Amidst the grim images and doleful wails of the North Korean nation mourning the death of its leader Kim Jong-Ill we see grief-stricken citizens enacting the customary orz posture and gestures (YouTube).More
Category Archives: Body
After affects
How do surveillance cameras, and increased monitoring and security procedures affect you? Such causes have undoubted effects on material circumstances and well-being. Actions affect things, and thereby produce effects. The verb, to affect, results in a noun, an effect. But there’s also such a thing as an affect, as a noun. Last Friday I attended…More
3D passive unrealities
3D is moving in. Nintendo has released its 3DS hand-held game system: “no need for special glasses.” Titanic is being retro-fitted as a 3D movie. 3D cinema reminds me, if I ever needed reminding, of the symmetries of the human body, and hence of our whole perceptual apparatus (ie all the senses). Philosopher Mark Johnson emphasises…More
Accidental people
They show up everywhere. We’ve never met, and probably never will. These bodies don’t only appear in Google StreetView, but in my digital photo albums whether I want them there or not. They are most visible when I zoom in. They even get singled out by the “faces” feature of my photo browser, and I’m…More
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.More
E-motion
Devices for Electroencephalography (EEG) to map the locus and strength of emotional responses in the brain are now available for a few hundred pounds, eg Emotiv EPOC neuroheadset. Sensors positioned over the wearer’s scalp pick up the minute wave patterns produced by brain activity. According to the advertising: “It uses a set of sensors to tune…More
Obliquitous computing
Augmented reality has gone mainstream, especially with the distribution and promotion of mobile phone apps such as Aurasma. This handy software exploits the camera feature of your smartphone to superimpose images onto the everyday world of objects as seen on your mobile screen. So with the camera active, I move my iPhone around the living…More
Chasing the line
I’ve just been reading anthropologist Tim Ingold’s book Lines: A Brief History (Routledge, 2007), and squaring it with my recent experience as a traveller on the Sousse to Tozeur Oasis rail line at the northern edge of the Sahara Desert. I’m reading the text as an e-book via the Kindle app on an iPhone. On the one hand the journey…More