[-empyre-] march discussion - the prototype perspective

[Rob van Kranenburg]

Dear all,

here is my paragraph:

greetings from sunny but chilly Ghent (spring in the air though!), Rob

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Artists have always exploited the conditions for technological change,
applications and services, from the pencil onwards. In the move towards
ubiquituous computing - from the internet to the 'internet of things'
(IoT) - the poetic process of making meaning and creating experiences is
no longer only productive on the level of design, but it lies at the heart
of the IT architecture of the system, its standards and protocols.
Distributing security – which is the key to digital systems that are
focused on control – will in a pervasive computing - IoT- environment halt
innovation, emerging uses and services and launch and learn scenarios.
Resonance not interaction is the design principle in environments where
connectivity is everywhere yet not always accessible to individual users.

IOT is a new actualization of subject-object relationships. Me and my
surroundings, objects, clothes, mobility..w h a t e v e r, will have an
added component, a digital potentiality that is potentially outside of
'my' control. Every generation builds it own add-ons to the notions of
reality, to what it believes are the foundations of the real. What makes
this move so different?

There is a table. On the table a glass. A glass of tea, jasmine? Jasmine
tea. Hmm, good tea. I reach for the glass in a hurry, I gotta run. My
hand, it feels like sweeping it off the table yet gently grasp it. I am
not in a hurry at ll. I can take it in my hand and admire the engravings.
I can see drops of condensed water gently not quite sliding over the edge.
I am not in a hurry. I pour you a glass. I offer it to you. Here, a glass
of Jasmine tea. There are a great number of ways to reach out for a glass.
And now this glass is the one your grandmother gave to you on her dying
bed. You put it on the table. Pour out jasmine tea. The affordances of a
lifetime, the scope of a generation, as your reach out for the cup, the
gesture itself becomes the reality that bridges worlds.

Let me tell you what will happen. A child will grow up and see a table. A
glass on that table. She will put her mobile phone/device/cuddle next to
the glass. She wants to find out what it is, what it means. She will for
evermore and from the beginning of her time do this with and through
mediating devices. And lo and behold, a movie starts playing on her
cuddle, triggered buy the tag embedded in the glass. The movie is scripted
by the jasmine tea providers who tell the stories they want to tell.
Finally the real has become scriptable and the scriptable becomes the
real.