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…

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