Reflections on Technology, Media & Culture
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Sentient spaces
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
Mood machines
Machines that don’t work invariably put people in a bad mood. But the relationship between machines, mood and failure provides many sources of interest. “Mood machine” is not just an appealing alliteration. Type it into your search engine. There’s something intriguing about a machine that claims to put you in the mood (especially a good … Continue reading
AI article
Extract from Coyne, R., Designing Information Technology in the Postmodern Age: From Method to Metaphor, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995. Chapter 1. The Theoretical Orientation to Computer Systems Design … The theorist of AI, Roger Schank (1946-), identifies five elements of human intelligence.[1] According to Schank, the first is the ability to communicate.[2] For artificial … Continue reading
Site index
Results appear in reverse date order. You can also use the search box above or the Google menu. 3D printing 4D printing Accelerationism Activism Affective and emotion Africa Agon Alberti Ambience Anger Animals Anime Apocalypse Art Artificial Intelligence Attention Audience engagement Augmented reality Aura Ayn Rand Bad Actors Bauhaus Belief Big Bang Theory Big data … Continue reading
Undisciplinarity
What is the value of interdisciplinary research? According to a review of research published by the UK funding councils, “Crucially, many major discoveries and breakthroughs have occurred at the boundaries between disciplines resulting in new fields of study, such as biochemistry, health economics, social psychology, development studies and informatics” (Davé, et al., 2016, p.8). If … Continue reading
Your post-human descendants are simulating you
If the universe can be represented in its entirety as data and programs then who is to say we are not living in a simulation, as in The Matrix? In the movie, human bodies are stored in silos as a power supply for intelligent machines, while the human minds attached to those bodies are preoccupied with a massive, shared simulated existence in something … Continue reading
How to be interesting
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
Thinking naturally
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
Bear in the park
The publicity for our Mobility, Mood and Place study includes a photograph of people walking across a park (The Meadows). In the foreground there’s someone wearing the unusual head mounted EEG apparatus. Everyone notices that. But neither I as the photographer nor many of the people who have seen the picture noticed a further unusual presence. … Continue reading
Aha moments
Imagine walking along the pavement of an unfamiliar busy street. There’s heavy traffic, roadworks and people moving in all directions. Then you encounter an open gate, with green space beyond. You go through the gate and something else is revealed — a grand promenade, wide vista, perhaps a view to a stately villa now serving as a museum. … Continue reading
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