NMS2014

In Bruce Sterling's excerpts from Shaping things, I kind of felt like he didn't spend enough time talking about privacy or security in a world of things that are always on and connected. So after searching "spimes" with keywords like "security", I found this article on an online magazine called "Government Technology" (of course). But the article did bring up some valid points about security regarding the "internet of things". My only question is how do we maintain privacy in a secure world of the "internet of things. Is it possible to have both? The idea of spumes is exciting and there is no denying the positive potential, but what do we have to sacrifice for convenience? Lohrmann, Dan. "Can We Secure the Internet of Things?" Government Technology. February 25, 2014 http://www.govtech.com/security/Can-We-Secure-the-Internet-of-Things.html

One example of how objects are slowly turning into spimes, is the addition of RFID into products that consumers use on a daily basis. Baltimore is one of a few cities that have begun distributing trashcans to businesses and individual house holds that contain the id chips. It is the hope that they will be able to collect information that will assess the usage of the cans by the customer, as well as other factors that are useful for creating a positive trash-collecting experience both for the company and the customer. Mark Reutter, Mark. "Inside City Hall: Are you ready for "smart" garbage cans?" Baltimore Brew, November 21, 2013

In Shaping Things, Bruce Sterling identifies RFID or "arphids" as key technological development that enables his imagined objects, "spimes," to function. This video, "Zapped!," by Preemptive Media, provides an easy to understand history of RFID tags, how they're used, for better and worse. The video concludes with the group's own tactical interventions using RFID equipped insects. My main impetus to post it here is to help illuminate the technology and, in doing so, make Sterling's Spimes concept more tangible. "Zapped! by Preemptive Media. Posted April 30, 2008 by Heidi Kumao. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIDClPlKHzE Accessed March 19, 2014

This is a project that could be categorized as design fiction. The artist/architect Mark Shepard explores the possible ways in which the proliferation of 'sentient cities', urban environments equipped with many, many networked sensing devices, might jeopardize privacy and increase unsolicited data collection. He does this using the affordances of fiction, designing and building functional prototypes for an imagined 'near-future' context. This sort of 'critical making' is a strong supplement to traditional modes of scholarship which Shepard also pursues. Mark Shepard "Sentient City Survival Kit" 2010 http://www.survival.sentientcity.net/info.html Accessed January 25, 2014

Titanpad is one of several free online collaborative text editors. Great for real-time or asynchronous writing but particularly useful for editing a block of text within a group setting. This may be a useful tool for collaboratively editing design fictions. You can't save in a typical word-processing fashion, but there's a 'time slider', and you can export to various document types. These type of web-based applications are a bit unstable, so export often! Titanpad. http://titanpad.com/ Accessed March 14, 2014

This story covers the "human power movement." These ideas were created as a push back against the convenience of many technical advancements. Although convenience and efficiency are generally good things, some believe that it makes the body (the fleshy human one) become weak and soft. The story highlights different bizarre ways folks are approaching this design problem. Sharpe, Jennifer. "Rejecting Tech, Some Opting For Human Power." NPR.com, September 7, 2009. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112622695

An interesting TED talk by Neil Harbisson, a man who is completely color-blind. He built himself a device with a camera which reads color, and translates the colors into different frequencies. He considers the device to be an extension of his brain, part of his cyborg self. Eventually he was able to train his brain to hear more colors than normal human beings can even "see," and in essence is able to tell more about his surroundings than a normal person. http://www.ted.com/talks/neil_harbisson_i_listen_to_color Harbisson, Neil. "I Listen to Color." Ted.com, video. Filmed June 2012, accessed March 2014. http://www.ted.com/talks/neil_harbisson_i_listen_to_color

This is an NPR discussion about the effects that the internet has on us that I thought related to the Wesch article we read.

Regina Lynn's commentary Virtual Rape Is Traumatic, but Is It a Crime? discusses the concept of cyber rape, and the position it currently holds in our culture. Lynn discusses the serious nature of cyber rape and address the psychological trauma involved; but she questions if it should be considered a crime in the real world. Lynn states that while traumatic, cyber rape is not to be equated with real life physical rape. I selected this article because while I do not necessarily agree with Lynn on the subject, I thought it was interesting to read an article from a viewpoint that is oppositional to the majority idea that cyber rape is a crime in it's own right.

Found this Wired magazine article on cyber rape that i thought would be relevant to the conversation on the Mr. Bungle reading

On October 24, 2013 Julian Bleecker, James Bridle, Nick Foster, Cliff Kuang and Scott Patterson participated in a round table discussion during Near Future Laboratory's event, "Design & Fiction". In this link, there is the full video of their discussion (lasting about and hour and a half) as well as a synopsis and several key points from the discussion put together by the host site, core77.com. Each participant in the discussion brings up really interesting ideas and it is nice to have the option to watch or listen to the discussion in full, or just get a brief overview through the written synopsis. Ray, . "Near Future Laboratory Presents Design & Fiction (A Near-Past Event Recap)." Core77 (blog), February 21, 2014. http://www.core77.com/blog/strategy_research/near_future_laboratory_presents_design_fiction_a_near-past_event_recap_26484.asp (accessed March 12, 2014).

Thanks! This is indeed a great resource, concise and legible overview of core concepts from some of the key figures involved with this mode of design. The section with James Bridle provides strong echoes and parallels with Sterling's concept of "Spimes," too!

Write or Die is a browser based application that encourages the user to set goals when writing and achieve them, or else. The interface is relatively simple: the user defines how long they would like to write, the speed at which they intend to write, and the consequences for maintaining or dropping below these parameters. There are three basic modes: Reward, Stimulus, and Consequence. Reward mode displays positive reinforcement for completing your goals by displaying photos you happen to like in whatever frequency you think would best suit your Pavlovian response. Stimulus mode supplies nice, calming backgrounds and sounds as you maintain your words per minute, but if you drop below, they disappear. You can also include your own music, if you want the extra motivation to keep it playing. Finally, there is consequence mode. This mode punishes the user for dropping below quota by turning the screen bright, angry colors, emitting a horrible, grating tone, and finally slowly dissolving the vowels in your completed text. This mode isn't for the faint of heart. Supply your own corporal punishment! Good art hurts!

That sounds really terrifying and awesome. What would be difficult would be determining the sweet spot between pressure to work and a mental breakdown.

Tailorized Taylorism!

Scenario planner, strategist and policy advisor Dr. Noah Radford gives us an excerpt from his book, "The Future of Futures", which explores the role of design fiction, it's future and several great examples of design fiction. You can read the second chapter of his book, download a PDF of it, buy the ebook for about $10 and there is also a link at the bottom of the page to read a synopsis of his entire book. There are also links to other, related articles at the bottom of the page. The examples of design fiction that he uses are really interesting. For example, he talks about the short film, "Fly Me to the Moon", which deals with the ideas of electronic payment and the way we will interact with money in the future. Noah , Radford. "Fiction to Experiential Futures." Noah Radford (blog), September 12, 2012. http://noahraford.com/?p=1625 (accessed March 12, 2014).

Tim Berners Lee answers questions from all comers on topics ranging from surveillance to kittens.

Wired article debunking Amazon's Prime Air marketing ploy. Behind the seamless and seductively realistic design fiction video, numerous questions from fuel costs to air traffic congestion, unidentifed flying accidents, airspace regulation and so on hover on the periphery of this otherwise alluring prospect. Include a link to the actual video from Amazon. Watch it again after contemplating the externalities, or hidden costs, of such a seemingly seamless operation. It's little wonder what such high definition, cinematic realism affords Amazon. An intensification of scrutiny is needed from the viewer, a critical media viewing, to short-circuit blind faith in the realities promised in such depictions of the future Marcus Wohlsen. "Even if the Feds Let Them Fly, Amazon's Delivery Drones Are Still Nonsense" Wired: Business. Posted December 2, 2013. Accessed March 8, 2014. http://www.wired.com/business/2013/12/amazon-drone/

A micro-manifesto from Dunne&Raby, addressing historical predecessors to Critical Design, similar lines of inquiry, uses and abuses of this way of approaching design, too. Much of this FAQ text seems to have been elaborated on in their recent book, Speculative Everything. This is a fairly quick read that provides a fairly concise summary of the use of "speculative design proposals to challenge narrow assumptions, preconceptions and givens about the role products play in everyday life." (Dunne&Raby) Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby. Critical Design FAQs. Published 2011. Accessed March 7, 2014. www.dunneandraby.co.uk/content/bydandr/13/0

Bruce Sterling providing a summary of Design Fiction. What it's about, some key figures who have developed the practice and examples of works that fall into this mode of design. Spends time discussing the background theories of 'diegetic prototypes' and drawing parallels with corporate 'vaporware' and military R+D promos. A short introduction to Design Fiction, a starting point. I'd recommend coupling this one with more in-depth articles and examples to build a thorough understanding. Bruce Sterling. "Patently untrue: fleshy defibrillators and synchronised baseball are changing the future" Wired UK: Culture. Posted October 11, 2013. Accessed March 8, 2014. http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2013/10/play/patently-untrue

Design Fiction by Portland based designer Laura Allcorn. Here, as part of an exhibit called Human+, she explains her Human Pollination Project, a miniature tool set constructed to facilitate pollination tasks in anticipation of colony collapse of honey bees. The combination of meticulous craft, background research and an implied preposterous scale of the task in question position this work in the realm of critical design, opening up new questions alongside possible answers. Laura Allcorn. Human Pollination Project. Human+, Science Gallery Published April 2011. Accessed March 8, 2014 https://dublin.sciencegallery.com/humanplus/human-pollination-project/

Nick Foster (aka Fosta) explains his interest in exploring the banal everyday of future worlds, rather than the gee-whiz spaceship /laser gun tropes of sci-fi cinema. He elaborates on three characteristics: Background Talent (what do the paperclips, gardenhoses and tape dispensers look like in the future?), Accretive Space (technologies persist, new are mixed with old) and Partly Broken ( for every new gadget there is a constellation of spotty service, short battery life, and other 'broken realities'.) Foster also points to several science-fiction movies that make efforts to depict the mundane. Fosta. "The Future Mundane" Core77. Published October 7, 2013. Accessed March 7, 2014. http://www.core77.com/blog/columns/the_future_mundane_25678.asp

Here is the amazingly rich, detailed and resource heavy presentation by designer Tobias Revell. A graduate of the Design Interactions program at RCA, Revell charts a survey of pre-cursors and significant features of Critical Design as well as myriad components of Design Fiction from corporate to speculative futures thinking, including:Diegetic Prototypes, Future Mundane, Agents of Fear, Materials, Synthetics -- each section filled with insight and contextual links! Highly recommended primer! Tobias Revell. Critical Design/Design Fiction Lecture Finally Written Up. (Looooong) Published December 2013. Accessed March 8, 2014. http://blog.tobiasrevell.com/2013/12/critical-design-design-fiction-lecture.html