モード・オブ・プレイ : プレイワークとヴィジュアル系における生産的消費

早大学位記番号:新9180博士(学術)早稲田大

Pics or it didn't happen: Instagram in Prosumer Capitalism and Reflexive Modernity

Drawing on practice centered approaches to consumption, this study situates a cultural analysis of Instagram, a smartphone-­‐based image sharing application used by over 80 million people worldwide, within wider discourses on reflexive modernity, critical media studies, prosumption, and late-­‐modern consumer culture. A seven-­‐day diary study with 25 international participants, supplemented by participant observation, helps tie these theoretical engagements to specific lived experiences illustrating what it means to live with a networked camera almost permanently on-­‐hand to record and share images of daily life. I focus on the reflexive framing and composition of moments of consumption within practice, arguing that the material culture and affordances of networked mobile imaging, as represented by Instagram, reflect a divergence in photographic practice that expands the realm of the photographable. As the ‘mobile web’ extends networked communication into new spatial contexts, the already overstated dichotomy between the real and the virtual breaks down. This expansion of imaging and communication into new spaces and routines occurs in conjunction with the twin shifts toward an “experience” and “informational” economy, within a social media ecology that enables, and demands, ever more sharing of experiences. While imaging is experienced by many simply as an enjoyable way to fill time or be creative, I explore the multiple agencies that structure enjoyment and explicate the workings of imaginative pleasure using an adapted reading of Colin Campbell’s account of modern hedonism, coupled with Jodi Dean’s account of drive, or the pleasure that emerges from the failure to achieve satisfaction, and its role in prosumer capitalism. I conclude by arguing that social media platforms like Instagram, and its new parent, Facebook, challenge reflexive modernity theorists’ views of empowered, individuated modern subjectivity. Social media slide readily into the institutional gap, as hidden quasi-­‐ institutions, constituting powerful limits to reflexivity through new disciplining mechanisms, even as they afford the potential for radically transformative reflexivity

Smart grids, energy production and private investments: a real option approach

In Italy – and in the countries working for GHG emissions reduction - the last decade was characterized by a large development of distributed generation power plant. Private investment in the sector have been heavily boosted with monetary incentives, like guaranteed feed-in tariffs, especially for the photovoltaic sector. These incentives, on one hand, allowed for developing photovoltaic technology faster, guaranteeing payoffs for huge initial investments, but on the other hand they cause an increase in public costs, regarding both monetary disbursement to pay incentives and system costs connected to the management of a number of energy sources not efficiently integrated. To allow the development of photovoltaic energy production in a sustainable way, it’s necessary to find how to design economic payoff for private investors and to ask them to collaborate for system balancing and management: this objective shall be reached implementing a Smart Grid. Methods In our work, we consider a private energy consumer that have the possibility to invest in a photovoltaic power plant, from which it’s possible to directly consume electricity for private use, or to sell it to the market: in this way, the consumer becomes a potential prosumer, whose plant dimension (power) will be a result of the investment evaluation. To evaluate the investment decision, the consumer shall compare if the new condition allows for savings on energy expenditure: in order to do this, we perform a real option analysis of the private cost function, considering as possibilities for the prosumer 1) buy all the energy from the main grid and sell energy privately produced outside; 2) consume all the energy produced with the photovoltaic plant and buy outside only what exceeds the private production; 3) a mix of the two. Decision depends on prices: external energy price is fixed with a contract; selling price to the grid is uncertain and it depends on instantaneous technical grid necessities – Smart Grid tools allow for instantaneous information exchange on grid status and immediate agent reaction to the signals. Results The analysis shows that external energy price (national grid price) is not affecting decisions on plant dimension, but is relevant while deciding when to invest. Selling price, indeed, influences investment decisions on plant size: if the investor is given the possibility to sell energy to the grid, it could be convenient to choose a higher level of plant power. Since the selling price is the expression of grid technical needs (such as balancing), we can deduce that investments will take place preferably where 1) the possibility for the prosumer to participate to grid management through decisions on production and consumption is present – with Smart Grid tools and 2) where technical characteristics of the grid ask for more support from the local agents (higher energy selling prices). Conclusions The development of distributed power plant, in the future, shall be managed through a system that allow for a better integration of renewable energy plants, calling for private actions helping grid management. The Smart Grid environment allows for an instantaneous interaction between the agent and the grid: depending on its needs, the grid can send signals (through prices) to the agents, and the agents have the possibility to respond to the signals having a monetary gain. In this way, the system can allow for better integration of the renewable – that collaborate in keeping the grid stable – and for a photovoltaic development without costly monetary incentives. What is relevant, indeed, is that this value is created by a Smart Grid, on which we shall invest

Towards a new architectural understanding of birth spaces grounded in women's experiences of giving birth

This thesis proposes a new philosophy of birth space design that values the diverse spatial practices and space-based experiences of childbearing women, across all types of birth venues and experiences of birth. The research aligns with the philosophy of woman-centred maternity care. It critically examines this as an intervention imposed on to a pre-existing medical system of care - a system which, in turn, influences the techno-rational basis of healthcare evidence-based architecture and the tendency for researchers to investigate the birth environment in quantifiable ways. The thesis proposes that birth space should be interrogated in a number of new qualitative ways: by user experience-based spatial design starting with the interiors of buildings; by examining women’s patterns of use of space over time, especially in relation to social interactions; and by interpreting space-based experiences within women’s birth stories. The literature review draws from a wide-range of literature: architectural, spatial, birth-environment, social theory, midwifery, obstetrics and policy documents. It critiques the naive readings of homely, control, safety and risk, and architecture understood as a techno-rational domain, in the extant research relating to birth spaces. This thesis has an interpretative methodology that crosses disciplinary boundaries, and the definitions of architectural space and childbirth, that have previously limited knowledge of birth spaces. The nature of what is appropriate evidence for design, the spatial understanding afforded by using visual qualitative methods, semiotic meaning within policy documents, the nature of personal experiences of childbirth, and the application of a critical spatial methodology to birth spaces, all inform the selection of methods. Representations of architecture are used to interpret the social and spatial meaning that architecture represents to birth space producers and users. Spatial practices for producing birth spaces are interpreted from the three policy design guidance documents commonly used in the context of maternity care in the UK; and the spatial practices of childbearing women are interpreted from the experiences of twenty-four women who took part in qualitative interviews. The transcripts, policy guidance documents and drawings were thematically-analysed and the visual data was also examined as semiotic materials. The findings demonstrate that birth spaces are prosumed and curated by women. Birth space is experienced as a socially-situated progression through time - and not contained within one room as current guidance implies. Women’s spatial experiences are embodied and influenced by prior experience and expectations of birth venues. Space is experienced in multiple ways (visually, via perceived affordances, and via movement) that are contingent on the venue. Experiences of waiting and of labour as a ‘physical journey’ are both spatially significant. Women want to use spatial strategies to self-manage the ebb and flow of companionship in labour. Women build personally-meaningful intergenerational stories from where birth took place. The discussion chapter develops spatial insights into the design guidance and maternity policy goals (choice, control, continuity of carer and personalised care) from the interpretation of women’s experiences. The thesis creates a new critical understanding of the value of social architecture for improving midwifery practice and women’s birth experiences. Practical recommendations to be applied to existing maternity spaces are proposed. Existing spatial and social theory is applied to the new area of birth space, and its lacunae identified. The thesis concludes with a new situated spatial theory derived from women’s experiences of childbirth as inspiration for much needed further interdisciplinary research and design development in this area

Generic architectures for open, multi-objective autonomic systems:application to smart micro-grids

Autonomic features, i.e. the capability of systems to manage themselves, are necessary to control complex systems, i.e. systems that are open, large scale, dynamic, comprise heterogeneous third-party sub-systems and follow multiple, sometimes conflicting objectives. In this thesis, we aim to provide generic reusable supports for designing complex autonomic systems. We propose a formalisation of management objectives, a generic architecture for designing adaptable multi-objective autonomic systems, and generic organisations integrating such autonomic systems. We apply our approach to the concrete case of smart micro-grids which is a relevant example of such complexity. We present a simulation platform we developped and illustrate our approach via several simulation scenarios