The "Seen but Unnoticed" Vocabulary of Natural Touch: Revolutionizing Direct Interaction with Our Devices and One Another (UIST 2021 Vision)

This UIST Vision argues that "touch" input and interaction remains in its infancy when viewed in context of the seen but unnoticed vocabulary of natural human behaviors, activity, and environments that surround direct interaction with displays. Unlike status-quo touch interaction -- a shadowplay of fingers on a single screen -- I argue that our perspective of direct interaction should encompass the full rich context of individual use (whether via touch, sensors, or in combination with other modalities), as well as collaborative activity where people are engaged in local (co-located), remote (tele-present), and hybrid work. We can further view touch through the lens of the "Society of Devices," where each person's activities span many complementary, oft-distinct devices that offer the right task affordance (input modality, screen size, aspect ratio, or simply a distinct surface with dedicated purpose) at the right place and time. While many hints of this vision already exist (see references), I speculate that a comprehensive program of research to systematically inventory, sense, and design interactions around such human behaviors and activities -- and that fully embrace touch as a multi-modal, multi-sensor, multi-user, and multi-device construct -- could revolutionize both individual and collaborative interaction with technology.Comment: 5 pages. Non-archival UIST Vision paper accepted and presented at the 34th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST 2021) by Ken Hinckley. This is the definitive "published" version as the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) does not archive UIST Vision paper

Human experience in the natural and built environment : implications for research policy and practice

22nd IAPS conference. Edited book of abstracts. 427 pp. University of Strathclyde, Sheffield and West of Scotland Publication. ISBN: 978-0-94-764988-3

Baroque cities? The concept of scale in global urban centres, with particular reference to the Xin-Yi Planning District of Taipei

One prominent consequence of globalization has been rapid urbanization and the formation of extremely large cities. In East Asia, such cities are not only large, but have blurred edge conditions and are increasingly difficult to distinguish from their once rural hinterlands, are usually fragmented in form, and simultaneously juxtapose different scales of physical things such as buildings and infrastructures, and economic and social networks that thread through them. The aim of this thesis is to explore these kinds of globalized cities in East Asia, and focuses on the city of Taipei in particular. The thesis identifies a set of conceptual and methodological limitations in conventional approaches to studying these contemporary urban conditions of such cities. The thesis argues that new ways of thinking through the concept of scale is essential to properly understanding the large, globalized cities of East Asia. The thesis works through the issue of multiple and co-present scales. It suggests that different kinds of ‘bigness’ and ‘smallness’ coexist, and that this coexistence is central to the experience of such cities. With a special focus on the city of Taipei, Taiwan’s largest city, the thesis indicates that cities that appear to be merely ‘big’ urban formations disguise many overlooked global ‘middling’ (Sassen, 2007a) and ‘small’ conditions that emerge from their struggle with their post-war urban reconstruction and the emergence of globally networked urban logics. The conditions of Taipei register the contextual specificity to the importance of thinking in a multi-scalar way. The theoretical framework of the thesis is grounded in re-examining the idea of scale within the particular fields of architecture, geography and urban studies. The concept of a hierarchically-nested scale has been a dominant approach to scalar conceptualization in these fields for a number of decades. However, the thesis argues that this linear approach has been weakened by its limited abilities to respond to the more complex and multiscalar processes that crucially inform the big urban formations in the context of globalization. Drawing from the critiques of The Fold (Deleuze, 1993; Wölfflin, 1986) and the concept of ‘flatness’ (Latour, 2005; Law, 2004; Marston, 2005), as well as critical work on place significance (Sassen, 2007a), the thesis proposes a ‘Baroque’ alternative to these conventional theorizations of urban scale. In order to offer an enabling approach to cities such as Taipei, the thesis argues this ‘Baroque’, used here in a quite specific sense, as a way of appreciating the multi-scalar nature of such cities, and as a means of developing a methodology by which to better appreciate and understand them. The thesis develops this ‘Baroque’-inspired methodology by examining five socio-spatial practices at different scales which have been selected to represent multi-scalar characteristics in the Xin-Yi planning district of central Taipei which is formed by a globally networked urban logic. The thesis concludes by proposing the idea of the ‘Baroque City’ as a more suggestive, multi-dimensional approach to capturing the richness of the contemporary urban scale of cities. It is intended that this will not only support investigations of East Asian cities, but also enhance architectural engagements with such dynamically complex and multi-scalar conditions of global urban centres

Disparities of poverty and wealth in the Philippines. An analysis of policy effect(iveness)

In contemporary times of globalisation the manifestations of disparities of poverty and wealth and the design and implementation of policy responses become ever more complex and challenging. It is the conventional task of the (national) government to promote socio-economic security and equality by reaching out to the peripheral regions, marginalised people, and most problematic issues of disparities of poverty and wealth. This Ph.D. thesis argues that governmental policy outreach and effect(iveness) are increasingly determined by whether and how policy-making considers and integrates liberalised market forces, societal stakeholders, and national and decentralised local governments. In the Philippines disparities of poverty and wealth particularly disadvantage rural, agricultural peripheries that show a high concentration of Muslim and indigenous minorities, and at local scales, of tenants and landless workers. Governmental policy-making (re)produces these disparities through spatial and sectoral biases on market growth and global integration for the most profitable yet volatile urban coastal centres of industries and services. Moreover, endogenous institutions of "traditional Philippine political culture" render policy-making ineffective as a means for a sustainable, locally-embedded, and -empowered form of development. The political elite is more interested in (corruptive) self-enrichment practices than long-term objectives of redistribution. Socio-cultural patronage relations towards them constrain participation of and partnership with local populations and non-governmental organisations in policy-making. In lieu of cooperating, stakeholders operate mutually exclusive or compete with each other, causing an institutional overload and chaos in the most profitable policy sites, while others are entirely neglected. Altogether, the interactions between spatial, sectoral disparities, social inequalities, and policy-making biases have triggered of persistent armed conflicts over "redistributive and recognitive justice" in the developmental peripheries. The conflicts work to exacerbate the developmental gap between centres and peripheries, weaken Filipinos' national cohesion in favour of regional and local identities, and threaten the legitimacy of government. Hence, this thesis depicts how imbalanced negotiations between state and globalised market on the one hand and a persistent endogenous political culture in policy-making on the other can work to continually (re)produce manifestations of disparities of poverty and wealth to eventually undermine government and nation-state

“From the Café We Went to War”: Political Manoeuvring and Protest in Pristina's Public Spaces

I discuss how agents utilise rhetoric to alter their ties with other agents within social spaces from field research conducted in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, from June 2014 to July 2015. First, I flesh out the theoretical and methodological framework for the rest of the dissertation. The theoretical framework is based on a view of hegemony influenced by Green and Laclau, where hegemony is a process through which agents draw on rhetoric to alter their relationships. I appropriate a methodology combining ethnography with systematic Social Network Analysis (SNA) and cultural domain analysis in order to provide a complementary account of networks, agents and spaces in Pristina. Second, I review the anthropological work on rhetoric, considering rhetoric as a tool used by agents to alter their social relations which draws on discourses. Third, I explore how agents in Pristina conceptualise space through interpreting perspectives from ethnographic interviews and data from a pile sort exercise, showing that spaces shape how agents act through being discursive settings. Fourth, I delve into the concepts of nder (“honour”) and turp (“shame”) through interviews and the analysis of a free list, showing how the concepts play out in Pristina and their links with each other, including related concepts. Fifth, I explore, through a SNA, how agents organise networks of relationships and illustrate how agents make use of rhetoric drawing on cultural concepts such as nder and besa in the course of their activities. Sixth, I explore how people in Pristina conceptualise their identities and show that Albanian national identity has been constructed as a discursive formation linking agents together. I conclude that agents utilise rhetoric to alter their ties with other agents in social spaces by drawing on discourses, thereby shaping discourses, changing the agents' networks and resulting in the emergence of new circumstances

Visualisation Method Toolkit: a shared vocabulary to face complexity

With companies, universities, individuals or entire departments, promoting open dialogue, constant interdisciplinary collaboration is a challenge that still meets some resistance. Learning to deal with complexity, with the coexistence of different points of view, learning to work in more heterogeneous teams, in relation to know-how combined in new, sometimes original and challenging formulations, brings particular needs. From the importance of language and a shared vocabulary to the ever-increasing need to work on tools and not just applications, from the constant promotion of collaboration and contamination between different backgrounds and disciplines to the guarantee of a continuous training process through laboratory activities and workshop, this contribution - through the Visualisation Method Toolkit project and its experimentation - investigates the potential of data visualization as a medium to bring design closer to a company's core business as well as support students, institutions and other organizations in communication, both in the analysis and/or scenario phase and in support of dissemination actions towards a more informed quanti/qualitative collective decision making with the aim of enabling new innovative and sustainable good practices

The Application of Reflectance Spectroscopy to Chert Provenance of Mississippian Symbolic Weaponry

Determination of the source of chert artifacts ties past peoples to specific locations on the landscape either through direct or indirect procurement strategies allowing researchers to visualize interactions with both resources and people. However, due to inherent variability accurate provenance data often remains elusive. The reliance upon chert provenance data obtained through macroscopic techniques is problematic and emphasizes the importance of continued research and development of analytical methods whose aim is the objective characterization of source for archaeological materials manufactured from chert. The following thesis is organized around three primary objectives. The first objective is the investigation of the non-destructive provenance application of two reflectance spectroscopy techniques (VNIR, FTIR) in differentiating Dover and Fort Payne chert. The second objective is to test the ‘single-source theory’ which stipulates that the chert used to manufacture Mississippian sword-form bifaces was solely acquired from deposits of Lower St. Louis “Dover” chert located near the town of Dover, Tennessee. The final objective is to place the sword provenance data into a cultural framework in order to explain the function of the swords within Middle Mississippi Stage polities. The ‘single source’ theory has implications for the socio-economic and political reconstruction of Mississippian polities. The presence of ‘Dover’ chert swords in Mississippian contexts from Oklahoma to Georgia implies long distance procurement, acquisition via exchange networks or political alliances. However, the outcropping of visually similar Fort Payne chert over much of the Southeastern and portions of the Mid-western United States makes the single source hypothesis uncertain. The results highlight the significant application of reflectance spectroscopy techniques within chert provenance studies. Provenance data for the sample of Mississippian sword-form bifaces refutes the single source theory by showing that variation in resource selection decisions existed. Ethnographic and iconography data clarifies the role that the sword-form bifaces had in Mississippian societies. The provenance data supports the conclusion that the ‘exoticness’ of the material was not an important component in the symbolic cultural meaning of the sword-form bifaces. The results contribute to a growing body of research focusing on the acquisition and use of exotic goods in Mississippian polities

The 'Orient' in the 'Occident' : the social, cultural and spatial dynamics of Moroccan diaspora formations in Granada, Spain

PhD ThesisContributing to research on geographies of diasporas and migration, this thesis examines how the Moroccan diaspora in the city of Granada, Spain, has transformed urban space, and conversely, how the spatiality of Granada engenders distinctive diasporic identity formations, senses of belonging and spatial practices. Using the geographical insight that diasporas alter and are altered by the places they inhabit and that identities and belongings are often spatialised and spatially contingent, the research examines how these processes function for the Moroccan diaspora living in Granada. Granada’s mixed Christian and Islamic heritage, its relatively recent transformation from an ethnically homogenous space into a diaspora space, and the close proximity of the Maghreb and Africa, all herald Granada as a rich arena to explore social, cultural and spatial processes of diasporas and migration. Conceptually, the research is positioned within urban geographies of diasporas. The centrality of the urban spatial scale in diaspora formations and experiences, rather than the national, is demonstrated and examined. The thesis focuses on four concepts that are at the core of geographies of diasporas: space, belonging, home and identity. Drawing on eight months of ethnographic fieldwork, the thesis provides an empirical analysis that is grounded in the everyday and intimate spaces of the Moroccan diaspora. As such it responds to calls for grounded studies on diasporas that take locations and their contexts seriously. Overall, the thesis underlines the fundamental centrality of place for diaspora formations, and argues that the experiences and perceptions of the Moroccan diaspora in Granada provide distinctive narratives of European urban diversity