Reflections on Technology, Media & Culture
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Otaku architecture
Otaku is a Japanese word for a category of individual, typically a youth, who is obsessed with anime (Japanese animations), manga (comics), and other pop culture forms. He or she prefers to be alone, may be lonely, lacks social skills and stays at home. The otaku keeps unsociable hours: staying up for 40 hours then … Continue reading
Let’s play
If you have a weekend to spare you can while it away watching YouTube video clips accompanying gamesters as they play through, and talk through, every level of Grand Theft Auto IV or Minecraft or Tombraider III, or just about any computer game, old or new. It’s not as easy to return to a computer … Continue reading
Shōjo Manga morals
Shōjo Manga is a genre of Japanese graphic novel, animation and merchandising that’s marketed for a young female audience. Search images for “Princess Tutu” for some saccharine sweetness laced with cute gooeyness. You could be forgiven for thinking it’s kids’ stuff. But whatever manga is, it’s not innocent. We are not 14 anymore. Transformation features … Continue reading
Ambience on demand
The way we watch television, listen to the radio and generally consume media has changed radically since the advent of the Internet and digital broadcasting. We now have user-generated online video (eg YouTube and Vimeo), broadcast and online television services (Sky, Tivo) that enable you to view movies and programmes on demand and on different … Continue reading
Structuralism in architecture: not a style but a tool for critique
Influential twentieth century architectural historians such as Charles Jencks and Kenneth Frampton have promoted a particular approach to architectural analysis in which architectural theories have adherents — or at least groups who wish to associate with the theories — who then produce certain kinds of buildings as a result of those theories. The danger of architecture’s willingness to subscribe to … Continue reading
Wired-Up Words
An A–Z of Awkward Ideas for a Wired World (DRAFT in process, Admin) Introduction: Networks and Word Play The public platform of the Word Wide Web (sic) is populated with neologisms, portmanteau terms, the alleged language of the street, and bad puns — not to mention spelling mistakes. Writers for the web now have license to … Continue reading
Game noir
Limbo is a grim, award-winning video game in black, white and grey, involving a small boy’s dash through a lethal forest. At one stage the boy jumps across the corpses of similar little boys bobbing along in a river. Another game, The Path, has similar narrative connotations, described as a short horror game updating Little … Continue reading
A nation addicted to smartphones
This is the cunning strap line accompanying the release of Ofcom‘s recent information-rich report on the communications market. The adoption of fully-featured mobile phones (Blackberry, iPhone, Android) has rocketed in the past 12 months.
Blog archive (and About)
What this blog site is about I draw on philosophy and cultural theory to help understand current affairs, architecture and developments in digital technology. These are not opinion pages, though my strongly held view that academic reflection really matters as we try to understand contemporary living may seep through. These posts are scheduled to appear … Continue reading
Site index
A.S.M.R. 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 … Continue reading
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