History or background of award
A scholarship, supported by the Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund, is available for a Master’s student to work in the School of Design at Victoria University of Wellington, in Wellington, New Zealand.

This fully-funded 2 year position in the new Master of Design Innovation programme supports Dr Anne Galloway’s Counting Sheep: NZ Merino in an Internet of Things research project.

Purpose of award
The Counting Sheep project aims to create near-future digital media scenarios that can support public debate on the use of pervasive computing in agriculture, and the future of merino production and consumption.

The student will form part of a small team led by Dr Galloway and will conduct design research in the area of human-animal-computer interaction.

Selection criteria
Applicants require a Bachelors degree in design or computer science, with a focus on digital media production and/or pervasive computing.

In addition to the scholarship application form (pdf), applicants are required to submit a one-page statement of interest that:

1. identifies potential research areas or questions that are compatible with the larger project;
2. describes any relevant experience that supports the successful completion of this research.

Preference will be given to projects dealing with pervasive computing and NZ merino sheep, but other animal-based agriculture topics will be considered. An interest in the cultural contexts of new technologies and experience with ethnographic research methods would be considered an asset.

Number of awards offered
One.

Value
NZ16,000 annual stipend.

Tenure of award
Up to two years.

Closing dates for applications
Monday 27 February 2012.

Applications will be reviewed as they come in and the start date is 5 March, 2012.

How do students apply?
Please submit a completed application form (pdf) plus a one-page statement of interest to:

The Scholarships Office
Victoria University of Wellington
PO Box 600
Wellington
New Zealand
Phone: (04) 463 5113 or (04)463 5557
Email: scholarships-office@vuw.ac.nz

Additional information
Please contact Dr Galloway (anne.galloway@vuw.ac.nz) with any questions.

Jonny Wan – Dragon

Happy Chinese (Lunar) New Year!

2012 is the Year of the Dragon, traditionally associated with energy and change, good luck and good health.

Given a rather inauspicious start to the calendar year–two long-haul flights in two weeks, followed by almost immediate and prolonged immobilisation due to my dislocated kneecap, ended up causing a couple of large and scary pulmonary emboli–I’m really looking forward to what the mythical dragon will bring.

It’s Chinese tradition to sweep away any bad fortune from last year to make room for the good, and in doing this I’d like to acknowledge the good I’ve already seen emerge from the bad:

PE is a life-threatening condition that will involve at least six months recuperation and a lifetime of watchfulness, and I want to thank Dr Cookson at City GPs, who promptly turned a routine check-up into a trip to the emergency ward; Dr Eberhardt and Dr Perrin at Wellington Hospital, who diagnosed me and started treatment so quickly; the incomparable nursing staff who took such good care of me during my first-ever stay in hospital; and all the medical staff who continue to help me recover. I’m thankful that my body, mind and spirit weren’t ready to give up, but without the dedicated efforts of all these people, it’s possible that I wouldn’t have lived to see another day, and for that I will be eternally grateful.

I also consider myself fortunate to have experienced the extraordinary kindness and generosity of spirit that some people so naturally and freely share. I’m grateful to have learned the difference between fair-weather friends and soul-mates, and for the chance to let the people I love, both old and new, know how much they mean to me. I also appreciate the opportunity to prioritise my own values and desires–instead of too often doing what others expect of me. For example, I actually enjoy doing less, this is the only kind of fame to which I genuinely aspire, and I honestly believe that it’s the little things that are most important. This year, I want to read and write more–and not for work. I want to listen to music without doing anything else at the same time. I want to grow strange little plants and practice abstract embroidery. And I want to swim in the ocean and walk in the sun.

Best wishes for the Year of the Dragon everyone!

Thanks to all our friends and colleagues for an inspiring 2011, and we wish you much joy and adventure in the coming year!

Baaa by Cyriak (Thx Adam!)

2011 was a busy and rewarding year for us. I had the pleasure of learning about farm tech at Fieldays in Hamilton, shearing and woolhandling at the Merino Championships in Alexandra, and sheep breeding and judging at the Canterbury A&P Show in Christchurch. I presented a remote lecture at the Edinburgh School of Art and a live seminar at the Royal College of Art in London. Ben Kraal and I led a workshop at Communities & Technologies 2011 in Brisbane, I gave the opening keynote at Web Directions South in Sydney, and I presented our research at Critically Making the Internet of Things in Umeå. In addition, Sam Carew and I made a couple of educational videos, and Hamish McPhail, Peggy Russell and I designed a fictional farm.

2012 promises more fieldwork, a few articles, and a really fun design project I’ve been working on with Jonathon Toon. Unfortunately, I dislocated my kneecap just before Christmas and have weeks of rehab to look forward to, so there won’t be any travel for a bit. On the upside, my lack of mobility means I should have more time to read and write–so stay tuned for more frequent updates here.

Cheers!

My presentation was the last one in the last session. I’ll put my slides online as soon as possible, but this was the set-up:

Why study animals? In an era of “smart” cities and things, Donna Haraway reminds us that “animals enrich our ignorance.”

Sheep and humans have lived together for more than 10,000 years, but sheep have rarely been “brought into the open with their people.”

(Haraway: “‘the open’ is where what is to come is not yet—is not fixed by teleology or function, whether malignant or benign—and might still be otherwise…” i.e. a space of potentiality)

Our cultural and design research explores human + animal + computer interaction, or how we (can) be/come together.

I also think it’s fair to say that the audience’s favourite image was this one, taken during last month’s Canterbury A&P Show merino judging, where I learned that flipping a merino onto its back makes it go limp like a noodle.

And, actually, the difference between this image and the majestic Icebreaker merino ram on my first slide offers a way into design fiction that I didn’t talk about in my presentation but should follow up on….

Thanks to everyone at the Critically Making the Internet of Things conference. I had a great time!

Notes taken in real-time and subject to my brain’s filtering mechanisms. My comments in italics.

Social Memory within the ‘Internet of Things’
Chris Speed, Edinburgh College of Art

Real-time is deeply contingent. The space between where we are and where we think we are is open for discussion. For example, Google Maps was only two weeks behind during the Beijing Olympics rather than 12-18 months behind normally; and it is never an agreed upon “now.”

So what happens when you start to place things across this temporally contingent landscape? Ghosts and hauntings can serve as metaphor or example.

“When you scratch or mark-up a surface, be prepared for ghosts and traumas to surface.”

The Orphanage (2007)

Poltergeist (1982)

So. What does this have to do with the IoT?

Tales of Things - but the website is only an archive; tagged objects in second-hand stores allow people to hear the objects’ stories or past lives. “Listen to the pink jumper … It’s good for short-turn love affairs.”

Washington, DC Ghost Bikes – when the original bike was removed by the city, it was replaced with 22 more bikes by citizens. Is the lesson that when you scratch the surface, be prepared for ghosts?

A slip and a rub.

Very nice!

Good audience comment about how tagging objects might actually devalue them by providing too much information. Chris responded that it points to how buying is under stress. Sweet.

Narrative and Agency in PostSecret Postcards
Stephanie Hendrick, HUMlab

PostSecret postcards as physical things re-presented on/in the internet.

Narratives by, and about, victims of domestic violence.

“Until someone abuses me, I can’t love them.” (Image: Tina & Ike Turner.)

“I accepted my childhood molester’s friend request.” (Image: Two happy girls holding hands.)

“Every time a childhood friend of mine posts to Facebook, I have an urge to message them and ask if they had ever had any idea that I was being abused.” (Image: Baby with confused expression but no signs of physical harm.)

Collage as juxtaposition of image and text changes and extends the definition of abuse and violence.

Transformational agency. The postcards transform the person and their experience.

Interesting. But no questioning of whether these secrets are “true” or “simply” public performances of self.

Notes taken in real-time and subject to my brain’s filtering mechanisms. My comments in italics.

Random Walks on the Internet Side of Things
Christian Lindholm, Fjord

“We design for all the glowing rectangles–and beyond.”

Walks: design evolution; digital-physical; affordance; applications; contextual design

Mail boxes as services and adverts; you pop in an envelope and it pops out somewhere else.

Physical triggers to access the network.

“Designing the ‘of course!’”

simplicity > implicity (“I, the service, want you, the user, to touch me here first.”) — reduces random noise, creates liquid experiences

How do you create applications that scale to things? Contextual integration, surprise, entertainment… Mobile design must adapt to context.

The context dilemma: “In digital services you might be one click from creepy.” Ha!

Just thinking… Supervising PhD students reminds me how valuable it is to not only talk about what to do, but also how to do it. (Method, process, whatever.) It takes longer, but I think it’s worth it. Maybe a conference on how, in practice, to critically make the Internet of Things? Surely we’ve gotten to that point…

Who? Me? Augmented Subjects/Objects
Johanna Drucker, UCLA

“Reality was never consensual … It’s time for criticism to become science fiction, so don’t expect an argument.”

What a beautifully written/spoken presentation! So very hard to take notes…

On AR, “Who speaks these signs hanging in the air? They know who I am without knowing me.”

Augmentation: “Imagination becomes a consensus making machine. The lines between produced subjectivities are shifting. New techniques. A vector of to-ness, toward-ness.”

Blurred boundaries and Lynx’s Fallen Angel Ambush

(The fallen angel advert was the first Lynx promo that didn’t make me throw up in my mouth, because an angel does something that other subjects/objects can’t…)

I, agency vs. me, self-absorption

Augmentation/images not from a point of view, but aimed at one. Systems creating themselves. Subjects imploded into an objectivity. An “I” is made in dialogue. A “me” is an undifferentiated self, infantile. Dialogue becomes not monologue but autolog.

Not a moral argument but a social inquiry. The question of who speaks is relevant. The objects begin their new regimes because they can. When a culture deceives itself, is it different from when a person does? The augmentation of self through objects changes individual agency into narcissistic amplification.

Wow.

The spectrum of “thingness” is extended in an augmented environment. A new dimension of projection and illusion. Our narcissism leads us to believe that we have control, but there is a life to things.

Resisting a moral argument or privileged critique because of its naivety and complicity. An aesthetics or poetics is a production of knowledge rather than a prescription for behaviour.

Yes. But beware the apolitical.

A good question about whether a latent object can engage in the gaze, especially the gaze as a power transaction. Johanna reminded us that latency ends in the moment of engagement. Rather than asking in whose (other) interests, she wants to ask about the desiring systems in which we are all active parts. The ethical rather than the moral.

Ace talk and discussion!

Notes taken in real-time and subject to my brain’s filtering mechanisms. My comments in italics.

smart cities / smart buildings
Nanna Gyldholm Møller, Bjarke Ingels Group

Amazing architecture. Browse their website!

Superkilen: “Taking our point of departure in Superkilen’s location in the heart of outer Nørrebro, which has a local population from 57 different cultures, we have chosen to focus on those initiatives and activities in the urban spaces that work as promoters for integration across ethnicity, religion, culture and languages.” (Dezeen + more images at ArchDaily)

I sure would like to see their design process for this project – especially the public consultation bits…

Good audience question about building new things and the problem of obsolescence. Could do with more of that around the Internet of Things discussions.

Zombies Ahead!
Jennie Olofsson, Luleå University of Technology

“A study of how broken, hacked and malfunctioning digital road signs subvert the physical space of roadways.”

Sign Hacker

eg. Zombie warnings dislocate drivers to the point where the actual threat to their safety (driving backwards, stopping to take photos, etc.) is more worrisome than the threat of zombies.

Good audience point about taking the zombie metaphor further...

Sacred Things: The Digital Bible
Timothy Hutchings, HUMlab

Online bibles and bible cultures.

First, personal bibles online being shown off as marked up, annotated etc.

Second, new bibles and bible zines (eg. Revolve, Refuel). Bible design: Quality design is worship; design inspires emotion; tools support religious work, design sophistication is relevance; relevance aids recruitment. But can competing messages be ignored?

Third, material technologies of the electronic bible: The Franklin Bible (1989) + Speaking Holy Bible: King James Version (2011 – check out that design!!) or Go Bible Voyager (2011)

Fourth, bible social media services like YouVersion are hugely popular. Bible reading as public and social. Reading subject to accountability/surveillance by multiple audiences. (“You’ve fallen behind in your reading.”)

The Bible, as the Word of God, has agency.

How does this impact how we think about material (non-human) agency? Horribly mean person that I am, I actually asked Tim and he very graciously – and rightly – responded “In many ways.”

Electronic bibles as games.

So. Much. To. Think. About. Now.