Creative NarrativesStory Objects and Technocultural TrendsJb Labrune - January 2010

Presentation

‣ Trained in Cognitive Sciences / Human Factors‣ Work as an Ethnomethodologist, Participant Observer in Arts+Sciences‣ Research interest: Narratives of creative individuals and places‣ Physical Objects‣ Gestures and Non-Verbal cues

‣ Exaptive practices

Mediamatic, Amsterdam

MIT Bioengineering, Cambridge

Exaptation

‣ My Phd: Children and Creative Technology: An Exaptive Phenomenon‣ Gould suggested that "exaptation," a feature not arising as an adaptation for its current function but rather co-opted for new purposes, may be a more important concept than adaptations for the emerging paradigm of evolutionary psychology

‣ Example: Bird flight is a coopted adapation (exaptation) of thermoregulation functions

‣ In Technology terms, it means that studying by-products and non-selected artefacts is asimportant as understanding successes and communicated practices.

Ethnomethodology

‣ Harold Garfinkel‣ Accountability‣ Breaching‣ Participant Observation

‣ Technology Terrain‣ Lucy Suchman‣ Latour, Woolgard‣ Technomethodology, ‣ HCI, Heath, Luff‣ Design ethnography

MIT, Cambridge

MIT Media Lab, Cambridge

Creative Narratives

‣ Narratives of creative individuals‣ Presentation of Self‣ Walk-and-Talk, Decontextualisation‣ Individual Archetypes

‣ Collective narratives that define a place‣ Comparison between the Media Lab,ARC, Xerox PARC, Interval Research, Santa Fe institute, Ivrea Interaction Design Institute, RCA, ...

MIT, Cambridge

Creative Narratives: Physical Objects

‣ Story Objects

‣ Types / Archetypes‣ Narrative genres‣ Common stories and effects

‣ Kayfabe‣ necessary illusion‣ suspension of disbelief / believabilityprinciple in design fiction

‣ transitional space

MIT Media Lab, Cambridge

MIT Media Lab, Cambridge

Creative Narratives: Gestures / Non-Verbal cues

MIT Media Lab, CambridgeMIT Media Lab, Cambridge

Harvard GSD, Cambridge Harvard GSD, Cambridge

Creative Narratives: Exaptive Practices

‣ Ghost Research‣ Side Projects‣ Collaboration without Goals

‣ Unselected / Non-Projects‣ “Failures”‣ Non-liable projects‣ Assessment criteria

‣ Spandrels and Innovation‣ Demoing other people work‣ Maintaining outside link withother researcher / Designers

MIT, Cambridge

MIT, Cambridge

Design Dimensions

‣ Design and Rethorics‣ Invention, Exordium, Disposition, Division, Confirmation, Refutation, Peroration

‣ Design for Debate / Critical Design / Interrogative Design‣ Krzysztof Wodiczko, IDG‣ Dunne and Raby, RCA

‣ Toram, BERG‣ NearFutureLab

‣ Design and Scepticism‣ No truth, eternal present‣ Non-Dogmatism

Krzysztof Wodiczko

Past Futures and Long Term Trends

‣ Beyond the Beyond‣ Bruce Sterling blog in Wired‣ Meta-meta is meta. Wittgenstein

‣ Technological Revolutions / Innovations‣ Revolutio: Cyclic, might come back to the origin

‣ MegaTrends that instantiates every decade, every year.‣ Program for the Future

Long Term Trends (100 years)

‣ Collective IQ (collaborative computation)‣ Augmented reality (See through, Projection, Virtual Retinal Displays)‣ Programmable matter, Reconfigurable Reality‣ Non-invasive and invasive brain-computer interfaces / neuroprosthetics / TMS / Optoneural interfaces

‣ Personal fabrication, fabbing, rapid prototyping of objects, electronics ‣ Democratized synthetic biology, trend towards organic/bio technologies (openwetware) / posthumanism/ transhumanism

Augmented Reality

Ivan Sutherland, Harvard, 1967

Brother

Washington University

New model for mixing computation, data, program, & shape (state = space = time = logic)

RALA

3 Years from Now

‣ Contextual Elements‣ Real Time Collaboration (wave, tweet, online services)‣ Identity: Privacy / Extimacy / Digital Norms‣ Mobile broadband ‣ Geolocation/ situated / ubiquitous internet with mobiles‣ Internet of things, new class of peripherals

‣ Need for hackability, appropriation (Arduino, Transparency)

Collective IQ

Augmented Reality Programmable Matter

BCIPersonal Fabrication

Synthetic Biology

Real Time Collaboration

Identity

Mobile broadband

Geolocation

Internet of things

Hackability

Collective IQAugmented

Reality

Programmabl

e MatterBCI

Personal

Fabrication

Synthetic

Biology

Real Time

Collaboration

Identity

Mobile

broadband

Geolocation

Internet of

things

Hackability

Constructed Narratives

Rethorics

Debate Exploration

Believability

Persuade

Convince

Learn

Unexpected

Social Impact

Dystopian

Art + Science

Spin

Astroturf

Design Fiction

Discover

Surprise

RenderingUsage Context

ExaptationNo Framework