The Mundane Computer: Non-Technical Design Challenges Facing Ubiquitous Computing and Ambient Intelligence

Interdisciplinary collaboration, to include those who are not natural scientists, engineers and computer scientists, is inherent in the idea of ubiquitous computing, as formulated by Mark Weiser in the late 1980s and early 1990s. However, ubiquitous computing has remained largely a computer science and engineering concept, and its non-technical side remains relatively underdeveloped. The aim of the article is, first, to clarify the kind of interdisciplinary collaboration envisaged by Weiser. Second, the difficulties of understanding the everyday and weaving ubiquitous technologies into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it, as conceived by Weiser, are explored. The contributions of Anne Galloway, Paul Dourish and Philip Agre to creating an understanding of everyday life relevant to the development of ubiquitous computing are discussed, focusing on the notions of performative practice, embodied interaction and contextualisation. Third, it is argued that with the shift to the notion of ambient intelligence, the larger scale socio-economic and socio-political dimensions of context become more explicit, in contrast to the focus on the smaller scale anthropological study of social (mainly workplace) practices inherent in the concept of ubiquitous computing. This can be seen in the adoption of the concept of ambient intelligence within the European Union and in the focus on rebalancing (personal) privacy protection and (state) security in the wake of 11 September 2001. Fourth, the importance of adopting a futures-oriented approach to discussing the issues arising from the notions of ubiquitous computing and ambient intelligence is stressed, while the difficulty of trying to achieve societal foresight is acknowledged

The Museum on the Edge of Forever

This article argues that understanding any space or site relies on a knowledge of its fourth dimension - the timescape. It will explore this by situating the investigation in the museum - a place of heightened contrivance which could easily be shallowly interpreted as "mere style". It will defend a new method of investigating museum temporality which combines both phenomenology and literary theory, and will replace the idea of geo-epistemology with geochronic epistemology: an understanding of context and situation which takes on time as well as spatial location. In so doing, it moves on from notions of the museum as a place out of time, situating it in the networks of meaning, power and politics in which we have lived and are living. Thus, "the whole space of the exhibition" as Lyotard said, "becomes the remains of all time": the Museum on the Edge of Forever

Student engagement, practice architectures and phronesis in the student transitions and experiences project

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the Student Transitions and Experiences (STEP) project, in which visual and creative research methodologies were used to enhance student engagement. Design/methodology/approach – The article provides an overview of three main strands within the field of student engagement practice, and explores the STEP project as an instance of the “critical-transformative” strand. The article draws on recent theorizations by Kemmis et al. of practice architectures and ecologies of practice to propose an understanding of the STEP project as a practice “niche”. Findings – In thinking through some implications of student engagement as a practice architecture, the article sheds analytical light on student engagement as a specific and complex form of contemporary education practice. The later part of the article focuses on a consideration of phronesis and praxis in specific instances from the STEP project. Working with concepts from Barad, the article develops a conceptualization of the STEP project as an intra-active, entangled situated and particularistic practice of phronesis-praxis. Originality/value – This article aims to contribute to the development of theoretical and empirical understandings of the field of student engagement. It does so by providing insights into a recent empirical study; by developing some new theorisations of student engagement; and by a detailed exploration of specific instances of student engagement practice.</p

Image [&] Narrative journal editorship (in 2 issues) - The story of things: reading narrative in the visual

Based on the conference convened by Carson & Miller to accompany their project The Story of Things, these two journal issues of Image [&] Narrative explore the relationship between narrative and the visual. Issue 1: ‘Introduction’, Carson & Miller Part 1 – Telling the Story of Things ‘Relating Stories’, Dr. Patricia Allmer ‘Scrapbook (a visual essay)’, Carson & Miller Part 2 – Object as Catalyst: the Potential for Narrative within the Artefact ‘Artefacts and Anecdotes’, Prof. Karen Bassi ‘Ephemeral Art: Telling Stories to the Dead’, Dr. Mary O’ Neill ‘Belongings’, Lucy May Schofield & Sylvia Waltering Issue 2: ‘Introduction’, Carson & Miller Part 1 – Visualising the Remembered Narrative: Archetype, Biography, Autobiography ‘Rephrased, Replaced, Repainted: visual anachronism as a narrative device’, Gyöngyvér Horváth ‘Lost Children, the Moors & Evil Monsters: the photographic story of the Moors Murders’, Helen Pleasance ‘Read You Like A Book: Time and Relative Dimensions in Storytelling’, Mike Nicholson Part 2 – Authoring and Reading the Sequential Narrative: Linear and Non-Linear Approaches ‘The Pre-Narrative Monstrosity of Images: how images demand narrative’, Dr. William Brown ‘Towards Ephemeral Narrative’, Jacqueline Butler & Gavin Parry ‘Signification Under Sentence: examining how the juxtaposition of verse with film affects narrative’, Dr. Pete Atkinso

Publics, politics and power: Remaking the public in public services

Challenges the notion that publicness and the public sphere is in decline, and analyses the emergence of new forms, sites and practices of publicness and the implications for public services. Covers: - shifting formations of nation and the challenges of migration, diversity and faith to universalistic notions of the public - how the emphasis on of civil society and community are recasting the public domain - the emergence of hybrid organsiational forms and public private authority - new strategies for governing publics and public service

Narratives of Modern Architecture: learning at the intersection of cross-historical constructions

This paper presents the results of experimental course work in 2015 with secondyear students at IE School of Architecture and Design under the auspices of Culture and Theory in Architecture I. The subject of the course is History of Modern Architecture. Importantly, this is the first contact IE students have with theory and history of architecture. One of the goals was to allow students to understand that history is not a monolithic object that stands before us ready-made, but a set multiple constructions in narrative form, hence necessarily a representation: a collection of stories, instead only one history. To accomplish this goal, the students were instructed to write their own particular narrative of a significative moment (building, design, event) in modern architecture.Este artículo muestra los resultados obtenidos en la docencia del curso de Cultura y Teoria en Arquitectura I durante el año 2015 en IE School of Architecture and Design. Este curso es el primer contacto de los alumnos con la teoría y la historia de la arquitectura, y su contenido principal fue la historia de la arquitectura moderna. Uno de los objetivos del curso ha sido hacer comprender a los aumnos que la historia no es un objecto monolítico que se encuentra ahí delante de nosotros para poder observarlo, sino un conjunto de múltiples construcciones que necesariamente tiene la forma de una narración. Es por tanto una representación. Para conseguir esto, se pidió a los alumnos que escribieran su propia historia de un momento significativo (un edificio, un proyecto, un acontecimiento) de la arquitectura moderna

Potential Architecture

The exhibition brings together new work: sculpture, drawings and models created by Lucy + Jorge Orta during their research on new organic and modular architecture as a result of their collaborations with the Greenham partnership and other communities across Europe. Lucy Orta’s practice from the early 1990s began with a series of artworks that combined architecture, fashion and social intervention. Produced in collaboration with her partner, these works took the form of temporary refuges, prototype survival clothing, portable shelters, and tent villages for symbolic emergency situations exploring notions of identity, architecture and communication through workshops and community based actions. In 2002, Orta began working on a series entitled Totipotent Architecture marking a shift away from the body and the transient shelters, to more permanent proposals for sculpture and interventions in urban space. Totipotent Architecture is a reflection on the process of differentiation the human cell undertakes from its embryonic state, to a defined cell structural organism, the wonderful building block of our body

Narrating the archive and archiving narrative: the electronic book and the logic of the index

The creation of my hypermedia work Index of Love, which narrates a love story as an archive of moments, images and objects recollected, also articulated for me the potential of the book as electronic text. The book has always existed as both narrative and archive. Tables of contents and indexes allow the book to function simultaneously as linear narrative and non-linear, searchable database. The book therefore has more in common with the so-called 'new media' of the 21st century than it does with the dominant 20th century media of film, video and audiotape, whose logic and mode of distribution are resolutely linear. My thesis is that the non-linear logic of new media brings to the fore an aspect of the book - the index - whose potential for the production of narrative is only just beginning to be explored. When a reader/user accesses an electronic work, such as a website, via its menu, they simultaneously experience it as narrative and archive. The narrative journey taken is created through the menu choices made. Within the electronic book, therefore, the index (or menu) has the potential to function as more than just an analytical or navigational tool. It has the potential to become a creative, structuring device. This opens up new possibilities for the book, particularly as, in its paper based form, the book indexes factual work, but not fiction. In the electronic book, however, the index offers as rich a potential for fictional narratives as it does for factual volumes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR