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>>>CLICK FOR THE VIDEO EDITS USED ON INSA STORIES AND TIKTOK<<<
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Category Archives: Cybernetics
cyberculture [digital artefact pitch]
“High tech. Low life.”
Background Research
I’ll be researching the history and iconography of the cyberpunk genre so that I can successfully incorporate cyberpunk references and ideas into my original content. This can be achieved by familiarising myself with and analyzing popular cyberpunk literature, films, news media, academic articles, and lecture materials.
Literature; Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Philip K. Dick, 1968), The Shockwave Rider (John Brunner, 1975), Neuromancer (William Gibson, 1984)
Films; Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982), Ghost in the Shell (Mamoru Oshii, 1995) Alita: Battle Angel (Robert Rodriguez, 2019)
News Media; Bringing Cyberpunk 2077 To Life (GameSpot, 2019), Neon and corporate dystopias: why does cyberpunk refuse to move on? (The Guardian, 2018), What Is Cyberpunk? (Neon Dystopia)
Academic Articles/Books;
Csicsery-Ronay, I., 1988. Cyberpunk and neuromanticism. Mississippi Review, 16(2/3), pp.266-278.
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Growth EP and the bonus track!
Contextual Essay:
Concept
Growth (Deluxe) is a musical project that mostly explores spiritual aspects of love, peace and happiness, while briefly, in a bonus song, touching on our material and philosophical relationship with technology. I want to invite the listener to grow as an individual, and inspire them to progress with meaning and be happy. By impacting one person, in consequence a ripple effect could occur for 10, 15 or 20 years. Imagine the inspiration of one human to change themselves, inspiring someone else!
Methodology
The project is F.I.S.T, (fast, inexpensive, simple and tiny). It was put together by using free recording software and a relatively cheap Blue Yeti microphone. I recorded the Whole project at home so there was no paid for studio time. I did all the editing and mastering on each track. To post my songs, I used Sound cloud, a free platform for artists.
Research
The…
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You Gotta Have Sole
(via TechCrunch)
In the last blog post I tried to give a sort of overview of the concept and the existing ideas around 3D-printing footwear. So in this post I want to address how I’m travelling with the project, and do a bit of a deeper dive into the research and literature surrounding the topic.
How is the project coming along?
When I first laid out my ideas for the project I think I too heavily leaned on the process of me attempting to make a 3D-printed shoe sole, while neglecting the more interesting things like the existing technology and its implications for the future of footwear.
For me, learning how this technology can be made viable for wider implementation is the most interesting part. I love all aspects of footwear, having worked in the industry at a retail and now corporate level. So I can definitely appreciate the…
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The Ethics of Tracking your Family ~ Privacy, Surveillance and Geoslavery
Tracking children has become an extremely contentious topic within our technologically advancing society. Norms are being broken and boarders between space and time consequently blurred. It is within our nature to be curious about the actions of others, but when does it become an unethical form of surveillance which is explored in a plethora of fictional media and channels.
The basis and early analysis of this topic will be unpacked further in this blog post including justification and reference to academic, news, political, social and pop culture sources. Through these studies, we can identify the nature of micro chipping humans and the ethical implications it will have on society through primary and secondary sources in conjunction with my digital artefact.
Discussion
Micro-chipping humans allows for a new way of humans to communicate with digital worlds, technology and cyberspace. However, are these benefits ethical and do they…
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Healthcare Robots
Since my last post discussing my interest in researching the future use of robots in mental health treatment, I have received feedback from the audience of the Future Cultures blog and Chris Moore which has lead to me altering the nature of my area of research to examining the use of robotics in the sphere of healthcare, in present day, whilst also speculating upon the potential future uses of robotics in the medical field, based upon representations in popular culture.
In this post, I will discuss the current state of robotics used in healthcare and the academic research shaping the future of medical robotics and share any newsworthy information related to the applications of healthcare robots.
A quick Wikipedia search reveals that there are several types of medical robots currently in use, these include:
Surgical Robots: robots capable of assisting or performing surgery
Rehabilitation Robots: robots like PARO who assist…
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Research Proposal: The Ethics of Tracking Your Family
Every parent worries about their child. In an age of mobile phones, microchips and other advanced technology that can be utilised to pin point locations, why would parents not track their children? We are in a world where cybernetics and growing technologies supply us with the power of knowledge and information beyond our own physical, human capabilities. What then is made of the ethical implications of ‘stalking’ a child, their internet usage and willingly allowing ourselves to be programmed by this technology into thinking that this kind of behavior is normal?
Cyber-cultures refers to “issues and concerns which have arisen as a result of the proliferation of digitally-enabled communication, networked computation and media technologies and internet practices.” (Moore, 2018). Truly within this relationship between a digital and a reality complex, we can identify that technology is making considerable bounds in becoming increasingly prevalent in human activities.
Tracking…
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Politics and Ideologies of Data Visualisation
Introduction
The following progress report on my research into the politics and ideologies of data visualisation, begins with a brief overview of my academic, scholarly and industry-relevant research and includes concise summaries of arguments to be shared in related DICG335 projects.
I am a Bachelor of Arts undergraduate student, majoring in sociology and minoring in design. Questions of politics and ideology, broad public policy positions and related agendas overlap and concern the agendas of social policy analysts.
My undergraduate training brings the academically relevant study of neoliberalism, population geography and statistics to bear on the progress of my current project. Relevantly, since 2011 I have conducted independent research into the politics and ideology of data visualisation in examining the social issue known as forced adoption. I have also undertaken independent historical research into 20th century Australian state welfare policies and practices. This background knowledge informs my current research and provides the interim results of an ongoing case study. Significantly, I have also sourced the collaborative subject blog, Cybercultures, where Dr. Christopher Moore recently introduced me to Accelerationism, theories of systems decay, entropy and more.
Resources that have guided the development of my topic thus far are hyperlinked in the following draft outline of my research report. Each of four headings below open with a related concise summary of related arguments to be shared in Assessments 2 & 3. These summaries have been informed by DIGC335 course material suggests and are paraphrased as block quotes below. The following research has relevance not only to the industries of social work and child welfare but education and software development.
Data visualisation, history and cyberculture
I will argue that data visualisation technology looks to the past as much as it does to the future in thinking about cyberculture and the types of technological, corporate, political, social, and legal changes that have been represented in popular culture.
- Age of the internet and information fatigue and overload
- ’Big Data’
- The heroics of well displayed information
- Leaders in the field
- Hans Rosling
- Making sense of data visualisations
- Data visualisation and Sociology
- Leaders in the field
- The future of data visualisation
- Emphasising data over design variation to increase greater scepticism of data, consider new hypothesis.
- Are we asking too much of technology and not enough of ourselves?
Politics and ideologies of data visualisation
I will argue that governments and bureaucracies have significant authority in the relationship between the user and the computer, aiming questions of cyberculture at the legitimacy of related structures of command and control.
- Politics of data visualisation
- Concealment of ideological assumptions and political and ideological agendas.
- Values inherent in data selection, methods, media and designs.
- Power relations.
- Concealment of ideologies and agendas with ‘hard facts’.
- Visual rhetoric
- Propaganda101
- Neoliberalism
- Hegemonic discourse
- Gate Keepers
- Who has the control?
- Web-based social movements and marginalised groups.
- Countering government stats
Case study: Towards a statistical and contextual analysis of forced adoption (unpublished and ongoing)
This emancipatory research was undertaken to examine the statistical grounds for viewing ‘forced adoption’ as a ‘product of the times‘ (see mores of society, predicated by legislation prohibiting their taboos).
It will be employed in the current research to exemplify how the politics and ideologies of data visualisation speak to the limits and affordances of our technology infused realities.
- Significant findings:
- Illegitimate children are a known targeted group (para 2:14, p.34, Senate Report).
- Statistical analysis reveals trends at odds with what social scientists regarded as indicative of social mores in 1976 (see Kraus).
- Forced adoptions peaked between 1953-4, contrary to hegemonic discourse.
- Historical practices and policies consistently correlated with exponential trends in annual proportions of adoptions to ex-nuptial births.
- Evidence of a crisis between 1965-72 and an exponential increase in welfare payments to unmarried women aged 17 and over 1971-72.
- Underpinning ideologies, such as euthenics and eugenics (White Australia Policy), suggested systematisation or automation of social and political policies of illegitimate child removal.
- National and state exponential decline in adoptions circa 1971-2 may be due to social entropy.
Imaginaries and Futures
Scholarly research will be employed to argue that the politics and ideologies of data visualisation speak to a broad range of issues and concerns which have arisen as a result of the proliferation of digitally-enabled communication, networked computation and media technologies and practices.
- Galtung in 1967 – Systems of low and high entropy
- Macrosociology
- A Systems Theory Perspective
- Accelerationism
- Degrowth
Header image:
Infinite Unknown, 2017, retrieved March 16, <http://www.infiniteunknown.net/tag/history/>
The future of prostheses looks cool
Traditionally we tend to think of prostheses as being strictly attributed to the disabled and the impaired. Prostheses get a pretty bad wrap, they are thought of negatively, as a kind of supplement to the ‘natural’ human body – a second best. But there is a new space growing in contemporary society thanks to modern science and technology along with the help of the internet, a space where prosthetics are cool. Contemporary prosthetics and those of the future don’t just mock the ‘natural’ human body – they go beyond the constraints of it potentially making someone….superhuman?
In a pod cast ‘The Internet of Things’ which you can find here, Andreea Borcea talks about, among other things, A foot designed by MIT which adapts to an individual’s gate allowing them to walk ‘seamlessly’ – so to speak. She also mentions DARPA’s touch sensitive artificial prosthetics which are currently being developed (For more cool stuff about linking the body’s nervous system with a prosthetic I recommend that you have a geez at this Ted Talk by Todd Kuiken).
These contemporary technologies not only allow ‘disabled’ people to simulate the ‘natural’ body and ‘normalize’ their body, but they also work to breakdown the distinction between able-bodied and disabled. When a human being who has lost…say their left arm, has theability to do all the same things as another human being thanks to a bionic limb intervention, how can we say they are disabled?? To extend that thought, think about ‘natural’ human legs; they are stuck there, we are unable to change them. Think about someone with one or more prosthetic limbs, they have the potential and opportunity to change and adapt their limbs to suit certain circumstances and situations. Take a look and listen to Hugh Herr for example who has two bionic legs and is the project director for the Powered Ankle-Foot Prosthesis at MIT.
When we think about prosthetics like this, it becomes clear that the future of prosthetic technology will allow people to go beyond the constraints of the ‘organic’ human body. Can we really still label these people as disabled? Will it come to a point where it is fashionable to replace flesh and blood with metal and wires?
Future Cultures 