Reflections on Technology, Media & Culture
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Manifestos and madness
There’s something careless, wanton, dangerous, arbitrary, crazed, and appealing about overstatement. The author of the recent graffiti vandalism of a painting at the Tate Modern (Guardian) has a website called the Manifesto of Yellowism — which highlights the madness of all manifestos. A flourish of satirical art-speak tells us, “In the context of Yellowism, all … Continue reading
Embryonic Web Designers’ Manifesto
Embryonic Web Designers’ Manifesto The web is for communication and collaboration ahead of selling, promotion,organisation, structuring, data gathering and truth. Keep it extensible. Design a system not a page. The web site administrator is the user. A web site has blurry boundaries, and must interface with the professional and amateur worlds created by others. Design … Continue reading
The platformization of cultural labour
“Platform” is a handy architectural metaphor. In a seminal article from 2010, Tarleton Gillespie reveals the architectural origins of the term. “In this sense ‘platform’ has been broadly used to describe human-built or naturally formed physical structures, whether generic or dedicated to a specific use: subway and train platforms, Olympic diving platforms, deep-sea oil rig … Continue reading
The twist of the pen
“The application of a new force during the process of writing is usually accompanied by a twisting of the tip of the pen and a deviation from the already-established path into a new twist” (165). That’s a quote about calligraphic writing from Reza Negarestani, author of Cyclonopedia. The twist of the pen serves as leitmotif … Continue reading
What’s wrong with accelerationism
“You can’t always get what you want” is the puzzling refrain that echoed out over the PA at the end of Trump rallies, and was repeated at his subsequent post-victory reprieve rallies. The less audible punchline of the song is, “You just might find you get what you need.” Getting what you need is more important than … Continue reading
Garage labs and biohacks
The domestic garage is adjunct space without heating, insulation and wall coverings. It’s often physically connected to the rest of the home, but homeowners treat it as an outside space, or at least a buffer between inside and outside. Garages are less common in inner city dwellings (where I live), especially where there are row houses, terraces, flats and older … Continue reading
Only design will save Europe’s future
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
Champions of the Anthropocene
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
What’s wrong with the digital humanities
I’ve just read the online Digital Humanities Manifesto (2011). I wouldn’t have, were it not that Stanley Fish, the doyen and defender of the humanities, references it in his guest Opinionator blog post (2012). The Digital Humanities Manifesto appears with anonymous authorship on a dormant Wordpress blog site attached to the UCLA Digital Humanities research and teaching centre. … Continue reading
What’s wrong with parametricism
NURBS (Non-uniform rational B-spline curves) and blobs (blobs) are big in architecture. We used to talk simply about parametric design, and some still do. Parameters are the constants in an equation, set of equations, or a computer program (script). They define and limit what the equation will produce, e.g. the shape of a curve. But you can … Continue reading
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