A description of Technicity
Posted: April 21, 2011 | Author: Dan | Filed under: playing with reality | Tags: code, DCRC, geography, PhD, space, technicity, technology | 1 Comment »Whilst reading this morning I found what is probably the most straightforward and easy to understand explanation of Technicity. It is a heavily used, but highly disputed term amongst DCRC researchers.
The power of code to transform everyday life is not simply a function of extent or pervasiveness or visibility, but primarily of effect. Technicity refers to the extent to which technologies mediate, supplement, and augment collective life; the extent to which technologies are fundamental to the constitution and grounding of human endeavor; and the unfolding or evolutive power of technologies to make things happen in conjunction with people (Mackenzie 2002). For an individual technical element such as a saw, its technicity might be its hardness and flexibility (a product of human knowledge and production skills) that enables it, in conjunction with human mediation, to cut well (note that the constitution and use of the saw is dependent on both human and technology; they are inseparable). As Star and Ruhleder (1996, 112; our emphasis) note, ‘‘[A] tool is not just a thing with pre-given attributes frozen in time — but a thing becomes a tool in practice, for someone, when connected to some particular activity . . . The tool emerges in situ.’’ ‘‘In large-scale ensembles, such as an automobile engine consisting of many components, technicity is complex and cannot be isolated from the sum of individual components (and their design, manufacture, and assembly), its ‘‘associated milieu’’ (e.g., flow of air, lubricants, fuel), and its human operator(s), that ‘‘conditions and is conditioned by the working of the engine’’ (Mackenzie 2002, 12).
Dodge, M. & Kitchin, R. (2005) ‘Code and the transduction of space.’ Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 95, 162-180.
Their work is great and I’ve got a lot of respect going back to the mapping cyberspace project. Looking forward to their capstone book in this code/space project.
I’ve got a Blast Theory residency
Posted: April 8, 2011 | Author: Dan | Filed under: announcements, playing with reality | Tags: Anthropology, blasttheory, DCRC, ethnography, excitement, pervasive games | 1 Comment »This August, I’m doing a one month residency in Brighton with Blast Theory. In my opinion their pieces relate very well to Victor Turner’s Ritual Process and I intend to spend the time grilling them about their work and getting close to their creative practice. Through this I want to see how applicable the Turner anthropology is to the field of pervasive games. In the month there I’ll be writing a chapter of my PhD using their work as case studies and stepping stones.
It is really old news, but I’ve only got around to posting about it. But as the months are rolling by I’m getting increasingly excited about it again. This will be a great opportunity and the chance to do some concerted writing and PhD production.
Gamification: The House Always Wins
Posted: April 1, 2011 | Author: Dan | Filed under: game studies, playing with reality | Tags: DCRC, disgust, games, gamification | Leave a comment »Just did a little poking around the preview of the upcoming Gabe Zicherman (O’Reilly) book on Gamification. This bit sums up his whole attitude and approach really. Brutal and self-interested. The rest of the book appears to be just as medieval.
And that truism underlies the last basic lesson of games in the real world: No matter what the player thinks, the house will always win a well-designed game. Like any casino manager will tell you, while the illusion of winning is vital to motivating use and play, actually winning is much harder than it seems.
Broadly speaking, this has implications not only for players, but also for those of us charged with building and designing great user experiences. As markets gamify and consumer demand for fun, engaging and creative experience increases, you have a fundamental choice: either be the house, or get played.
Trust us, you want to be the former.
So are they in the business of making things fun or just playing you? And as with casinos, I’m just waiting for the Mob to move in on Gamification and Social Games. Oh wait they have.
A new, revolutionary direction for my PhD
Posted: April 1, 2011 | Author: Dan | Filed under: playing with reality | Tags: Culture, culture studies, DCRC, economics, marxism, pervasive games, Pervasive Media | 5 Comments »Recently I’ve been reading more Lefebvre and from that getting onto some Althusser, Marcuse and Gramsci. I have to say it has been leading me in some new and interesting directions, the upshot of which is that I’m going to radically change my PhD direction. Starting with retitling it “A Contribution to the Critique of Pervasive Economy.”
Starting with an analysis of Pervasive Gaming as a cultural superstructure which represents and reflects an underlying socio-economical base we can see that there is a fundamental global shift shift currently occurring. There is a dominant techno-political hegemony which results in the emergence of things such as the internet and ubiquitous computing. These technologies are mobilised into oppressive structures, but they are merely a result of larger scale economic changes.
In this world the techno-bourgeoisie controls the means of aggregation, they control the rules of the game-overlay. However the users do control the means of content generation and through this the inequality can be overthrown.
Using various continental philosophers I’ve plotted the eventual social evolution or development, and postulated a world in which the technology can be distributed equally and everyone can have a jail-broken iphone.
Users of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your 3G contracts. The revolution will not be televised, it will be downloaded via bittorrent.
To this end I’ve started writing down some of my thoughts in a little book. The biggest question of the revolution is, “What colour should it be?”