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Frictionlessness provides an examination of the environmentally destructive digital design philosophy of "frictionlessness" and the critical significance of a technological aesthetic of imperfection. If there is one thing that defines digital consumer technologies today, it is that they are designed to feel frictionless. From smart technologies to cloud computing, from from one-click shopping to the promise of seamless streaming-digital technology is framed to host ever-faster operations while receding increasingly into the background of perception. The environmental costs of this fetishization of frictionlessness are enormous and unevenly distributed; the frictionless experience of the end ...
Frictionlessness provides an examination of the environmentally destructive digital design philosophy of "frictionlessness" and the critical significance of a technological aesthetic of imperfection. If there is one thing that defines digital consumer technologies today, it is that they are designed to feel frictionless. From smart technologies to cloud computing, from from one-click shopping to the promise of seamless streaming-digital technology is framed to host ever-faster operations while receding increasingly into the background of perception. The environmental costs of this fetishization of frictionlessness are enormous and unevenly distributed; the frictionless experience of the end ...
A collection of timely new scholarship, Repair: Sustainable Design Futures investigates repair as a contemporary expression of empowerment, agency, and resistance to our unmaking of the world and the environment. Repair is an act, metaphor, and foundation for opening up a dialogue about design’s role in proposing radically different social, environmental, and economic futures. Thematically expansive and richly illustrated, with over 125 visuals, this volume features an international, interdisciplinary group of contributors from across the design spectrum whose voices and artwork speak to how we might address our broken social and physical worlds. Organized around reparative thinking and practices, the book includes 30 long and short chapters, photo essays, and interviews that focus on multiple responses to fractured systems, relationships, cities, architecture, objects, and more. Repair will encourage students, academics, researchers, and practitioners in art, design and architecture practice and theory, cultural studies, environment and sustainability, to discuss, engage, and rethink the act of repair and its impact on our society and environment.
Voice Assistants such as Amazon's Alexa populate private homes as well as smartphones, TVs and cars. While suggesting easy living with smart devices, these assistants are criticized as the next step of corporate and state surveillance of the private home, or as harbingers of new and simplified linguistic practices. The contributors to this volume focus on the transformation and persistence of everyday linguistic, media and data practices under platformized conditions and new interfaces. This collection thus brings together perspectives from media sociology, media studies, media linguistics and domestication research.
The Logic of Filtering traces the profound impact of technical media on the sound of music, asking: how do media technologies shape sound? How does this affect music? And how did it change what we listen for in music? Since the invention of sound recording in the second half of the nineteenth century, media that transmit, record, store, and reproduce physical sound inspired dreams of perfect reproduction, but were also confronted with the inevitable introduction of noise. Based on a wide range of historical, technical and theoretical sources, author Melle Jan Kromhout explores this one hundred and forty-year history of sound media and shows why noise should not be understood as unwanted by-e...
This book explores the historical interrelationships between mathematics, medicine and media, and offers a unique perspective on how video compression has shaped our relationship with moving images and the world. It situates compression in a network of technological, visual and epistemic practices spanning from late 18th-century computational methods to the standardization of electrical infrastructure and the development of neurology throughout the 1900s. Bringing into conversation media archaeology, science and technology studies, disability studies and queer theory, each chapter offers an in-depth look at a different trace of compression, such as interlacing, macroblocking or flicker. This is a story of forgotten technologies, unusual media practices, strange images on the margins of visual culture and inventive ways of looking at the world. Readers will find illuminating discussions of the formation of complex scientific and medical systems, and of the violent and pleasurable interactions between our bodies and media infrastructure.
This interdisciplinary and international handbook captures and shapes much needed reflection on normative frameworks for the production, application, and use of artificial intelligence in all spheres of individual, commercial, social, and public life.
What is media research and how is it done? This book offers detailed introductions and practical guidance for all aspects of media research, from developing a research question and choosing sources to interpreting media texts, applying qualitative and quantitative methods, conducting interviews, and much more. You will encounter: A ′Fundamentals′ section covering eight big topics like ′what is method?′ A global perspective reflected in case studies of media research in Asia, Africa and South America Practical examples on topics from crafting a thesis statement to conducting an analysis and presenting the outcomes Integrated discussion of contemporary issues like the ethics of social media research This essential companion will empower any media student to tackle their research with confidence and skill.
How does automation affect us, our environment, and our imaginations? What actions should we take in response to automation? Beyond grand narratives and technology-driven visions of the future, what more can automation offer? With these questions in mind, The De Gruyter Handbook of Automated Futures provides a framework for thinking about and implementing automation differently. It consolidates automated futures as an inter- and transdisciplinary research field, embedding the imaginaries, interactions, and impacts of automation technology within their social, historical, societal, cultural, and political contexts. Promoting a critical yet constructive and engaging agenda, the handbook invite...