A Joint Expedition into the Future of Soft Tech

This article is based on a series of participatory art & technology workshops where professional artists and designers, hobbyists, researchers, and tinkerers were invited to four online workshops investigating their relationship to current and future technologies through participatory speculation. Drawing from critical making, the workshops were focused on joint discovery through hands-on making as thinking where knowledge of techno-social systems is produced collectively. Our analysis of the workshop series shows that workshop participants did not necessarily feel part of a joint discovery and that we were challenged in creating the intended non-hierarchical structure throughout the workshops. However, the workshops did succeed in challenging participants’ idea of hard and soft technology and thereby also their own skills. We saw a recognition of the need for dialogue around technology and what it is perceived to be.

Content

Author and article information

Contributors

Kirsti Reitan Andersen

Majken Overgaard

Mirabelle Jones

Irena Shklovski

Conference

Publication date: September 2021

Publication date (Print): September 2021

Pages: 69-76

Affiliations

[0001]Copenhagen Business

School

Copenhagen, Denmark

[0002]Catch – Center for Art and

Technology

Elsinore, Denmark

[0003]University of Copenhagen

Copenhagen, Denmark

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/POM2021.9

SO-VID: 193b5be8-ff57-40fc-a6ad-2b395c8e8c74

License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Proceedings of Politics of the Machines - Rogue Research 2021

Conference acronym: POM 2021

Conference number: 3

Conference location: Berlin, Germany

Conference date: September 14-17, 2021

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: debate and devise concepts and practices that seek to critically question and unravel novel modes of science

History

Product

1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/POM2021.9

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

REFERENCES

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K. R. Andersen, V. Renza and C. Fieseler (2021). Mapping the Socially Engaged Arts in Europe. Oslo: Artsformation Report Series
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E Burton, J. Goldsmith, and N. Mattei (2018) How to teach computer ethics through science fiction. Communications of the ACM 61, 8, 54ââ‚¬“64.
O. Catts and I. Zurr (2004-2005) Ingestion / Disembodied Cuisine: Towards victimless meat. Cabinet Magazine, Available from: http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/16/catts_zurr.php (27 August, 2021)
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B. Kong, R.-H. Liang, M. Liu, S.H. Chang, H.-C. Tseng and C.-H. Ju (2021) Neuromancer workshop: Towards designing experiential entanglement with science fiction. Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 26, 1ââ‚¬“17 http://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445273.
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Comments

Comment on this article

[1] K. R. Andersen, M. Overgaard, M. Jones, and I. Shklovski (forthcoming): Collectively Reimagining Technology. Morals & Machines.

[2] K. R. Andersen, V. Renza and C. Fieseler (2021). Mapping the Socially Engaged Arts in Europe. Oslo: Artsformation Report Series

[3] Art + Com Studios (n.d.) Terravision, 1994. Available from: http://artcom.de/en/?project=terravision (27 August, 2021)

[4] Artsformation (n.d.) About Artsformation. Available from: http://artsformation.eu/about/ (30 August, 2021)

[5] K. Barad (2007) Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

[6] M. Burnam-Fink (2015) Creating narrative scenarios: Science fiction prototyping at emerge. Futures, 70 (19 December 2014). http://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2014.12.005.

[7] E Burton, J. Goldsmith, and N. Mattei (2018) How to teach computer ethics through science fiction. Communications of the ACM 61, 8, 54ââ‚¬“64.

[8] O. Catts and I. Zurr (2004-2005) Ingestion / Disembodied Cuisine: Towards victimless meat. Cabinet Magazine, Available from: http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/16/catts_zurr.php (27 August, 2021)

[9] Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies (2021), Futures Shaping Art / Art Shaping Futures. Available online: http://cifs.dk/news/report-futures-shaping-art-art-shaping-futures (January 26, 2022)

[10] M. Flyverbom (2020). Digital Powers: Surveillance and Economic Logics in a Datafied World. Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization, 20(3), 245-253.

[11] C. Frauenberger (2020) Entanglement HCI The Next Wave? ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction 27, 1, 1ââ‚¬“27.

[12] D. Haraway (1991) Simians, cyborgs and women: The reinvention of nature, New York: Routledge.

[13] T. Kohno and B. D. Johnson (2011) Science fiction prototyping and security education: Cultivating contextual and societal thinking in computer security education and beyondââ‚¬™. SIGCSEââ‚¬™11. Available from: http://homes.cs.washington.edu/~yoshi/papers/SIGCSE/csefp118-kohno.pdf (30 August, 2021)

[14] B. Kong, R.-H. Liang, M. Liu, S.H. Chang, H.-C. Tseng and C.-H. Ju (2021) Neuromancer workshop: Towards designing experiential entanglement with science fiction. Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 26, 1ââ‚¬“17 http://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445273.

[15] S. Kvale and S. Brinkmann (2015) Interview: Det kvalitative forskningsinterview som hÃ¥ndvÃ¦rk. Hans Reitzels Forlag.

[16] U. K. Le Guin (2004). A Rant About “Technology”. Available online: http://www.ursulakleguinarchive.com/Note-Technology.html (25 August, 2021)

[17] Ursula Le Guin (1985) Sur. In The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women, Eds. S. M. Gilbert and S. Gubar (New York: W.W. Norton and Company) (p. 2008).

[18] C. Linehan, B. J. Kirman, S. Reeves, M. A. Blythe, T. J. Tanenbaum, A. Desjardins and A. Wakkary (2014) Alternate endings: Using fiction to explore design futures. CHI ââ‚¬™14 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 45ââ‚¬“48. CHI EA ââ‚¬™14. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/2559206.2560472.

[19] O. Mubin, M. Obaid, P. Jordan, P. Alves-Oliveira, T. Eriksson, W. Barendregt, D. Sjolle, M. Fjeld, S. Simoff and M. Billinghurst (2016) Towards an agenda for sci-fi inspired HCI research. Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment, 10, 1-6.

[20] N. Okorafor (2017, November) Sci-fi stories that imagine a future africa [Video]. TED Conferences. http://www.ted.com/talks/ nnedi_okorafor_sci_fi_stories_that_imagine_a_future_africa

[21] C. S. Petersen (2021) (Science) fiction as prototyping. In Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies, Futures Shaping Art / Art Shaping Futures. Available online: http://cifs.dk/news/report-futures-shaping-art-art-shaping-futures

[22] M. Ratto (2011) Critical making: Conceptual and material studies in technology and social life. The Information Society, 27(4), 252ââ‚¬“60.

[23] M. Ratto, and S. Hockema (2009) FLWR PWR: Tending the walled garden. Walled garden. (pp. 51–60). Available from: http://criticalmaking.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/2448_alledgar den_ch06_ratto_hockema.pdf (30 August, 2021)

[24] I. Shklovski (2021). Our digital social life. In L. Lievrouw and B. Loader (Eds.) Routledge Handbook of Digital Media and Communication, Routledge, p. 126-142.

[25] I. Shklovski and E. GrÃ¶nvall (2020) CreepyLeaks: Participatory speculation through demos. In Proceedings of the 11th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, 1ââ‚¬“12. Tallinn Estonia: ACM. http://doi.org/10.1145/3419249.3420168.

[26] J. P. Spradley (1980) Participant Observation. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston

[27] L. Zaidi (2019). Worldbuilding in science fiction, foresight and design. Journal of Future Studies, 23(4), 15-25. Retrieved Aug 28, 2021, from: http://jfsdigital.org/articles-and-essays/vol-23-no-4-june-2019/worldbuilding-in-science-fiction-foresight-and-design/

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