Narrative environments: how do they matter?

The significance and possible senses of the phrase 'narrative environment' are explored. It is argued that 'narrative environment' is not only polysemous but also paradoxical; not only representational but also performative; and not just performatively repetitive but also reflexive and constitutive. As such, it is useful for understanding the world of the early 21st century. Thus, while the phrase narrative environment can be used to denote highly capitalised, highly regulated corporate forms, i.e. "brandscapes", it can also be understood as a metaphor for the emerging reflexive knowledge-work-places in the ouroboric, paradoxical economies of the 21st century. Narrative environments are the media and the materialities through which we come to comprehend that world and to act in those economies. Narrative environments are therefore, sophistically, performative-representative both of the corporate dominance of life worlds and of the undoing of that dominance, through the iterative responses to the paradoxical injunction: "learn to live"

Explaining the lack of dynamics in the diffusion of small stationary fuel cells

Using the reaction of hydrogen with oxygen to water in order to produce electricity and heat, promises a high electrical efficiency even in small devices which can be installed close to the consumer. This approach seems to be an impressive idea to contribute to a viable future energy supply under the restrictions of climate change policy. Major reasons currently hampering the diffusion of such technologies for house energy supply in Germany are analysed in this paper. The barriers revealed, include high production costs as well as economic and legal obstacles for installing the devices so that they can be operated in competition to central power plants, beside others in tenancies.fuel cell, diffusion processes, valuation of environmental effects, technological innovation

What is a problem?: On problem-oriented interdisciplinarity

Among others, the term “problem” plays a major role in the various attempts to characterize interdisciplinarity or transdisciplinarity, as used synonymously in this paper. Interdisciplinarity (ID) is regarded as “problem solving among science, technology and society” and as “problem orientation beyond disciplinary constraints” (cf. Frodeman et al.: The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010). The point of departure of this paper is that the discourse and practice of ID have problems with the “problem”. The objective here is to shed some light on the vague notion of “problem” in order to advocate a specific type of interdisciplinarity: problem-oriented interdisciplinarity. The outline is as follows: Taking an ex negativo approach, I will show what problem-oriented ID does not mean. Using references to well-established distinctions in philosophy of science, I will show three other types of ID that should not be placed under the umbrella term “problem-oriented ID”: object-oriented ID (“ontology”), theory-oriented ID (epistemology), and method-oriented ID (methodology). Different philosophical thought traditions can be related to these distinguishable meanings. I will then clarify the notion of “problem” by looking at three systematic elements: an undesired (initial) state, a desired (goal) state, and the barriers in getting from the one to the other. These three elements include three related kinds of knowledge: systems, target, and transformation knowledge. This paper elaborates further methodological and epistemological elements of problem-oriented ID. It concludes by stressing that problem-oriented ID is the most needed as well as the most challenging type of ID

A Shift in Systems: (Co-)conceptualising Pedagogy in an Era of Continuous Complexity

As a result of complex co-constructive entanglements of contemporary lived-ex-perience, this paper develops ideas from posthumanist and material perspectives on education, that recognise, unpack and analyse the particular dynamic, co-con-structive nature of the postdigital entanglements of technology with the epistemic and ontological development of students (Bozalek, Braidotti, Shefer and Zemby-las, 2018). Drawing from Haraway’s idea of symbiogenesis, (2016), this paper suggests that a critical facet of contemporary pedagogy requires an understanding of the key skill of poiesis, to render visible the entangled ontology of the contem-porary postdigital adolescent to better inform appropriate pedagogic developments

Complexifying the poetic: toward a poiesis of curriculum

Inspired by philosopher Richard Rorty’s assertion that we need poetic imagination to move beyond modernity, this pragmatist inquiry seeks to understand the poetic, not as it is rationally defined, but rather as a historically situated discursive practice. In western cultures modernist discursive practices are characterized by rationalist reasoning. Traced to Aristotelian re- interpretations of mimesis (this is that), which structure modernist forms of representation, mimesis operates on a principle of equivalency between the specific and the universal, based on Euclidean, geometric reasoning. Likewise, mimesis underlies poetic representation as an imaginative expression of an objective reality, ideally, a form that moves one to think in universal terms. Obscured from a modernist view of the poetic is a prior pre-Socratic mimesis, in which are embedded the concepts of poiesis (to create, to make, to do) and paideia (cultural education). Mimesis here is linked to poetic “re-presentations” as performances of epic poems. Poiesis, etymological root of the word poetic, is related to making meaning through interactions with others, with the environment/ cosmos, and reflexively to develop a sense of being-in-relation. Knowledge, in this schema, is fluid, evolving, situated, communal, and is based on patterns. As a form of reason, pragmatist logic addresses the failure of modern rationalism to theorize the implications of evolution, creativity and entropy; it also questions logical relationships that exist between representation and mathematics, and the metaphysical assumptions underlying them. Pragmatist logic, based on triadic reasoning, draws on poiesis as an organizing principle of reason and its representation, and is a bridge to complexity theory. Findings of this inquiry suggest (1) re-reading progressive educationist John Dewey in light of poiesis, rather than modernist or Aristotelian views of the poetic; and (2) consideration of a poiesis of curriculum, one that emerges as a complex living process, out of guided inquiry, and from the reflections of students on their interactions with their environment, with others, and with the greater world outside the classroom

Paradoxes of interactivity: perspectives for media theory, human-computer interaction, and artistic investigations

Current findings from anthropology, genetics, prehistory, cognitive and neuroscience indicate that human nature is grounded in a co-evolution of tool use, symbolic communication, social interaction and cultural transmission. Digital information technology has recently entered as a new tool in this co-evolution, and will probably have the strongest impact on shaping the human mind in the near future. A common effort from the humanities, the sciences, art and technology is necessary to understand this ongoing co- evolutionary process. Interactivity is a key for understanding the new relationships formed by humans with social robots as well as interactive environments and wearables underlying this process. Of special importance for understanding interactivity are human-computer and human-robot interaction, as well as media theory and New Media Art. "Paradoxes of Interactivity" brings together reflections on "interactivity" from different theoretical perspectives, the interplay of science and art, and recent technological developments for artistic applications, especially in the realm of sound

Paradoxes of Interactivity

Current findings from anthropology, genetics, prehistory, cognitive and neuroscience indicate that human nature is grounded in a co-evolution of tool use, symbolic communication, social interaction and cultural transmission. Digital information technology has recently entered as a new tool in this co-evolution, and will probably have the strongest impact on shaping the human mind in the near future. A common effort from the humanities, the sciences, art and technology is necessary to understand this ongoing co- evolutionary process. Interactivity is a key for understanding the new relationships formed by humans with social robots as well as interactive environments and wearables underlying this process. Of special importance for understanding interactivity are human-computer and human-robot interaction, as well as media theory and New Media Art. »Paradoxes of Interactivity« brings together reflections on »interactivity« from different theoretical perspectives, the interplay of science and art, and recent technological developments for artistic applications, especially in the realm of sound

Service robotics: do you know your new companion? Framing an interdisciplinary technology assessment

Service-Robotic—mainly defined as “non-industrial robotics”—is identified as the next economical success story to be expected after robots have been ubiquitously implemented into industrial production lines. Under the heading of service-robotic, we found a widespread area of applications reaching from robotics in agriculture and in the public transportation system to service robots applied in private homes. We propose for our interdisciplinary perspective of technology assessment to take the human user/worker as common focus. In some cases, the user/worker is the effective subject acting by means of and in cooperation with a service robot; in other cases, the user/worker might become a pure object of the respective robotic system, for example, as a patient in a hospital. In this paper, we present a comprehensive interdisciplinary framework, which allows us to scrutinize some of the most relevant applications of service robotics; we propose to combine technical, economical, legal, philosophical/ethical, and psychological perspectives in order to design a thorough and comprehensive expert-based technology assessment. This allows us to understand the potentials as well as the limits and even the threats connected with the ongoing and the planned implementation of service robots into human lifeworld—particularly of those technical systems displaying increasing grades of autonomy