Reflections on Technology, Media & Culture
mobility
A word in your ear: Podcasting for introverts
Who would deny that a whisper excites the senses. People are accustomed to music listening via headsets. The speaking voice at intimate proximity surpasses even musical affect. In any case, the voice is immediate, close, of the moment, embodied, and active. Sounds envelop, as if clouds, with the voice, or certain voices, breaking like a … Continue reading
Cover up
The cover is out. The book follows in January 2016. The cover indicates the starting point of the book, which is travel. What we do with our mobile devices reproduces what by now are common, ubiquitous, and habitual practices. To immerse yourself in sound and screen-based digital devices makes the journey go faster, provides opportunities to catch … Continue reading
Copy edits
No matter how careful you are in following style guides, there’s still a job of work in correcting bibliographies. Here’s a page after the copy editor and I have had a go at it. Back in the 1990s the author would receive paper copy bristling with little plastic tags and hand written notes. Now it’s … Continue reading
You are now free to move about the cabin
People become restless when restrained by regulation or command. In my search for the relationships between mood and mobility I’m led inevitably to how people’s moods change when they are corralled, constrained, and set free (if they are) — and how moods linger in the traces, memories and stories of such experiences. Restrictions on movement are among the first … Continue reading
A step up
My office looks out to the original front entrance of the National Museum of Scotland. The restoration of the entry steps is now complete. The architects for the renovation of the museum provided an access-friendly entrance at street level. Once protected inside the basement of the building you ascend by elevator or escalator to the impressive gallery levels above. … Continue reading
Unlocking nature’s secrets
Smartphones and other digital devices are fine for the workplace, but promote stress, especially when you’re tying to socialise, relax, and recuperate ready for the next challenge. So leave your smartphone at home (or in the office) when you go for a relaxing stroll. The only academic study I’ve found to date that supports this warning is a circumspective 2012 press … Continue reading
The benefits of walking
“Walking cuts risk of stroke in men.” Scarcely a day passes without official confirmation of the health benefits of walking. ‘Why does one walk?’ we say; ‘that one may be healthy’; and in speaking thus we think we have given the cause. This is a direct quote from Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book 5, Section 2. Interestingly, he … Continue reading
Freeways in the sky
I’ve just visited the Keppel Bay residential estate by Studio Libeskind, a luxury apartment development in Singapore — through barbed wire. I’ve also been reading Peter Adey’s very helpful book, Mobilities. The Keppel Bay development puts me in mind of some of the key themes of the book, which summarises how geographers and sociologists think about … Continue reading
As the mood takes you
Studio Libeskind designed the Westside shopping and Leisure Centre in Bern, Switzerland. It opened in 2008. I’ve not been there yet. It’s difficult to comment with any authority on a building, monument, landscape, or place without going there. Everyone knows that travel is part of the architectural experience, and architectural connoisseurs of all tastes and aptitudes … Continue reading
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