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FCJ-135 Feral Computing: From Ubiquitous Calculation to Wild Interactions
Matthew Fuller and Sónia Matos Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London [Abstract] Introduction In ‘The Coming Age of Calm Technology’, Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown are clear in their assertions. What really ‘matters’ about technology is not technology in itself but rather its capacity to continuously recreate our relationship with the world at large (Brown and Weiser, 1996). Even though they promote such an idea under the banner of ‘calm technology’, what is central to their thesis is the mutational capacities brought into the world by the spillage of computation out from its customary boxes. What their work tends to occlude is that in setting the sinking of technology almost imperceptibly, but deeply into the ‘everyday’ as a target for ubiquitous computing, other possibilities are masked, for instance those of the greater hackability or interrogability of such technologies. Our contention is that making ubicomp seamless (MacColl et…
FCJ-134 Reflections on the Philosophy of Pervasive Gaming—With Special Emphasis on Rules, Gameplay, and Virtuality
Bo Kampmann Walther Centre for Media Studies, University of Southern Denmark [Abstract] Introduction Presently there are a number of gameplay definitions, ranging from Sid Meier’s famous assertion of ‘interesting choices’ to Richard Rouse’s concept in which the vibrant iterations of user input and machine output is the decisive factor (Rouse, 2005). Further, ‘gameplay’ seems to drift indefinably between psychological categories, as in the emphasis on the concept of ‘flow’, and more formal conceptualisations often derived from computer science. However, the discussion of how the realm of pervasive games necessitates both playing and gaming, play-mode and game-mode, seems to oblige a slightly different gameplay terminology. One level of gameplay is the actualisation of a specific stratification of rules, strategies, and interactions as well as the realisation of a certain amalgamation of commands, plans, and paths. A second level, which is equally or even more important since it explains the inherent fascination…
FCJ-132 Towards a Performative Aesthetics of Interactivity
Simon Penny University of California, Irvine [Abstract] Introduction As I write this, at the end of 2010, it is sobering to reflect on the fact that over a couple of decades of explosive development in new media art (or ‘digital multimedia’ as it used to be called), in screen based as well as ‘embodied’ and gesture based interaction, the aesthetics of interaction doesn’t seem to have advanced much. At the same time, interaction schemes and dynamics which were once only known in obscure corners of the world of media art research/creation have found their way into commodities from 3D TV and game platforms (Wii, Kinect) to sophisticated phones (iPhone, Android). While increasingly sophisticated theoretical analyses (from Manovich, 2002 to Chun, 2008 to Hansen, 2006, more recently Stern, 2011 and others) have brought diverse perspectives to bear, I am troubled by the fact that we appear to have advanced little in…
FCJ-131 Pervasive Computing and Prosopopoietic Modelling – Notes on computed function and creative action
Anders Michelsen Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen [Abstract] Introduction This article treats the philosophical underpinnings of the notions of ubiquity and pervasive computing from a historical perspective. The current focus on these notions reflects the ever increasing impact of new media and the underlying complexity of computed function in the broad sense of ICT that have spread vertiginiously since Mark Weiser coined the term ‘pervasive’, e.g., digitalised sensoring, monitoring, effectuation, intelligence, and display. Whereas Weiser’s original perspective may seem fulfilled since computing is everywhere, in his and Seely Brown’s (1997) terms, ‘invisible’, on the horizon, ’calm’, it also points to a much more important and slightly different perspective: that of creative action upon novel forms of artifice. Most importantly for this article, ubiquity and pervasive computing is seen to point to the continuous existence throughout the computational heritage since the mid-20th century of a paradoxical distinction/complicity…
FCJ-133 The Scripted Spaces of Urban Ubiquitous Computing: The experience, poetics, and politics of public scripted space
Christian Ulrik Andersen & Søren Pold Center for Digital Urban Living, Digital Aesthetics Research Center, Aarhus University [Abstract] The computer is moving out into physical and urban reality. Since Mark Weiser’s call for a ‘computer for the 21st century’ in 1991 a migration from the screen and the desktop towards integrating computers and networks into our surroundings has been a part of contemporary computer science research; for example, in augmented reality, ubiquitous computing (ubicomp), and pervasive computing. A number of technological developments (such as big screens, new smart materials, GPS, RFID tags, and ever faster and cheaper wireless networks) have helped carry the research agendas out into ordinary reality. This article will discuss how we experience the urban space of ubicomp. It will do so by introducing the concept of ‘scripted space’ in order to discuss how ubicomp is related to new developments in public urban space. Focusing on the…
FCJ-130 Embedding response: self production as a model for an actuated architecture
Mette Ramsgard Thomsen and Karin Bech CITA Centre for Information Technology and Architecture, Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen Introduction Ubiquitous computing positions a world where computation is embedded into our surrounding environment. Rather than retrieving information and communication from distinct devices (PCs) removed from contexts and activities, ubiquitous computing proposes that the mediated can become an integral part of our environment, seamlessly implanted, much in the way that text-based communications are incorporated now (Weiser, 1991). As such, ubiquitous computing places us in a world where material reality merges with computational reality, and where the built environment holds a strata for computation, a readiness towards the digital and the mediated. This paper asks what the architectural consequences of ubiquitous computing can be. Architecture is concerned with the designing and making of spatial contexts. The central objective of architectural design practice is to define spatial ambitions and ally these with the…
FCJ-129 Ubiquity Editorial (Cont.) – Interaction Designs for Ubicomp Cultures
Ulrik Ekman Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen [Abstract] I. Ubicomp Cultures: Hyperbolic Vision, Factual Developments This is a journal issue invested in remarking more than once upon the undecidability hovering today around our getting into contact with ‘ubiquity’ or ‘pervasiveness’ as a potential to be further actualized in the fields of human-computer interaction (HCI), interaction design, and the cultural life worlds of information societies more generally. It could well be that you have not yet heard of ubiquitous or pervasive computing, or that you have heard of these but still remain in doubt whether there actually is or will be such a thing, in interaction designs or elsewhere. It could also very well be the case, however, that you both know a great deal about this as a rather momentous shift, qua a third wave in computing and associated disciplines, and find yourself engaging with it…
FCJ-128 A Programmable Platform? Drupal, Modularity, and the Future of the Web
Fenwick McKelvey. York / Ryerson Universities, Toronto I found Drupal in the summer heat of the riverside town of Rosario, Argentina during an internship with a women’s rights organisation in the city. The Canadian government funded me to help the organisation with their information technology, part of a program to promote Canada’s reputation as a leader in technology sector. Cynical of my government’s motives, but committed to the politics of free or open source software (FOSS), I helped the administrator migrate from proprietary software to free software alternatives. Their website relied on an aging copy of Macromedia Dreamweaver, a foreign application for most of the staff. I wanted in Rosario to create the ideal website for the NGO, but I did not have the ability to program such customised software. After some extensive searching, I happened upon the Drupal content management system (CMS) as a replacement. Drupal describes itself as…
FCJ-127 Concrete Software: Simondon’s mechanology and the techno-social
Simon Mills. De Montfort University, Leicester. [Abstract] In this article I will discuss the philosophy of technology developed by Gilbert Simondon, predominantly in his 1958 book The Mode of Existence of Technical Objects, with a particular concentration on his concepts of associated milieu and concretization. The article provides an introduction to Simondon’s theory of technological genesis and indicates the problematic nature of the cultural for Simondon’s account. This is made apparent by contemporary developments in techno-social networks. However, I will also argue that this insufficiency is not insurmountable given Simondon’s overall ontology. Instead, it is a result of his own bias regarding technological development at the time when he was writing. In the latter part of the paper I will attempt to demonstrate how this insufficiency can be overcome and Simondon’s theory can be fruitfully applied to the theorization of contemporary social media and software. Additionally, I hope this paper…
FCJ-126 The Becoming Environmental of Power: Tactical Media After Control
Michael Dieter Media Studies, The University of Amsterdam. [Abstract] There is a last enterprise that might be undertaken. It would be to seek experience at its source, or rather, above that decisive turn where, taking a bias in the direction of our utility, it becomes properly human experience. (Bergson, 1991: 184) Tactical media (TM) was originally conceived during a period of widespread media diversification, enabled most dramatically through digital and networked technologies (Garcia and Lovink, 1997). In the original account, ‘tactics’ was used with reference to Michel de Certeau as an explanation for the material diversification and experimentation with media that could challenge and compete with forms of centralised mass concentration. In this respect, while TM was informed by the rise of the Web and a nascent participatory culture, in many ways the concept was still expressed in opposition to older hierarchical formations of congealed hierarchical power (The State, Mass…
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