Current activities

Last updated: Monday, 23 September 2024

This note serves as an (irregularly-updated) index of my current activities and interests. Click on activity names or linked concepts to explore related notes.

Experimental publishing
Ethnography & computational methods
Generative models & information-seeking
Personal tools and practices

Experimental publishing

Anarchive: Experimental archival and publishing project with FoAM, mapping and recontextualising their 20+ years of transdisciplinary work.: • Context: Team-based, ongoing; • Methods: Editorial strategy, editing, writing, (an)archiving; • Current focus: Drafting texts for the fourth of five themed readers (“re/imagining technology”), planning interviews

Counterfactual computers: Exploring alternative trajectories for computing history through speculative case narratives.: • Context: Solo, slow burn; • Methods: Writing, historical research, counterfactual reasoning, STS, speculative fiction, design; • Current focus: Refining methodology, research, initial scenario development

Ethnography & computational methods

Enxaneta:¹ Collaborative Python-for-ethnography skill exchange, exploring the intersection(s) of computing and ethnographic research.: • Context: Collaboration with Tim, active development; • Methods: Programming, ethnography, software development; • Current focus: Prototyping “tiny tools” for thick description and ethnographic analysis

↳ Xamota: Research exploring the interplay of structured data and intuitive “knowing” through reflexive software development: • Context: Collaboration with Tim (part of Enxaneta), slow burn; • Methods: Reflexive software development, Bogostian carpentry; • Current focus: Scoping and definition

↳ Querent.py: Situated software for personal tarot practice; part of a larger piece of research on inuitive knowledge and computational data structures.: • Context: Solo (part of Xamota), exploratory; • Methods: Computational design, Python programming, reflective practice; • Current focus: Research and planning

Zwicky:² Exploratory tool for computer-supported morphological analysis.: • Context: Solo, slow burn; • Methods: Computational design, NLP experimentation, exploratory data representation; • Current focus: Literature review

Generative models & information-seeking

Panpneumaton:³ Post-hoc comparative study of LLM use and shamanic journeying.: • Context: Collaboration with T.M. Sullivan, slow burn; • Methods: Ethnography, comparative analysis, lateral theory; • Current focus: Editing preliminary draft paper

Latent Intimacies: Using open-source speech synthesis and language models to explore new forms of human-machine intimacy.: • Context: Team-based collaboration initiated by Vytas, dormant; • Methods: “Études Brut”⁴, ethnographic observation, interviews, interaction design; • Current focus: Seeking opportunities for further development

↻ Local language model experiments: Hosting open-source generative language models on my own laptop.: • Context: Solo, exploratory; • Methods: Staring blankly at the command line; • Current focus: Temporarily dormant

Personal tools and practices

duckyPad interactions: Prototyping novel interactions with an open-source mechanical macropad.: • Context: Solo, exploratory; • Methods: Scripting, interaction design; • Current focus: Temporarily dormant

Gnomon:⁵ Conceptualising and (later) dogfooding feral, “non-fungible” approaches to time management and planning.: • Context: Solo, slow burn; • Methods: Self-experimentation; • Current focus: Research and planning

Named for the helmeted pre-teen who tops out a Catalan castell. ⤴︎
Named for Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky. ⤴︎
Sullivan’s coinage; a neologism blending “pantheon” and “pneumatics”. ⤴︎
“Studies in rawness,” broadly speaking. ⤴︎
The shadow-casting part of a sundial. ⤴︎

Tags: meta

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