Erotic Aspects of Everyday Life as a Challenge for Ubiquitous Computing

In this paper we discuss how interactive technology disables or enables erotic aspects of everyday life, and we discuss a number of design concepts in order to relate erotic aspects to the issue of visibility versus invisibility in ambient computing. This discussion has general relevance for the study of residual categories in ubiquitous computing

'What is puberty, then?' Smartphones and Tumblr images as de/re-territorialisations in an upper secondary school classroom

In this paper, we explore the part mobile phone use plays in the capitalist assemblages present in school classrooms. Capitalism is approached through the continuous movement of de- and re-territorialisation. The empirical grounding is a wide study on mobile phone use conducted at an upper secondary school in Finland. The focus of this paper is one psychology lesson on puberty and the ways in which territories such as puberty are challenged in the school life of young people through their mobile phone use in class. Analysing a student’s Tumblr photo stream, we show how smartphones challenge the existing territorialities in a classroom. We locate three central deterritorialising movements: in relation to the physical space of the classroom; to the affective space of the classroom; and to the notion of body in puberty. We conclude that mobile phone use matters to students intimately and channels flows of capitalism at school.Peer reviewe

Discourse and Digital Practices

Discourse and Digital Practices shows how tools from discourse analysis can be used to help us understand new communication practices associated with digital media, from video gaming and social networking to apps and photo sharing. This cutting-edge book: draws together fourteen eminent scholars in the field including James Paul Gee, David Barton, Ilana Snyder, Phil Benson, Victoria Carrington, Guy Merchant, Camilla Vasquez, Neil Selwyn and Rodney Jones answers the central question: "How does discourse analysis enable us to understand digital practices?" addresses a different type of digital media in each chapter demonstrates how digital practices and the associated new technologies challenge discourse analysts to adapt traditional analytic tools and formulate new theories and methodologies examines digital practices from a wide variety of approaches including textual analysis, conversation analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, multimodal discourse analysis, object ethnography, geosemiotics, and critical discourse analysis. Discourse and Digital Practices will be of interest to advanced students studying courses on digital literacies or language and digital practices

Touching virtual humans: Haptic responses reveal the emotional impact of affective agents

Interpersonal touch is critical for social-emotional development and presents a powerful modality for communicating emotions. Virtual agents of the future could capitalize on touch to establish social bonds with humans and facilitate cooperation in virtual reality (VR). We studied whether the emotional expression of a virtual agent would affect the way humans touch the agent. Participants were asked to hold a pressure-sensing tube presented as the agent's arm in VR. Upon seeing the agent's emotional expression change, participants briefly squeezed the arm. The effect of emotional expressions on affective state was measured using self-reported valence and arousal as well as physiology-based indices. Onset, duration, and intensity of the squeeze were recorded to examine the haptic responses. Emotional expression of agents affected squeeze intensity and duration through changes in emotional perception and experience. Haptic responses may thus provide an implicit measure of persons' experience towards their virtual companion.Peer reviewe

Discourse and Digital Practices

Discourse and Digital Practices shows how tools from discourse analysis can be used to help us understand new communication practices associated with digital media, from video gaming and social networking to apps and photo sharing. This cutting-edge book: draws together fourteen eminent scholars in the field including James Paul Gee, David Barton, Ilana Snyder, Phil Benson, Victoria Carrington, Guy Merchant, Camilla Vasquez, Neil Selwyn and Rodney Jones answers the central question: "How does discourse analysis enable us to understand digital practices?" addresses a different type of digital media in each chapter demonstrates how digital practices and the associated new technologies challenge discourse analysts to adapt traditional analytic tools and formulate new theories and methodologies examines digital practices from a wide variety of approaches including textual analysis, conversation analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, multimodal discourse analysis, object ethnography, geosemiotics, and critical discourse analysis. Discourse and Digital Practices will be of interest to advanced students studying courses on digital literacies or language and digital practices

Digital Gaming and the Advertising Landscape

The evolution of the game industry and changes in the advertising landscape in recent years have led to a keen interest of marketers in using digital games for advertising purposes. However, despite the increasing interest in this marketing strategy, the potential of digital games as a medium to convey advertising messages remains unexploited.*Digital Gaming and the Advertising Landscape* explores the different ways advertising messages can be embedded within digital games. An interdisciplinary approach is used to help explain how persuasive communication works within digital games. It does so by forging new links within the area of game studies where the emphasis of this book clearly lies, while also taking up new subjects such as design theories and their relation to games as well as how this relationship may be used in a practical context

ARTIFICIAL AGENTS MODELING FOR INTIMATE TELEPRESENCE

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

Theatre, Performance and Digital Tools: Modelling New Modes of Political Engagement

This dissertation investigates how theatre and performance artists use new media tools to facilitate political engagement. The chapters cover a diverse range of performancesfrom interventions in video games to mobile phone walking tours to theatre productions that use social media. In contrast to the dominant narrative of intermedial theatre and performance studies, when analyzing these examples I consider intermediality as a political rather than solely aesthetic mode. By explicitly connecting intermedial approaches to political performanceand acknowledging how these two concepts are already always conjoinedthis dissertation works to expand how we might think about intermediality as a lens that covers digital practices as both form and content. I also consider the value, challenges and dangers of asking spectators to interact with performers and digital tools in order to model new modes of political engagement, and question how various artistic choices impact the ways that audiences are activated through these new technologies. As the examples range in form, content and location, this dissertation traverses numerous intermedial modes and political topicsa multitude of approaches that challenge any singular or simple understanding of how intermediality functions in contemporary theatre and performance. Although there is wariness about overstating the role of new media in creating concrete political change, examples such as the Occupy movement reveal how political discourse is now intricately linked to the digital. In this dissertation, rather than simply reinforcing cyberutopian or cyberpessismistic views regarding the political impact of digital communication, I investigate socio-political contexts and analyze the motivations and receptions of specific projects. I consider a number of questions, including: How are new media performances influenced by the potentially democratizing nature of digital interactions? How do performances integrate with digital media to investigate the ways we connector fail to connectas publics? How does performance also address exclusions related to the digital? Who is the we in the intersubjective relations produced by intermedial performance