Category Archives: published

Paper Submitted to ISEA 2011

Posted on by
Reply

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 The analog bar code that has for so long been a dumb, encrypted reference to a shop’s inventory system will be superseded by an open platform in which every object manufactured will be traceable from producer to distributor, and potentially every single person who comes into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.
Continue reading →

Paper presented at Web Studies Congress 2010

Posted on by
Reply

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

circulating contexts – CURATING MEDIA/NET/ART

Posted on by
Reply

context

As part of my work with KURATOR, on their kurator software, some of my work has been published in circulating contexts by Cont3xt.

Curating Internet-based Art in a media of its own developed into a multifaceted communication process on content among users of all backgrounds and provenances. Net curators are deemed cultural context providers, meta artists, power users, filter feeders or simply proactive consumers. Curating (on) the Web, as termed it in 1998 already, not only creates a public space for Net Art protagonists, but also enables them to participate in creating their own public space, which often takes on the form of discursive models. Handling technological developments and knowledge about existing channels of communication are integral parts of net curating, as are providing resources, initiating collaborations and remaining in contact with international networks.

Read more at www.curating.cont3xt.net

Paper presented at DiGRA 2007

Posted on by
Reply

Unfortunately I could not join Margarete in Tokyo for the presentation of our paper ‘Ludic Society Tagged City Play: Judgement Day for 1st Life Game Figures. A locative REAL PLAY in RFID implants and mobile game maps in a real city’, co-written with Max Moswitzer, which has been shortlisted for this year’s Digital Games Research Association International Conference (2007).

Ludic Society Magazine Issue #3

Posted on by
Reply

ludicmagazine

We are at the brink of entering into an age of everything you own being numbered, identified, catalogued, and tracked. Radio frequency technology, 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. 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, wearables and smartifacts; networked objects that are capable of communicating what they are, and what is going on in the space around them. Forever part of the object, RFID transponders are designed to respond whenever they receive a signal, continuously transmitting information to whomever chooses to read it. Does RFID become the ultimate marketing exercise? The means of complete control? Finally removing all anonymity and privacy in a continuous stream of invisible communication. Is this the moment where the real world and the Internet become inseparably linked, occupying the same space, becoming the same reality? A merging of 1st and 2nd Life, where your car knows what you eat, your fridge knows who you talk to, and your phone knows where you go.