#radicaltechnologies

[throughmachineanddarkness]

... The new way to of handling such situations is to look for emergent patterns in previously unstructured data ... In fact, this is what ‘big data’ is all about. There's something uncanny, almost Deleuzian about this process of interrogation: as they are iteratively resolved in ever higher fidelity, the patterns themselves begin to suggest the questions that might be asked of them.

Adam Greenfield, Radical Technologies, 2017

[gordonr]

on the neoliberal practice of governmentality...

The implicit logic operating here is that once we are furnished with an explanation, we will be able to act on it in some way. But this places the burden of responsibility on the person the law refers to as the “data subject,” who is required to seek out an explanation, and then exercise prudence in their choices once it’s been provided to them. The right enunciated here is thoroughly consonant with the neoliberal practice of governmentality, which tends to individualize hazards and recast them as issue of personal responsibility or moral failure, rather than structural and systemic issues. It’s a conception of good governance that conflates transparency with accountability: if the information is available, you’re expected to act upon it, and if you don’t, it’s nobody else’s fault but your own. This clearly relies entirely too much on the initiative, the bravery, and the energy of the individual, and fails to account for those situations, and they will be many, in which that individual is not offered any meaningful choice of action. 

One of the passages that stood out for me in Adam Greenfield’s Radical Technologies. 

[justsomedesignthings]

Design Museum | California Exhibition & Radical Technologies by Adam Greenfield

I recently visited the design museum California exhibition. It was really interesting to see how so many design trends started from one location and how they evolved. 

What is also interesting was how you can see future careers in the things that were made before, such as designing the user interface for the computer screens. A job that now is a profession more than just a side task. 

I also attended Adam Greenfields talk about his book; Radical Technologies. He really brought our attention to future technologies and how they are already affecting us. I think for me the most interesting thing is the value in data. 

Its a strange concept that companies give us things for free in order to take our data, and the ways in which they use this data. It feels almost invasive, as if we won’t have a choice anymore in how we use products. They can learn our habits and form products and services around these needs and movements. What is more strange is that it’s almost out of our control. Its impossible to not be tracked, from listening to Spotify or simply tracking what you’re eating on an app. I feel that at the moment one can only accept these requirements in order to be a part of this technologically dependant era.