Bruce Sterling Shaping Things. Michael Bruce Sterling (1954) American science fiction author, best known for his novels and for defining the cyberpunk

Bruce Sterling Shaping Things


Michael Bruce Sterling (1954)American science fiction author, best known for his novels and for defining the cyberpunk genre. Professor at the European Graduate School in 2003, where he is teaching on media and design. “Visionary in residence“ at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, in 2005.

Writes science fiction, or ”design fiction”, because he is passionate about technology and human reaction to technological change. Has a special interest in inventing new words for technosocial aspects that hasen’t yet been described.

Involved in Worldchanging weblog, an attempt to “create a "green" design movement with stylish high-tech design”. Calls himself a futurist.Currently lives in Belgrade with his wife.

Introducing Bruce


Categorizes himself to have no sense for form at all; can’t draw, can’t visualize in 3-d, can’t craft.Has despite this designed a lamp himself on request from a group of European artists.

Shaping things includes a handfull of proposals from Bruce Sterling addressed to designers who wants to help staking out a safe way for our future.

..and his lamp


-production methods currently used are NOT sustainable

-they use archaic forms of energy and material which are finite and toxic

-you have to create substantial novelty

Bruce´s Intentions


Bruce´s Expressions

ARTIFACTS

-artificial objects, made by hand and used by hand; powered by muscles - used by FARMERS



MACHINE

-complex, precisely proportioned, powered by non human/animal power source - used by COSTUMERS



PODUCTS

-widely distributed, -commercially available, -anonymousily and uniformly manufactured in massive quantities -used by CONSUMERS



GIZMOS

-widely distributed, user alterable, multifeatured objects, commonly programmable, lot of different features-cheaper to import features than tosimplify it (!) -you can tap into the internet to get more information and more features-download plug ins, sources, upgrades...used by ENDUSERS


Bruce´s a Metahistorican

METAHISTORY

-consists of yesterday, today and tomorrow-in metahistory you can lock up what was yesterday, compare that to today and also relate to the future


Bruce´s SPIME

"when the entire industrial process is made explicit, when the metrics count for more than the object they measure, then GIZMO becomes SPIME"


Bruce´s SPIME

-Spimes record everything, concerning their production process, how and by whom they are used, if it worked out or not, how they are recycled-they record mistakes and success-they are small metahisorical generator-though immatural (begin and end as data) seemingly material instantive-their collected information can be reused in future SPIMES


Bruce´s SPIME

-if you tap into a SPIME you can gain knowledge, of which you weren´t aware that you had it. -with SPIMES the whole metahistory of an object is at your hand

used by WRANGLERS


By barcodes (witch is an old way of tagging things) we can in some way keep the track of where objects are and what they are.


With the RFID tags, all objects can be registered at any time. Objects of this kind he calls arphids. To read arphids you need arphid monitors.

The arphids


When Sterling talks about The internet of things, he means that you are able to read your arphids anywhere.

With simple technology we merge the GPS system with the arphids. Then you can find out where stuff is.

The internet of things


A scenario could be you Googling your keys if you don’t remember where you put them.


If you are surrounded with a system like this, Sterling would say you live in a Synchronic society.

Synchronic society


A Synchronic society generates trillions of catalogable, searchable, trackable trajectories. Fine grained details of different patterns, distribution and recycling will synchronize and generate real time small metahistories out of every object worthy of human or machine consideration.


We will gain an almost infinite library of experiences, and we can for instance avoid wasting time doing design mistakes over and over again.


The technosocial transformation of Spimes make it possible for criminals or spies to threat our privacy.Proper Design should be the antidote to protect us.

With the new technology making it possible, this change will happen. We cannot avoid it, just guide the direction it will move in..

Threat


Most Advanced Yet Acceptable

M - grade of advancementA – time dependent possibilityY - resistment amongst certain peopleA - time spirit / zeitgeist

What’s the designers responsibility?Design helps killing more people.Design helps melting Antarctica.

This is not yet the ACCEPTABLE truth.

Raymond Loewy designed the Lucky Strike logo

Guidelines for Change


Man the tool maker = man the rubbish maker?We enjoy things, we use things; we wear them out quickly.Humans have always failed to deal with trash as we made it..

does spimes lead to a bright new future of sustainability where we as consumers has defeated most of the rubbish-makers, and instead created a self sustaining society?

Fabbing is to make physical things out of virtual plans.

The rubbish makers


cognitive load - the brainpower invested in reading, researching, talking, learning, paying attention towards a certain topic.opportunity costs – sacrifices you make for the sake of something you’d rather do, since the hours of the day can only be filled to a certain limit.

choose options, navigate risks and hope they don’t bother suing me..

End user in Gizmo age


Thinking about objects is a designers profession,we are generally generous with both cognitive load and opportunity costs.

Spimes will solve this time-problem, and they have to be designed by someone..

Design thinking


The quest for a sustainable world may succeed, or it may fail. In practice, people will experience mixed success.So what does the future look like?Utopia or Oblivion are just empty phrases, the most likely results are Ublopia and Otivion.

The future


there is no end cause with Spimes our culturehas obtained more future..

The End

Documents

Bruce Sterling Shaping Things. Michael Bruce Sterling (1954) American science fiction author, best known for his novels and for defining the cyberpunk