Denisa Kera

From agency and subjectivity to animism: phenomenological and Science Technology Studies (STS) approach to design of large techno-social systems

The social, ecological and technological challenges, starting on the scale of a small-scale city block to the megapolises and further, force us to rethink the user agency in design. What is needed is a Copernican Revolution that will question the centrality of the user and the human and offer a more balanced model for interaction between different agencies, that is more sensitive to the issues of sustainability, co-dependence and symbiosis which we face within such complex and hybrid systems. One way to go is to rethink the early phenomenological concepts of a subject that is more tightly connected and even defined by its environment (Lifeworld, Dasein). Another approach is to thematise the possibilities and limits of non-human agency and define design in terms of creating new networks and assemblages as described by science technology studies (STS) and posthumanist philosophy.

Designing for Death and Apocalypse: Theodicy of Networks and Uncanny Archives

Recent design and art experiments with software, hardware, and emergent biotechnologies reflect upon the uncanny relation between death and technology and generate some unique responses to human mortality and possible apocalypse. By looking at how these projects push the limits of what is considered a proper burial, tribute, memorialization, and archiving, we can better understand our individual and collective responses to mortality and explore some unexpected uses of technologies.

Promises and Perils of Open Source Technologies for Development: Can the “Subaltern” Research and Innovate?

The paper summarizes the current state of the “Openness Paradigm” for development, with a focus on open source hardware and the related issues of open science, open data, and open access. It focuses on how such efforts support more equal collaborations between North and South on open science and citizen projects. It also discusses these efforts as an example of an inclusive Research and Development (R&D) agenda different from the traditional practice of technology transfer, which enforces the hierarchical notion of “development.” We apply the present postcolonial studies discourse along with contemporary discussions in the west on public participation in science, as a framework to discuss Technology for Development (Tech4Dev). Thus, bringing attention to nontraditional formats and institutions, and new institution–community relations, as examples of a more democratic and inclusive Tech4Dev agenda.

From Data Realism to Dada Aggregations: Visualizations in Digital Art, Humanities and Popular Culture

The orientation towards data in arts, humanities and pop culture in recent years brings a renewed interest in realism and iconoclasm. The various APIs (Application programming interfaces) and mashups that are employed in these traditionally “qualitative” disciplines offer tools for creative and often critical interpretations. Data are becoming means of a critical distance to the visual and media saturated world that bring whole new perspective on our everyday life and reality. These emerging critical and visual practices define a realism based on data rather than on human perception, reason or some strong ontological theses. This data oriented realism does not simply represent reality but performs the modern processes of its construction with an almost iconoclastic fervor. It offers a distance from the power and seduction of the (digital) image and asks questions about their conditions of possibility, methods of gathering and the various possibilities of their representation. Visualization of various data in the form of popular user generated mashups, serious art visualizations and new digital methods in humanities create a tension between the new forms of iconoclastic realism and the more playful dada collage techniques that are satirical and rather than realist and emancipatory rather than iconoclastic. The use of visualizations in art, humanities and online popular culture (cyberculture) is defined by this tension between data realism to dada “aggregations”.

Cultural heritage in the age of real time media: developing the Living Avatars Network

Cultural heritage in Singapore is a contested zone in which various interests, starting with tourism marketing campaigns and ending with identity building of a multicultural society, compete over the function and the definition of the collective and personal past. How to preserve memories and experiences in a city that is changing rapidly and how to reflect upon the changes? How to negotiate between the disappearing and forgotten past and the omnipresent future in Singapore? With a team of five students we conducted a series of design experiments and probes to discover novel ways for motivating people to take a heritage walk which can engage both locals and nonlocals into experiencing Singapore and its ethnic and cultural diversity. In our working prototype “Living Avatars Network” we evaluated a design idea of a real-time interface for outsourcing experiences as an incentive for a special type of walk which connects not only the past with the present but also serves as a platform for intercultural and intergenerational dialogue. Singapore is an ideal place to test such interactions between the emerging technologies and the disappearing traditions. In our project we designed a novel form of “practicing” and reliving cultural heritage in the age of ubiquitous and real time technologies that bring very different temporalities into play.