Talk at Lift07: Embracing the Real World’s Messiness
On Friday, I gave a talk on Embracing the Real World’s Messiness (slides, video) at the Lift Conference open stage session. Some people in the audience took notes and pictures, including Tom Hume (Future Platforms), Hubert Guillaud (Fing, en français) and Mark Meagher (EPFL).
Relation to my thesis: While I did not present the core of my research, the topic can serve as introduction to my thesis.
I felt a research or engineering talk would not have completely fit to the audience. Therefore, I rather preferred taking the role of the observer of the current integration of sensor technologies in our everyday life in order to question the seamlessness and calmness visions in ubiquitous computing. Even though I feel I only communicated 1/3 of my thoughts, the feedback I received suggest that I delivered my message. In his wrap-up talk (video), Daniel Kaplan shared my observations in highlighting that “we’re using technology to create disorder – you can call it innovation, I call it disorder”. I have been enjoying reading Daniel since he coined the term “Désordinateurs” in reaction from the “Utopie du lisse“.
This talk was based on a few previous blog post, including:
- Coexistence of Systems and System Failures (inspired by the work and thoughts of Jan Chipchase, Adam Greenfield and Mark Meagher)
- The Technological Tower of Babel (art work by Eboy)
- Comparing AI’s Failures with Ubicomp’s Visions (Ben Kraal and Larry Irons)
- Yesterday’s Tomorrows: Notes on Ubiquitous Computing’s Dominant Vision (Geneviève Bell and Paul Dourish)
- Moving on from Weiser’s Vision of Calm Computing: Engaging UbiComp Experiences (Yvonne Rodgers)
- Adam Greenfield on ubicomp (Adam Greenfield interviewed by Daniel Kaplan)
- Invisible Infrastructure and Communicating Failure and Malfunctioning to the User (Norbert Streitz and Paddy Nixon)
- Interference in Deployed Ubiquitous Computing Systems (Ricardo Morla)
February 13th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
[…] Had many discussions on OpenStreetMap. It’s highly regarded conceptually, but practically not many people have had the stomach for it. The workshops are there to address this steep learning curve, shoulder to shoulder style, but there are definitely much to be done on usability and engaging with multiple technical levels. The sparodic connectivity of the devices themselves, in Geneva’s urban canyons, had participants puzzled and it makes me realized that GPS receivers are not well designed for this at all .. they’re either for navigation or passive recording .. not the active recording of OSM. Fabien Giradin’s talk on Embracing the Real Worlds Messiness resonated strongly here .. we need to design the OSM experience to account for when it breaks, and things like the Yahoo Imagery helps greatly. Like Jan Chipchase, he has a strong eye for environmental details which reveal hidden truths, like English Sinks. As computers pervade more of life, strange interactions and broken infrastructure will become more common not less. I want to “Play with Noise and Disorder” and may draw up some maps of GPS reception strength here in Brighton. Fabien ended by comparing “seamless” design to strong AI, and asked “do we really want to live in a calm world?” (no, we seem to desire messiness). […]
April 13th, 2007 at 3:21 am
I’ve just watched the video and I had to say that I really enjoyed your presentation.
April 30th, 2007 at 10:48 pm
[…] N’oublions pas que Borges mentionne deux états de la carte à échelle 1:1 : le projet abouti de l’empereur et les ruines qu’a laissées celui-ci après son abandon. La carte 1:1 numérique est un projet. Ce projet procède du mouvement naturel d’Internet qui est, comme l’écrit D. Kaplan décrit dans un autre texte très juste, de tout connecter et de descendre dans l’espace physique pour doter chacune de ses composantes d’une “aura numériqueâ€?, en interaction potentielle avec toutes les autres”. Mais, comme il le montre, ce projet de l’interconnexion parfaite, censé produire un ordre technologique rationnel, est maintenant assez avancé pour qu’on devine qu’il n’est vraisemblablement qu’un rêve (ou un cauchemar). On a nommé les computers des ordinateurs en français car la fonction supposée de ces nouvelles machines était de mettre de l’ordre dans le monde. Ils ont pourtant contribué, autant sinon plus, à l’émergence de désordre, d’inattendu et d’irrationnel. Peut-on vraiment considérer les sociétés du temps de l’informatique comme plus ordonnées et plus prévisibles que celles qui les ont procédées ? Fabien Girardin dans sa communication à la conférence Lift 2007 et Hubert Guillaud dans le billet d’Internet Actu qui en rend compte questionnent la possibilité de construire des systèmes informatiques sans couture, sans coupure et sans panne. Ils mettent aussi en doute notre souhait profond de vivre dans un monde lisse, piloté par une technologie omniprésente, invisible, parfaite et sans bruit. Il est donc fort possible que dans les “empires” de demain cohabiteront plusieurs projets de Cartes Numériques Démesurées et Dilatées toutes inconciliables entre elles, ainsi que les ruines de nombreux autres projets inaboutis et abandonnés. Et cela ne sera pas forcément un mal. […]
September 24th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
[…] to my thesis: This paper proved to be a rather timely reading (in continuation to train of thought started earlier this year at LIFT). From what I have seen in Innsbruck, these topics are still […]
January 17th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
[…] Relation to my thesis: a collaborative follow-up from last year’s monologue at LIFT. […]
March 10th, 2008 at 2:34 am
[…] 7.5th Floor » Blog Archive » Talk at Lift07: Embracing the Real World’s Messiness “I rather preferred taking the role of the observer of the current integration of sensor technologies in our everyday life in order to question the seamlessness and calmness visions in ubiquitous computing.” […]
March 30th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
[…] to my thesis: I now ditched the argumentation on messiness, but keep enjoying observing and recording moments of sliding friction. In that sense, this […]
May 13th, 2008 at 7:04 am
[…] that new technologies may not be more profound than those which preceded them and as previously argumented and published: The tendency to talk of new technologies in hyperbolic terms in unfortunate. One […]
June 25th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Fabien, I appreciate the mention. Messiness is an apt term for the topic, though I’d suggest the term cuts both ways. The “visionaries” who advocate for seamless ubicomp enviornments, I would argue, consider the user messy and too often aim to take their decisions out of the situation in the name of “personalization”. The point of view is implied in the paternalistic concept that seams are just too much information overload for the poor user. A seam is always a point of control, or power. It doesn’t take a software engineer to know that seams never disappear in seamless interfaces, they just become unavailable to users.
The whole mess is directly analogous to the early expert systems debate about whether those artificial intelligence applications were suited best to give advice to users making decisions, or make the decisions for the users.
August 23rd, 2008 at 8:17 pm
[…] of urban informatics that echoes well with Sliding Friction, From Sentient to Responsive Cities, Embracing the Real World’s Messiness and Phil Hubbard’s hybrid city. I would add to Adam’s comment that urban informatics […]
February 3rd, 2009 at 11:15 pm
[…] the spirit of 2007’s Embracing the Real World’s Messiness and 2008’s Sliding Frictions, the plan to install GPS-ready bus tracking equipment to New […]
March 2nd, 2009 at 7:58 pm
[…] Some speakers discussed the study of failures (Nicolas Nova) and the acknowledgment of chaos (Fabio Sergio discussed that hope and dreams carried in design only show a perfect world, a world that does not exist, and then had the necessary slide on the Napoli garbare issue) as part of the design process. It was music to my hears after talking about seamful design and mesiness at lift07. […]