Relating to Things: Design, Technology and the Artificial

302 Pages·2020·4.044 MB·English

by  Heather Wiltse

FIGURES
1.1 Realms of privacy as overlapping ranges of effective
executive autonomy within an interdependent
relationship 21
4.1 Three heuristic levels of autonomy/automation in
human-technology relations 65
6.1 Portrait photos of participating scooters and
scooterists. Photos by W en-Wei Chang 106
6.2 Scooter portraits based on the transcripts of the
“interview with things” conducted with professional
actors. Image courtesy of Wen-Wei Chang 109
6.3 Pipe heater is the speculative concept for an open-
ended device that reuses the heat produced during
a ride for personally and socially meaningful activities
(e.g., warming up food, sharing a hot drink).
Photos by Wen-Wei Chang 110
6.4 Sound generator is the speculative concept of a
smart audio component for a scooter’s engine that is
personalized according to one’s riding patterns and
needs for social expression. Photos by
Wen-Wei Chang 111
6.5 Red light pointer and atmosphere meter are
speculative concepts of smart dashboard components
designed to bring people physically closer and
create intimacy. Photos by Wen-Wei Chang 111
6.6 MakeDo is a speculative platform for DIY recipes
where data collected from things are an integral part
of the making process with the goal to foster creative
dialogues between makers and things in democratized
manufacturing. Image by Tal Amram 114
6.7 Example of the executed DIY recipe of a stool with
sensing knots from the MakeDo community.
Photos by Tal Amram 115
6.8 Resourceful Ageing: Selecting nonhuman participants
via a combination of sensitization techniques and
ethnographic fieldwork. Photo by Iohanna
Nicenboim 117
6.9 Resourceful Ageing: Participating magnet, central
to the resourcefulness of one of the human
participants. Photo by Iohanna Nicenboim 118
6.10 Resourceful Ageing: Analysis of raw temporal events
concerning co-usage of instrumented objects
(i.e., relations among nonhuman participants). Data
visualization by Yanxia Zhang 118
6.11 Resourceful Ageing: Visualization of machine learning
interpretation of the co-usage of objects, from high to
low probability of occurrence. Data visualization
by Philips Design 119
6.12 Resourceful Ageing: Connected Resources is a family
of sensors and actuators and an online service for
adding digital capabilities to older people’s everyday
strategies of resourcefulness and empowering them in
their relation with care technology. Images by
Masako Kitazaki 122
6.13 Resourceful Ageing: Once in use, Connected
Resources learn from the way in which they are
combined and deployed 122
6.14 Resourceful Ageing: Scenario of a resourceful
arrangement created by an older woman waiting
for a delivery and with a mild hearing impairment,
where one object visibly lights up when another
remote object detects sound. Movie by Andreas
D’Hollandere 123
viii FIGURES
7.1 Subway bench, New York City, United States
(photo by author) 136
7.2 Ledge spikes, San Francisco, United States
(photo by author) 137
7.3 Tube platform security camera, London, England
(photo by author) 141
7.4 Outdoor security camera mounted on a pole and
protected by pointed fencing, Winchester, England
(photo by author) 141
7.5 Parking lot signage in Boston, United States
(photo by author) 146
8.1 Product Impact Tool Model 153
8.2 One example of product impact from the online
Product Impact Tool 153
8.3 Project name display on a screen on a pilot day.
Source: http://www.actmedialab.nl/tweede-pilot-
observe/ 155
8.4 People in view of an interactive screen system.
Source: http://www.actmedialab.nl/tweede-pilot-
observe/ 155
11.1 A set of Morse Things 216
11.2 Participant photos of Morse Things in their homes 223
11.3 Each Morse Things set included a large bowl,
medium bowl, a cup plus a Wi-Fi hub and a set of
instructions 224
11.4 Hannah’s concept of Morse Things as part of daily
routines 227
11.5 Olivia imagined the Morse Things could hack
into other things to join their network 228
11.6 Ella’s concept for finding and containing things 229
11.7 Spencer’s concept of having the Morse Things
as a Wi-Fi repeater and watering system 231
13.1 Thingformation, an IoT care labeling system for
product packaging. Design and image: Beyond/IO 261
FIGURES ix
13.2 The Transparent Charging Station is an electric car
charging station that allows people to negotiate how
much of their battery is to be charged and within
what time period according to the networked
constraints of an electric energy grid. Design and
image: The Incredible Machine 263
13.3 The interface of the Transparent Charging Station
demonstrates the constraints and demands on the
electric grid with a Tetris-like screen. The hourglass-like
figure in the middle illustrates what energy is predicted
to be available on the grid over the course of the day.
This station has three different charging ports, each of
which is controlled by two dials along the bottom. In
turning the dials, a driver negotiates how much of her
battery is to be changed and in what timeframe within
the constraints of the energy predicted to be available
on the grid. As the driver turns these dials, the screen
also illustrates how their request impacts those made
by the others charging at this port 264
x FIGURES
CONTRIBUTORS
Steven Dorrestijn is Head of the research group Ethics & Technology at Saxion
University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands. In 2012 Dorrestijn completed
his PhD thesis at the University of Twente, the Netherlands (The design of our
own lives: Technical mediation and subjectivation after Michel Foucault). Previously
he studied philosophy in Paris and philosophy and mechanical engineering
in Twente. Dorrestijn’s research and publications focus on the philosophy and
ethics of technology, the work of Michel Foucault applied to technology, and the
integration into design of knowledge about the impact of technology (Product
Impact Tool). His website: www.stevendorrestijn.nl.
Elisa Giaccardi is Chair of Interactive Media Design at Delft University of
Technology, the Netherlands, and Guest Professor of Post-Industrial Design at
Umeå Institute of Design. After groundbreaking work in metadesign, collaborative
and open design processes, Giaccardi has during the last years focused on the
challenges that a permeating digitalization means for the field of design.
Bruno Gransche has been a philosopher at the Institute of Advanced Studies
(FoKoS) at the University of Siegen since 2017. He works in the fields of philosophy
of technology, ethics, and future-oriented thinking. He is a research fellow at the
Fraunhofer ISI in Karlsruhe, where he worked as a philosopher and Foresight
expert until 2016.
Sabrina Hauser is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Umeå Institute of Design.
She received her PhD in 2018 from the School of Interactive Arts and Technology
at Simon Fraser University. Sabrina holds a Masters in Design from Hochschule für
Gestaltung Schwäbisch Gmünd and a Diplom (BSc Hons.) in Information Science
from Hochschule Darmstadt. Situated at the intersections between interaction
design, human-computer-interaction, and philosophy of technology, her research
often looks at human-technology relations and technological mediation through
approaches like design ethnographies, research through design, and speculative
design. Her website: www.sabrinahauser.com.
Diane P. Michelfelder is Professor of philosophy at Macalester College in the
United States. Her research interests focus on the philosophy of technology and
engineering. A former president of the Society for Philosophy and Technology,
her most recent book, edited with Byron Newberry and Qin Zhu, is Philosophy
and Engineering: Exploring Boundaries, Expanding Connections (Springer 2016).
Doenja Oogjes is a PhD student whose research explores the design of digital
domestic technologies using speculative design and integrating indirect ways
technologies mediate our everyday. She holds a Bachelors and a Masters in
Industrial Design from the Technical University of Eindhoven, Netherlands.
Michel Puech’s academic background is in classical European philosophy. He has
published books and articles on the philosophy of technology, the concept of the
“sustainable,” and more broadly on new value systems. His current work focuses
on the notion of wisdom. His recent book is The Ethics of Ordinary Technology
(2016).
Holly Robbins is a postdoctoral researcher at Eindhoven University of Technology.
Her work blends industrial design with philosophy of technology, examining and
experimenting with how design can make complex, networked, and data-intensive
technologies legible and accessible for lay people. With a collection of professional
designers, she co-founded the Just Things Foundation to promote and advocate
for the responsible design of technologies.
Robert Rosenberger is Associate Professor in the School of Public Policy at the
Georgia Institute of Technology. His edited books include Postphenomenological
Investigations: Essays on Human-Technology Relations (coedited with P.P. Verbeek)
and the interview book Philosophy of Science: 5 Questions. His polemical mini-
monograph is entitled Callous Objects: Designs Against the Homeless.
Erik Stolterman is Professor in informatics and Senior Executive Associate Dean
of the School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering at Indiana University,
Bloomington. Stolterman’s main work is within HCI, interfaces, interactivity,
interaction design, design practice, philosophy, and theory of design. His latest
book is Things That Keep Us Busy—The Elements of Interaction (MIT Press, 2017).
Yoni Van Den Eede is Lecturer and Researcher in Philosophy, affiliated
with the Centre for Ethics and Humanism, at the Free University of Brussels
(Vrije Universiteit Brussel), Belgium. He is among others the author of The
Beauty of Detours (2019) and Amor Technologiae (2012), and the coeditor of
Postphenomenology and Media (2017).
xii CONTRIBUTORS