Crafting Collaboratively with Technologies of Re-production

This short paper draws from and compares two projects involving the authors in which digital and analogue reproduction technologies were used in collaborations with artists. In the first, artists were recruited to participate in iPad painting workshops and try out populist painting apps. The second project involved the earliest print technology, the woodcut. Coloured inks, rollers and wooden spoons were utilised by the first author in her role as "master printer", "pulling" limited edition prints—by hand—from blocks of incised wood in commercial fine art production. Digitisation facilitates massive and instantaneous copying and distribution without any loss of quality. By limiting reproduction and dissemination of prints, each one becomes more collectable and valuable. The paper considers how the inherent material degradation of traditional printmaking is a condition to which digital processes might aspire

On Legitimacy: Designer as minor scientist

User experience research has recently been characterized in two camps, model-based and design-based, with contrasting approaches to measurement and evaluation. This paper argues that the two positions can be constructed in terms of Deleuze & Guattari’s “royal science” and “minor science”. It is argued that the “reinvention” of cultural probes is an example of a minor scientific methodology reconceptualised as a royal scientific “technology”. The distinction between royal and minor science provides insights into the nature of legitimacy within

Competitive carbon counting: can social networking sites Make saving energy more enjoyable?

This paper reports on the design, deployment and initial evaluation of “Wattsup”, an innovative Facebook application which displays live data from a commercial off-the-shelf energy monitor. The Wattsup application was deployed and trialled in eight homes over an eighteen day period in two conditions - personal energy data viewable and friend’s energy data viewable. A significant reduction in energy was observed in the socially enabled condition. The paper argues that socially-mediated discussion and competition made for a more enjoyable user experience

Wattsup? Motivating reductions in domestic energy consumption using social networks

This paper reports on the design, deployment and evaluation of “Wattsup”, an innovative application which displays live autonomously logged data from the Wattson energy monitor, allowing users to compare domestic energy consumption on Facebook. Discussions and sketches from a workshop with Facebook users were used to develop a final design implemented using the Facebook API. Wattson energy monitors and the Wattsup app were deployed and trialled in eight homes over an eighteen day period in two conditions. In the first condition participants could only access their personal energy data, whilst in the second they could access each others’ data to make comparisons. A significant reduction in energy was observed in the socially enabled condition. Comments on discussion boards and semi-structured interviews with the participants indicated that the element of competition helped motivate energy savings. The paper argues that socially-mediated banter and competition made for a more enjoyable user experience

An Analysis of the Suitability of Philosophy as a Core K-12 Public School Subject

In 2005 Michael Katz invited philosophers of education to reinvigorate the inquiry into what is required to provide a proper education for everyone to lead a productive life. In the literature review, I analyze the suitability of philosophy in teaching K-12 students how to think and reason logically—essential abilities for a productive life. I also examine the educational landscape through the philosophy of Nicholas Rescher’s Cognitive-Values Theory and address the value of learning philosophy. I present a Philosophical Dialectic that shows how epistemic diversity (aporetic clusters) justifies making philosophy a K-12 core subject while analyzing philosophers’ reasons for including philosophy as a core K-12 public school subject. Finally, I assess the Philosophical Dialectic by applying the Heuristic-Systematic Model. Because cognition and metacognition require training the mind, I show how philosophy is most suited to provide this systematically. I assess how Artificial Intelligence (general and generative) is interrupting pedagogy and how a K-12 philosophy curriculum can both mitigate and harness this positively. I demonstrate the importance of neuroscientific research and why this must inform curriculum construction. In Chapter Three, I provide a Scope and Sequence for a Philosophy K-12 curriculum to demonstrate how logic, reasoning, and critical thinking develop students’ cognition and metacognition. I present reasons why philosophy has become the elephant in the room, even though it is the subject best suited to teach children systematically how to think well. I present a rationale for why colleges of education must recruit trainee teachers educated in philosophy to be trained as philosophy teachers and why philosophy should be a core K-12 subject

No Oil Painting: digital originals and slow prints

Slow technology is…in part a reaction against the impulses toward instantaneity afforded by digital technology. This paper explores the slow work of a contemporary ‘analogue’ painter in the context of current research enquiry into digital art, authenticity and value. A group of artists were recruited to take part in in depth interviews conducted in their studios. The paper describes the artist’s resolutely non digital practice and outlines a concept design for a ‘slow print’ based on his work

Repentir: Digital exploration beneath the surface of an oil painting

Repentir is a mobile application that employs marker-less tracking and augmented reality to enable gallery visitors to explore the under drawing and successive stages of pigment beneath an oil painting's surface. Repentir recognises the position and orientation of a specific painting within a photograph and precisely overlays images that were captured during that painting's creation. The viewer may then browse through the work's multiple states and closely examine its painted surface in one of two ways: sliding or rubbing. Our current prototype recognises realist painter Nathan Walsh's most recent work, "Transamerica". Repentir enables the viewer to explore intermediary stages in the painting's development and see what is usually lost within the materially additive painting process. The prototype offers an innovative approach to digital reproduction and provides users with unique insights into the painter's working method

Social networking sites as platforms to persuade behaviour change in domestic energy consumption

This paper describes a pilot investigation into the use of the social networking site Facebook as a platform for persuasive applications. The application domain is behaviour change in domestic energy consumption and the study focuses on determining peoples’ attitudes towards the hypothetical coupling of the consumer product Wattson, which can monitor domestic electricity usage, to a Facebook application termed Watts Up. The Facebook application presents visualisations of users’ own electricity consumption as well as that of their friends. Users’ attitudes towards this notion were accumulated and analysed using grounded theory. Some user indications revealed negative opinions about the concept based, for instance, around privacy and confusion; however the balance of opinion appeared to favour the underlying idea that revealing other people’s energy usage data would lead to competition and peer influence to reduce energy consumption

Representing older people: towards meaningful images of the user in design scenarios

Designing for older people requires the consideration of a range of difficult and sometimes highly personal design problems. Issues such as fear, loneliness, dependency, and physical decline may be difficult to observe or discuss in interviews. Pastiche scenarios and pastiche personae are techniques that employ characters to create a space for the discussion of new technological developments and as a means to explore user experience. This paper argues that the use of such characters can help to overcome restrictive notions of older people by disrupting designers' prior assumptions. In this paper, we reflect on our experiences using pastiche techniques in two separate technology design projects that sought to address the needs of older people. In the first case pastiche scenarios were developed by the designers of the system and used as discussion documents with users. In the second case, pastiche personae were used by groups of users themselves to generate scenarios which were scribed for later use by the design team. We explore how the use of fictional characters and settings can generate new ideas and undermine rhetorical devices within scenarios that attempt to fit characters to the technology, rather than vice versa. To assist in future development of pastiche techniques in designing for older people, we provide an array of fictional older characters drawn from literary and popular culture.</p