Category Archives: conferences

Paper Submitted to ISEA 2011

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Object Geography: The Internet of Things
Duncan Shingleton
Download: Object Geography: The Internet of Things

The emerging phenomenon known as the Internet of Things (IOT) refers to the technical and cultural shift anticipated as society moves towards a ubiquitous form of computing that facilitates the connection of everyday objects and devices to all kinds of networks. The analog bar code that has for so long been a dumb, encrypted reference to a shop’s inventory system will be superseded by an open platform in which every object manufactured will be traceable from producer to distributor, and potentially every single person who comes into contact with it following its purchase. Furthermore, every object that comes close to another object and is within range of a reader could also be logged on a database and used to find correlations between owners and applications.

The Internet of Things creates a link between concrete objects and abstract data, producing a hybrid of physical and electronic spaces that enables communication and interaction between people and things, and things themselves. It is an all-encompassing framework to reflect on and design towards more digital connectivity, a system that is local and global, accessible in real-time from any location. Through item based tagging and identification, the Internet of Things will take ubiquitous computing – anytime and anywhere communications – to the next step in networking: ‘anything communications’. However the Internet of Things is at risk of simply becoming a platform whose primary benefit is to offer improved indexing and tracking of manufactured consumer goods from cradle to grave. Therefore this paper aims to re-contextualize the Internet of Things, and explore theory relating to the attachment of data to an object, and as a result the role objects might have in our networks.
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Remember Me & RememberUs – TOTeM

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Following the success of RememberMe’s debut incarnation at FutureEverything 2010, TOTeM and Oxfam are joining forces to roll out the project an Internet of Old things nationally. To celebrate, RememberUs hits the Northern Quarter, hijacking Oxfam Emporium and Oxfam Originals on Oldham Street.

This time the team has set up two shops that act as supernatural portals to the Internet of Things. ‘Let go’ of the memories of your favourite things by attaching YouTube or Audioboo clips on to objects in the Oxfam Emporium, and moments later in the Oxfam Originals shop just down the street, people will ‘pick up’ your memory when it is re-associated with another ‘thing’ that they choose buy.

FutureEverything 2011

Remember Me & LettingGo/PickingUp submitted to FutureEverything

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Following the success of Remember Me’s debut incarnation at FutureEverything 2010, TOTeM and Oxfam are joining forces to roll out the project an Internet of Old things nationally. To celebrate, LettingGo/PickingUp
hits the Northern Quarter, hijacking Oxfam Emporium and Oxfam Originals on Oldham Street.

This time the team has set up two shops that act as supernatural portals to the Internet of Things. ‘Let go’ of the memories of your favourite things by attaching YouTube or Audioboo clips on to objects in the Oxfam Emporium, and moments later in the Oxfam Originals shop just down the street, people will ‘Pick up’ your memory when it is re-associated with another ‘thing’ that they choose buy.

The RememberMe and LettingGo/PickingUp project is powered by TOTeM tagging technology and uses the www.talesofthings.com website to allow anybody to attach a memory to a thing, and receive a unique printable tag that they can attach to the object.

Take Me I’m Yours submitted to ISEA 2011

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Take Me I’m Yours is a third generation Internet of Things (IoT) artwork that evokes ‘actions’. Deployed as an iPhone app that allows users to read a traditional barcode that is associated with everyday consumer items. Upon scanning a code the user is prompted with an action to do something with the artefact: “Give me to your neighbour”, or “Take me to work with you”. Through actions that correspond with ‘real world’ contexts ‘Take Me I’m Yours’ encourages the movement of things through people, places and circumstances to provoke new histories and question the perceived function and value of artefacts. When the Cornflakes packet is browsed at home by a family and it says “Turn me inside out and design your own packet”, the artefact is given a voice that provokes a self-transformative action.

Download: Take Me I’m Yours Proposal

Take Me I’m Yours is a project developed by: Rachel Clarke, Christian Dindler, Daniela Petrelli, Duncan Shingleton, Rachel Charlotte Smith and Chris Speed.

The Take Me I’m Yours artwork was developed during the Heritage Inquiries: A Designerly Approach To Human Values workshop at the DIS 2010 conference in Aarhus.

Abstract submitted to ISEA 2011

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Object Geography: The Internet of Things
Duncan Shingleton

The emerging phenomenon known as the Internet of Things refers to the technical and cultural shift anticipated as society moves towards a ubiquitous form of computing that facilitates the connection of everyday objects and devices to all kinds of networks. The Internet of Things creates a link between concrete objects and abstract data, producing a hybrid of physical and electronic spaces, which enables communication and interaction between people and things, and things themselves. However the Internet of Things, resulting through the convergence of identification and location technologies, is at risk of simply becoming a platform whose primary benefit is to offer improved indexing and tracking of manufactured consumer goods from cradle to grave; through manufacturer to distributor, to potentially every single person who comes in to contact with it following its purchase.

Through the combination of digital art practice and theory relating to Human Geography and Actor-Network Theory, the author aims to re-contextualise the Internet of Things, arguing how objects endowed with informational shadows could create a new layer of complex relationships that were previously not visible in our networks. This in turn could allow us to rethink our understanding of the structure and agency of a network, by examining the pattern of interactions represented by how people to people, people to things, and things themselves are connected to one another. Networking objects means we could possibly gain new insights into how we make places, how we organize space and society, how we interact with each other in places and across space and time, and how we make sense of others and ourselves in our locality, region, and world. The Internet of Things may well provide a possible framework that not only allows human agents, but also object agents to play constructive as well as destructive and transformative roles in the social production of space.

RememberMe presented at FutureEverything 2010

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12 May – 15 May 2010, Oxfam, Manchester

The RememberMe artwork is a collaborative project with the Oxfam shop, near Contact Theatre. Leading up to FutureEverything, a research assistant will be based in the shop and recording brief stories about the donated objects into a microphone: where they acquired it, the memories attached and any associated stories. This audio clip will be linked to an RFID tag and QR code.

During FutureEeverything all tagged items will then join the shop’s stock. Customers, including conference delegates, will be invited to use our bespoke RFID readers, or their own smart phone to browse artifacts, displayed amongst the many thousands of other objects.

Once triggered, RememberMe labeled objects, will replay the story through speakers located in the shop, evoking ghosts of the past. Tagged objects will be in the public domain for purchase by other members of the community. Our iPhone and Android apps will allow them to access the story for years to come.

FutureEverything delegates are encouraged to bring something to the conference to donate to Oxfam, and to record a story with it.

The project is developed by the TOTeM project, a UKRC Digital Economy funded project to explore the social potential of the Internet of Things.

Visit: RememberMe, FutureEverything 2010
Watch: Video of RememberMe at FutureEverything

Paper presented at Web Studies Congress 2010

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Web Studies Congress 2010

The 1st international congress on Web Studies was held at Monterrey Tech in Toluca, Mexico. It aimed at providing a venue for researchers and professionals from different backgrounds for discussion, study, practical demonstrations, sharing, and exchange on new developments and theories regarding the World Wide Web. The congress therefore invited contributions from a heterogeneous set of fields and domains such as: Web systems, computational intelligence, human-computer interaction, digital theory, Web sociology, and well as interactive and digital arts.

Download: The Memorable: Applying the Internet of Things to Small Communities
Download: Web Studies Congress Book of Proceedings

Short Paper submitted to Web Studies Congress 2010

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The Memorable: Applying the Internet of Things to small communities
Shingleton, D., Sutherland, K.

RFID, radio frequency identification, is a technology that is now rapidly being developed by corporations and governments who see the possibilities and advantages of managing large bodies of objects. By seamlessly embedding an RFID chip into an object, it is possible to assign it a unique identification, allowing databases of specific item/location/relationship information to be generated, providing for real-time identification and tracking over the course of its life from cradle to grave.

The use of RFID in conjunction with database technologies allows us to understand a truly ubiquitous network, an Internet of Things, which offers up new possibilities in which our environment becomes a conduit of information transfer between people to people, people to things, and things themselves. This generates a new perspective in the way we view and interact with the Internet. No longer are we outside this mass of information, curating its content in a web 2.0 model of tags, keywords and trackbacks, instead we share the network with objects capable of communicating what they are, and what is going on in the space around them; active members of society, contributing not only to the social web, but also the physical world.

Abstract submitted to the XVII ISA World Congress of Sociology

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You’re Part of the Global Network
Duncan Shingleton

Radio frequency identification, or RFID, is a technology that is now rapidly being developed by corporations and governments who see the possibilities and advantages of managing large bodies of objects. By seamlessly embedding an RFID chip into an object, we now assign it a unique identification, allowing databases of specific item/location/relationship information to be generated, giving each object its own identity for real-time identification and tracking.  RFID allows for more accurate inventories, automated re-ordering and improved market analysis; data capture that takes place without the need for line of sight or physical manipulation.

This paper reflects beyond the logistical benefits of the technology, and instead attempts to identify the social benefits that might arise. Tagged with an RFID chip, an object will have a unique digital identity and play a pivotal role in joining the physical world with the digital.  As this technology moves into products, sensitive documents and even the human body, an Internet of Things will emerge consisting of blogjects, spimes, cybrids, technemes, wearables and smartifacts; networked objects that are capable of communicating what they are, and what is going on in the space around them.

As we see what can only be defined as a truly ubiquitous network environment emerging, it offers up new possibilities where our environment becomes a conduit of information transfer between people to people, people to things, and things themselves. This generates a new perspective in the way we view and interact with the Internet. Now we are caught inside of the net, in an always-on, invisible stream of data transfer. No longer are we outside this mass of information, curating its content in a web 2.0 model of tags, keywords and trackbacks, instead we share the network with objects that become active members of society, contributing not only to the social web, but also the physical world.

Paper submitted to IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society

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How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Tagging: Overcoming the Public Fear of Tagging Culture.

Burke, M. Shingleton, D. Speed, C. Hudson-Smith, A. Karpovich, A. O’Callaghan, S. Simpson, M. Barthel, R. Blundell, B. De Jode, M. Leder, K Lee, C. Macdonald, J.

Abstract

Many people associate tagging with negative situations, for example, to track “criminals” or to track journeys and locations. RFID and other forms of near field tagging are being adopted for logistical purposes by commercial industries and governments alike and the UK public remain fearful of the implications of a tagging culture. This paper reflects upon the extent of “tagging culture” fears and identifies them as a significant problem that is preventing widespread public acceptance of the technology and hampering its social, economic and technical benefits.

As a form of recovery for this dire situation, the authors present information concerning an EPSRC project that uses a fresh tactic to encourage the public to actively use tagging technologies themselves and to reap the benefits. TOTeM (Tales of Things and Electronic Memory) is a three-year funded pan-UK project that focuses on the archiving of people’s memories associated with specific objects. Through the technical development of simple interfaces aimed at the home user, people are encouraged to tell a story about an object, to record the associated memory and to ‘tag’ their object in a unique way that will always associate their memory with their artefact.
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