mediate these relations.

Otherwise, I've got several papers in various stages of review and publication that I need to get off my plate as quickly as possible. I'll be heading to Europe for two weeks in early June for Media in Action: International Conference of the Media Upheavals Research Centre at the University of Siegen - and I've got a bunch of UK and Norway university visits that need to be finalised sooner rather than later. If anyone wants to get together during that trip, please let me know.

Now, as Kang would have it, "We must move forward, not backward, upward not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom..."

CFP - What Objects Do: Design, Consumption and Social Practices

2010-03-07T07:51:00.004+13:00

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

What Objects Do: Design, Consumption and Social Practices

"After 30 years of STS, it became impossible to understand how the social life works without appreciating how design objects, devices, settings, and environments mediate everyday practices, without accounting reality as a result of multiple interactions among humans and nonhumans. Indeed, STS contributed in recognizing not only meanings and social values attached to objects and technologies, but also the ways in which these artefacts materially contribute in shaping everyday social practices and patterns of life. Drawing on the STS�s assumption that objects with their scripts and incorporated programmes of action and �things� with their heterogeneous ontology and contested nature constantly articulate and rearticulate social ties, the track will explore design�s and consumption�s performativity and their capacity to trigger specific ways of enacting the social.

Papers are welcome on a variety of issues, including (but not limited to):

The performativity of technical objects, of spaces and design environments. What can objects do? How do they equip human communication? How do they mediate social interactions? How do they generate meaning in design experience? How are humans and nonhumans shaped and enacted by design? Do objects have social lives? How are their biographies entangled with the trajectories of their makers and users?
The processes of consumption and domestication of objects and technologies. How do people appropriate and use objects and technologies? In which ways these processes of consumption of technologies contribute in shaping the patterns and routines of everyday life? How can we recognize the relevance of the technical and material dimension of things in the creation, stabilization and transformation of everyday practices, routines and habits?
Design and the Social. How does design facilitate everyday sociality? How is design used to �outsource� morality, ethics, and politics? How does it play to solidify, reinforce, and prolong the social, the political, and the cultural? How does design shape individual or collective behaviours or become pattern giver of social practices? How does design turn the �public� into a problem? How do designers make their activities accountable to citizens or their representatives?

Scholars of different disciplines and research fields engaged in the study of the role of material artefacts and objects are invited to participate. While contributions may cover methodological and theoretical issues related to design, consumption and STS, we especially welcome papers that will base their findings on empirical examples and fieldwork. We also invite participants to organise their talks, if suitable, around the objects or �things� they might wish to bring with them in the session."

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

Convenors: Paolo Magaudda (Universit� di Padova), Mika Pantzar (National Consumer Research Centre of Helsinki), Paolo Volont� (Politecnico di Milano), Albena Yaneva (University of Manchester)

Previously posted EASST 2010 CFPs
Speculation, Design, Public and Participatory Technoscience: Possibilities and Critical Perspectives
Design, Performativity, STS

Framing tiny things

2010-02-26T15:57:00.005+13:00

Seed Magazine showcases some of the most beautiful things I've seen in a long time: Howard Lynk's collection of Antique Microscope Slides from the Victorian Era c. 1830s - 1890s.

In the early 1800s, as optical instruments like the microscope became more refined, there was a corresponding demand for things to look at and a commercial industry in prepared or mounted slides emerged. Not only did these slides gather and portray an astounding array of natural objects, but the actual mountings are beautifully crafted.

"Many of the slides...use a method of construction wherein the mounting slide (usually a 1" x 3" piece of glass or wood) is covered either wholly or in part with colourful gilt decorated lithographed papers. This practice of using paper covers originated as a necessary means to mechanically fasten the mica or thin glass covers that were placed over the specimens, to the main slide. However, the paper covers quickly became more of an expression of decoration and individual presentation than need, as the use of Canada Balsam and other mounting media became widespread. Much of the best early preparers work is immediately recognizable, as they each settled on standard paper colours and graphic designs, which became their trademark of sorts."

Individual craftsmen - and they do appear to have been men - became known by their particular styles, and slides often bore the name of both the mounter and the optician who sold the slides. I was quite taken by the arranged slides - where many small objects were placed to form designs or patterns. Some of this work was so delicate that it required the use of boar bristles or cat whiskers to manoeuver the tiny objects or pieces into place.

Diatoms (Ernst Thum)

Radiolarians (Amos Topping)

Diatoms, Butterfly Scales, and Spicules (Mounter Unknown)

"A variation on the 'Arranged Object' mounts, Exhibition slides [1st and 3rd above] were often considered to be the pinnacle of the commercial mounters art, considering the degree of difficulty in their preparation. Combining various objects, often many 100s (or 1000s!) of individual butterfly or insect scales, diatoms, spicules, etc.; each piece was individually selected and assembled to create pictures or complex geometric arrangements."

I was also really impressed to learn about microphotos, or those photographic images of "famous people, art works, buildings, geographic landmarks, etc." that are only visible through a microscope.

There's just something really astonishing about seeing the moon through a microscope; it messes with everything I understand about scale!

But I think that, most of all, I just love the attention to detail and the value placed on materiality. And I wonder: is there any contemporary or digital equivalent?

Vegetable sheep

2010-02-11T13:39:00.000+13:00

I'm doing some historial research right now on human-animal relations, especially those among sheep herders, their flocks and their dogs, and I've been completely charmed by New Zealand's vegetable sheep.

Not to be confused with the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, vegetable sheep are actual plants of the Raoulia species. This "densely compacted, rounded cushion plant grow to several feet across and sometimes two feet high ... and the white colour of its flowers and also of the hairy covered leaves gives it the appearance, from a distance, of sheep."

Figure 108 Large cushion of the Marlborough vegetable sheep, Haastia pulvinaris.
Mt. Cupola, Nelson Lakes National Park. Photo: J. W. Dawson.

Figure 109 Close view of a portion of a Haastia pulvinaris cushion showing the
branchlet tips closely invested by woolly leaves. Photo: J. W. Dawson.

"On the shingle-slips the wonderful vegetable-sheep are encountered. These grow not on the shingle, but on the rocks which the stones have nearly buried. Large examples form great hummocks, 6 ft. long by 3 ft. across, or even more. Really they are shrubs of the daisy family, and are provided with a thick, stout, woody main stem and strong roots, which pass far into the rock-crevices. Above, the stems branch again, and again, and towards their extremities are covered with small woolly leaves, packed as tightly as possible. Finally, stems, leaves, and all are pressed into a dense, hard, convex mass, making an excellent and appropriate seat for a wearied botanist ... The vegetable-sheep are not inaptly named, for at a distance a shepherd might be misled."

-- L. Cockayne, New Zealand Plants and Their Story, Wellington: Government Printer, 1910

"Though singular and interesting to the botanist, these plants are of no value economically, but, on the contrary, as we have shown, certain species of them are a plague to the shepherds, inasmuch as they give them much trouble and annoyance to discern between an animal sheep and a vegetable sheep."

-- John R. Jackson, "The Vegetable Sheep of New Zealand," The Intellectural Observer: Review of Natural History, Microscopic Research and Recreative Science, Volume XI, pp. 128-135, London: Groombridge and Sons, 1867.

In search of elegance

2010-02-10T11:13:00.003+13:00

MSC container ship and tugs, Wellington Harbour

Walking along Oriental Parade on the way to work this morning I saw an old man watching the tugs bring in a container ship. I stopped and said "Aren't those ships impressive?" He smiled at me and replied, "Aye. But not very elegant." We watched in silence for a few moments before his smile faded. "Young people today don't see elegance, just function," he proclaimed. I thought for a moment and replied, "I wonder how many values are lost because we don't get exposed to them?" After another moment I added, "But I sure do like the tugboats. They seem strong and happy." He smiled broadly and said, "Aye. They do have a rugged elegance."

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.