Reflections on Technology, Media & Culture

High resolution display screens, motion and touch sensors, interaction with other people and virtual objects, channels that deliver sound, touch, taste and smell, stereo vision and sound, all wrapped into a 360 degree 3D sphere of experience — that’s the dream and expectation of VR (virtual reality). Is 360 degree video on the way to that ideal? … Continue reading →

The term “post-truth politics” was coined by journalist David Roberts in an article in Grist in 2010. The use of the term is convenient shorthand to indicate disagreement with some current political circumstance. The term also comes into play as a way of accounting for the strange unregulated world of social media. The term also helps mainstream media outlets account for their declining role as gatekeepers to truth, … Continue reading →

When I was a kid, the Magic Circle was well known as an association of stage magicians. Those within it knew the rules of the illusions and had to keep them secret. The other meaning of magic circle is obvious: a circle that is magic. Perhaps it’s the former that the philosopher Johanne Huizinga had in mind when … Continue reading →

Watching the graceful slow motion “crash” of the Airlander 10 at Cardington Airfield on the news this week prompted me to think about what happens when the machine fails. In the case of an airship it might drift, or fall gently to the earth, even if it lands with a thump. The classic science fiction short story by E.M. Forster, The … Continue reading →

I was pleased to read Alberto Perez-Gomez’s recent book Attunement: Architectural Meaning After the Crisis of Modern Science which endorses the pivotal importance of attunement, emotion, mood and Stimmung in architecture. In fact Alberto’s book came out at the same time as my Mood and Mobility: Navigating the Emotional Spaces of Digital Social Networks, both with MIT … Continue reading →

Metaphors can be playful, and observers of nature commonly refer to metaphors of play: “we find talk of the play of light, the play of the waves,” and “the play of gnats” (104). This is a passing reference to play in nature by the hermeneutical philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer as he affirmed the importance and ubiquity of play. … Continue reading →

According to the Ofcom annual report on the communications market published this week, “digital detox” refers to “a period of time when a person makes a conscious decision not to go online or use connected devices.” It is also “an opportunity to focus on offline activities such as exercising, socialising with friends and family, doing housework or homework, or … Continue reading →

Many video games require the player to investigate and solve mysteries, to read the signs, gather evidence and follow leads. I think this is the area in which semiotics can be applied most usefully to computer gaming and game design. Semiotics is the study of communication from the point of view of signs and symbols, and how … Continue reading →

Everyone is talking about Pokemon Go. So I may as well join in. While on holiday last week in the town of Menton in the south of France I aimed my mobile phone camera at a cat in a laneway. Two young men glanced in my direction as they walked by, and I distinctly heard one of … Continue reading →

Biosemiotics is an area of research that studies living matter in terms of its communication networks, i.e. the transfer of signs. Biosemioticians think that the exchange of signs applies to whole organisms communicating with one another (as when humans or other animals communicate), but also the exchange signs at the microscopic and chemical level, including the way cells process … Continue reading →

A code is a system of rules for translating one string of symbols into something else, such as another string, some actions or outputs. Code provides an obvious link between digital computers and nature. After all, computers run on code, and the nuclei of cells in living organisms contain gene sequences that the cells translate to other … Continue reading →

This was the agreed title of my 10 minute polemic at a debating session at the Design Research Society Conference (DRS2016) on Tuesday 28 June. Here’s the transcript. You may think it odd to burden design with the responsibility to redeem anything, let alone to save Europe. But that’s by no means a new role. The … Continue reading →

The European Commission is hosting debates around Europe at the moment: “Citizens’ Dialogues, in the style of town-hall debates, are taking place across the EU. Feel free to come along – it’s ‘first come, first served’!” Dialogue is good, but is debate always the best model for promoting public engagement? When I was in primary … Continue reading →

There’s not much in Shakespeare that extolls the beautiful, sacred and sublime in nature. That came much later with the Romantics, and in contemporary performances and adaptations. The BBC aired a production of A Midsummer-Night’s Dream last month. It was abridged and adapted for television by Russell T Davies with a punk fairy Dr Who element. Of note, the attendants in the court … Continue reading →

The “science of signs,” semiotics, provides valuable insights into the relationship between the highly artificial world of networked computers and the world of nature. First, we have to abandon the idea that at the core of artificial, animal and plant communication systems we have data. According to a common computational typology there’s data (just 1s and 0s, or … Continue reading →

Long before smartphones existed I undertook a course that taught me to identify plant specimens. This was part of my landscape architecture degree. The course was to help designers select plants for parks, gardens, street planting, national parks, reclamation sites, etc. I learned the botanical names by rote of a couple of hundred species, mostly those available in and around Melbourne. I … Continue reading →

“Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight. Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning.” How do you read nature? Nature is a system of signs after all. The theory of signs (semiotics) is interesting not least as it repositions the discussion of nature away from the reductive notion of data towards the totality of experience (see post One … Continue reading →

“Architecture answers to the human need to become one with nature,” headlines a blog post reporting a speculative project featuring houses covered in foliage. To be “one with nature” still has currency in this high tech age. The phrase has several uses, e.g. to indicate: an attitude and set of practices in which people recognise their co-dependence … Continue reading →

I’ve just caught up with Thunderbirds Are Go, the recent remake of the futuristic 1960s Thunderbirds marionette series. This new series meshes CGI models of puppet-like humans with physical models of rockets, cars, roads islands and cities. So it’s very high tech (from Weta) made to look like tech from 50 years ago. The CGI … Continue reading →

Living human and animal skin is palpably different from a touch screen video display. Digital technologies lie at the far end of a spectrum that begins with completely unadorned, raw, nature as you find it (e.g. unadorned human skin, or a leaf), and stretches to the maximally manufactured, contrived, and artificial (e.g. a touch screen, or a microchip). What could be more synthetic and unnatural … Continue reading →

Here’s the grimy hull of an abandoned ship on an isolated beach surrounded by barbed wire and covered in rust and flaking graffiti. If you like that kind of ruin then you are drawn to it. If not you will probably keep away. You are either attracted or repelled; you approach or avoid. (My instinct was to approach.) To approach … Continue reading →

Sentient spaces are simply spaces containing sensors: registering heat, light, sound, impact and other signals derived from movements, properties, and other aspects of the environment. After all, the Latin sentīre is to feel (OED). Spaces saturated with CCTV coverage also contribute to spatial sentience, and spaces laced with networks, software, and storage media through which these signals pass. Add to … Continue reading →

Can you learn about nature from computer games? According to one commentator, video games “remind us of how we create, and have always created, ‘nature.’ They signpost the virtuality of the real. They show our seemingly endemic proclivities to make over the natural” (411). That’s from cultural theorist John Wills writing about video gaming in 2002: … Continue reading →

Modernism championed an image of the human as rational, in control, and improving. Now we human beings realise we are responsible for irreversible alterations to land, climate, and organic life on a geological scale. So we live in the Anthropocene, and those committed to its correction, rehabilitation and remaking are Anthropoceneans. Many geographers are counted in their number — but … Continue reading →

News of disasters and tragedies amplify collective loss and grief. Mass media and their online surrogates render tangible human tragedies due to error, injustice and war. Nature also delivers disaster. But we modern humans also grieve over nature. Those critics who identify the influence of human habitation on Planet Earth focus on the latter kind of grief. Officially, we homo sapiens and … Continue reading →

Online social media bring to light the human desire to be more interesting. After all, that’s how you get “likes,” friends, dates, self esteem and success. Search online for interest, attraction and/or attention to get the measure of how interested people are in being interesting. In fact, interest implies connection. The word “interest” suggests “to be between” … Continue reading →

Who could miss the palpable cuteness of puppies and kittens on YouTube, and their mass produced surrogates in cartoons, video games, on logos, as branded accessories and as soft toys. The word “cute” is an abbreviation of “acute,” meaning clever, keen-witted, sharp, and shrewd, according to the OED. In her extensive exploration of cute as a viable contemporary aesthetic category, … Continue reading →

Working together inevitably involves compromise. But is compromise always less than the best? Finding the “best” in any situation involves many comparisons, trade-offs, and compromises. Sometimes when trying to find the best solution to a design problem even the most experienced and well focussed individual will alight on something that is better than all the other, similar … Continue reading →

A wander through the woods and fields is an excellent way to get in touch with the divine — if you are a pantheist. Pantheism affirms “the animating spirit of nature” (193), and that “God is the unified totality of all things.” Pantheism is one of several systems of thought and belief that aligns with a sublime respect for and … Continue reading →

Does nature make you think, or at least help it along? Consider first work environments. The world of work is filled with tools that help us think through and solve problems: notepads, pens, networked smartphones, and computers. Effective thought relies on such cognitive prosthetics. Expert professionals are so dependent on tools to aid their thinking that it’s difficult to … Continue reading →

Some people want buildings that adapt according to climate, respond to their occupants’ changing moods, and grow, develop, evolve and transform as if living organisms. From werewolves to trucks that transform into enormous robots, the human fascination with transformation seems part of our cultural DNA. I’ll start with metaphor. Bearers of change Metaphor is an animal term. Meta means “change, transformation, permutation, or substitution” according to … Continue reading →

It’s nearly Christmas, so it’s time for stars, and movie releases timed for the Christmas season. But I’ve always had trouble with Star Wars and religion. Apparently the ubiquitous and omnipotent force has a good side and a dark side. Yoda: Remember, a Jedi’s strength flows from the Force. But beware. Anger, fear, aggression. The dark side are … Continue reading →

In his sci-fi detective mystery, I, Robot, Isaac Asimov writes: “Powell’s radio voice was tense in Donovan’s ear: ‘Now, look, let’s start with the three fundamental Rules of Robotics — the three rules that are built most deeply into a robot’s positronic brain.’ The rules follow. A robot may not injure a human being or, … Continue reading →

Dog, cat, sheep, fox, hen, Pokémon — we don’t only classify animals and their surrogates, but animals are a primary means by which we develop the very idea of categories — and their denial. That’s the main thesis of Paul Shepard’s fascinating book: The Others: How Animals Made Us Human. Classification Shepard argues that animals  are “unusual parts of our … Continue reading →

This week I’ll participate in a round table discussion about the digital humanities at an event called Methodological Intersections at the Trier Digital Humanities Autumn School in Trier, Germany. We’ve been presented with 5 questions, which I’ve reformulated here in my own words — with some tentative responses. Q1: The digital humanities (DH) presents itself as cross disciplinary. Does the idea of the digital humanities weaken the … Continue reading →

“Instead of looking through telescopes and microscopes, researchers are increasingly interrogating the world through large-scale, complex instruments and systems that relay observations to large databases to be processed and stored as information and knowledge in computers” (449). This is how geographers Harvey Miller and Michael Goodchild describe Big Data in their critical article “Data-driven geography.” They add that this data flow amounts to more data than … Continue reading →

Do you participate fully in post-digital culture? It’s likely that you do, even if you don’t recognise it. Here’s a light-hearted adaptation of a critical article, “What is post-digital?” by Florian Cramer. 1. You play down the special nature of digital technology According to Cramer, post-digital cultures exhibit “either a contemporary disenchantment with digital information systems and media gadgets, or a period … Continue reading →

It’s good to be ambitious, to aim for impact and to make a difference. Here are some ambitious project ideas: create an exhibition, build a pavilion in a city square, fabricate a dynamic sculpture in a workshop, produce an interactive computer app, make a film, run an elaborate experiment, conduct a massive survey, embark on a Kickstarter campaign, run … Continue reading →

People pay a lot of money for a restaurant table, hotel room or apartment with a good view, but prospect has it’s most dramatic effect as part of a sequence. The geographer Jay Appleton (1919-2015) famously advocated that people prefer views, scenes, paintings, and by implication, landscapes, in which there’s an element of both prospect and of refuge. We are programmed biologically … Continue reading →

Good research draws on evidence — at the very least a body of literature that supports the answer to a research question. Can you draw on the Internet for evidence? As well as a body of literature most researchers would admit as evidence the results of experiments, observations, surveys, interviews, and questionnaires. In architecture, the arts and some other fields (engineering, … Continue reading →

What’s the difference between an artwork and a design? The worst insult you can give to a work of art is to ignore it. The worse thing you can do to a design is to treat it as a work of art — i.e. not to use it. This is an argument advanced by philosopher Nicholas … Continue reading →

This is a metablog: a short blog post about blogging, a blog that links to other blogs, and it links to a PDF that is a print friendly collation of a selection of other blogs on the subject of blogging — from this site. That’s not unusual. I ran a workshop yesterday called “Developing a writing and publishing … Continue reading →

Planet Earth is a giant spherical communications machine with a diameter of about 84,000 kilometres. Well over 1,000 satellites orbit between the earth’s surface and this outer (geosynchronous) layer. Nature and artefact seem to merge due to the scale, ubiquity, sophistication, and conceits of contemporary techno-science, especially if we add to the global communications infrastructure the prospects of geo-engineering intended … Continue reading →