Built Environment Material/Digital Politics/Economics Science! Speculations Technology [future shock] [key texts]
by Justin
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[key texts / future shock] Cities on the Edge
If you’re reading this, you need to lay your hands on a copy of Transhuman Space: Cities on the Edge. I’ve written previously on my appreciation of the weight and seriousness of the Transhuman Space setting, and this particular supplement, from science writer Waldemar Ingmar and polymath-transhumanist Anders Sandberg, is no exception.
Razor-sharp futurism, sketching the possible shape developments in architecture, infrastructure, and urban culture over the next century, including a plausibly surreal vision of Stockholm, circa 2100.
93 pages. $12.99. Includes the phrases, ‘Beyond advances in life extension, uploading could in principle allow an ageless posthuman monarch’ and ‘The Nuiwhare Heretaunga arcology outside Hastings, New Zealand, was constructed in 2058 as a Maori cultural community.’ High-quality brain food. Recommended.
(That said, I’m slightly concerned to see the best futures work being smuggled into popular culture through RPG supplements — what would Stuart Candy say?)
Design Material/Digital Real Life Science! Technology Writing
by Justin
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Cyborgs, Cascadia, Capitalism, Superstruct, Superflux
It’s been a busy couple of months. In anticipation of a potential September return to London, I’d scheduled a marathon series of pints with interesting people, in the hope of reverse engineering a way to make enough money for rent, food, and a speedy internet connection. It seems to have gone well, and – as a result – I’m feeling a lot less fight-or-flightish about the prospect of a looming adulthood.
Roughly simultaneously, I’ve also been working with post-disciplinary design company Superflux; levering my newfound knowledge of cyborg anthropology to help with a project about (dis)ability and the post/transhuman sensorium. Here’s their enigma-drenched summary:
‘Between that, we are prototyping a series of ideas for our new Lab project titled ‘Song of the Machine‘, a mind-boggling optogenetics/neuroscience project in partnership Dr. Patrick Degenaar, Newcastle University and Dr. Anders Sandberg. This is a long-term project with different design aspects. But for now, our first short piece (to be done in less then 4 weeks!) is commissioned by the Science Gallery, Dublin, for their upcoming exhibition HUMAN+ The Future of our Species. Super exciting!’
It is, at that; and includes a trip to Ireland in mid-April – the perfect opportunity to collect some more material for a personal project on collapsonomics and European electoral politics.
In the meantime, some reading …
By me; hosted elsewhere:
- How should I design a trans-continental leisurely road-trip to maximize “literary potential”? [Quora; the seeds of what I'm tentatively naming 'Operation Cascadia']
- Counterfactual Confessional [Storify]
- Life Map, version 0.1 [Flickr]
By other people:
- “It’s not a war, it’s a rescue mission” [m1k3y, grinding.be]
- Nuclear Counterinsurgency [Nick Mirzoeff, For the Right to Look]
- How Social Movements Happen (and part two) [Seb Paquet, Emergent Cities]
- Revolution from the Edge [John Hagel, Edge Perspectives]
- On Public Objects: Connected Things And Civic Responsibilities In The Networked City [Adam Greenfield, Cognitive Cities]
- Closing Keynote, IXDA 11 [Bruce Sterling]
- The Future is Here Today, and it’s Superdense [Scott Smith, Changeist]
- New Europe: The life of a German family [Stuart Jefferies, The Guardian]
- On the Very Idea of a Super-Swarm [Dr David Roden, enemyindustry]
