I was aiming to make my way from London to Lancaster (300miles) by bike over five days. A sudden onslaught of snow and sub-zero temperatures meant that I made it to Birmingham by bike (135miles) but had to resort to trains for the rest of the journey. It was a hell of an adventure slipping and sliding on iced roads for at least part of the way. I’ll try again when it is slightly less c-c-c-cold.

This year, I’ve had for the pleasure of participating in the long distance Learning Assistance Programme (LAP) for the School of the Air in Australia. Every week (barring technical issues, travel breaks and school holidays) for one hour I have logged onto a special programme called Centra and communicated with a seven year old girl in central Australia. Because of our shared interests in travel, we have focused on geography. This meant learning a little of the language, landscape, art, architecture, cultural and social practices of a different place each week. Centra is an amazing tool – kind of like a combination of an interactive whiteboard, Facebook and Skype. It enables us to talk to one another and other people can join in, we can upload images and share them, make links to websites and write questions or simply illustrate things on the whiteboard.

The School of the Air (SOA) provides education for hundreds of children living on isolated properties in central Australia. Children who would otherwise have a limited education and opportunities for social engagements use various communication technologies to participate in school via the air. Begin in 1951 using radio, SOA now run their own ISP and utilise satellite technology. As a result, SOA’s history is a rich socio-technical chronicle of cutting edge technology adoption.

It is probably no surprise that SOA featured briefly in the intro to my PhD about innovative technology practices in Australia. It is a great example of an Australian world first that emerged from the fusion of available technologies, skills, isolation and challenging circumstances to meet basic needs. I saw it as emblematic of local knowledge, technical skills and the unique spatial character of the country and demonstrates the imperative to connect people across great distances. Despite the fact I had researched and written a little about SOA in my thesis, I had no real experience or contact with the service until March this year. Working as ethnographer for two months with Dr Genevieve Bell in her role as the 15th Thinker in Residence, our research lead us all over the state of South Australia. During this time we had the opportunity to visit a SOA office in Port Augusta where teachers work to teach their students online. We participated in a school assembly via Centra and Genevieve was interviewed by the Principal with input from students via voice and written questions on the shared whiteboard. It was then that I discovered LAP, run by the very supportive, super calm and time generous co-ordinator Vanessa Kirkham. With Vanessa’s help I cleared a Police check, was given access to and taught to use the computer programme and was matched with a student.

I have many notes of the rewarding experience of being a LAP volunteer (I’m an ethnographer of science and technology studies after all). I will post some of these over the next few months between school terms. I was also surprised on many occasions about the significant role the weather played in our communications. I was often (not unsurprisingly) unaware of weather conditions in central Australia and the effect it would have on our cross-hemisphere sessions. For instance, the massive dust storms that raged over central Australia in September this year and later hit the coast, covering Sydney with fine red dirt, resulted in cancelled lessons, and not just ours but literally days of school, as landlines and communication satellites were badly affected.

Temporal differences are also a unique aspect of my experience of LAP. All LAP volunteers, except for me, are located in Australia. Tonight for instance, because of the current 10.5 hour difference between London and South Australia (SA), the session for me starts at 22.30 which is 09.30 in SA. Earlier in the year, our sessions commenced at 7am London time which was 16.30 in the afternoon in SA. Tomorrow night is the end of year LAP morning tea which is an annual event to publicly thank volunteers for their commitment to LAP and students. I really want to attend this and I will even though for me it is not really morning tea time, but rather will involve midnight snacks.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

Update: A screen grab from last night’s SOA morning tea.

The third event in the Design and Social Science seminar series – Speculative and Critical Objects – is on tomorrow at Goldsmiths. If you cannot make it, the talk will be webcast from 4pm GMT at: http://www.materialbeliefs.com/stream/dss3.php

— seminar poster:
http://www.materialbeliefs.com/pdfs/The-objects-of-design-and-social-science.pdf

===========================================
Design and Social Science Seminar Series 2009-2010
===========================================
The Objects of Design and Social Science
Seminar 3 – Speculative and Critical Objects
James Auger, Royal College of Art
Wednesday November 18th
—————————————————————————

— speaker biography:
James Auger (b 1970, Derby, England) has a BA in Product design from
Glasgow School of Art and an MA in Design Products from the Royal College
of Art in London. Post RCA He worked as a Research Associate for Media Lab
Europe, where the main focus of his research was a design-based
investigation into technology mediated human experience.

James is currently based at the Royal College of Art in London where he
teaches and is a PhD candidate in the Design Interactions department. He
is also a partner in the speculative design practice Auger-Loizeau whose
projects have been published and exhibited internationally, including
MoMA, New York, 21_21, Tokyo, The Science Museum, London and the Ars
Electronica festival, Linz and is in the permanent collection at MoMA.

Prior to being a designer, James completed an engineering apprenticeship
at Rolls-Royce (aero engines) and worked as a special effects technician
for T.V and film.

—————————————————————————
The seminar will run from 4:00pm – 6:00pm,
Interaction Research Studio,
6th Floor, Ben Pimlott Building,
Goldsmiths, New Cross, London, SE14 6NW
—————————————————————————

— seminar series description:
Common to both design and (parts of) the social sciences is a shared
pre-occupation with objects. On the one hand, design is concerned with
making and interpreting objects including the finished article (e.g.
consumer products), ‘experimental’ design aids (e.g. prototypes), and
projective representations (e.g. scenarios). Recently, design has also
begun to re-engage with more speculative objects whose ambiguous
functionality contributes to the exploration of the social and the
material, the political and the aesthetic. On the other hand the social
sciences also work with objects, including categorical objects such as
race, gender, and health, empirical objects ranging from the mundane to
the exotic, and conceptual objects such as the notions social scientists
use to understand and theorize the social. Here, the sociology of science
and technology has been especially productive, introducing notions such as
boundary objects (Star & Griesemer, 1989), epistemic objects (Rheinberger,
1997), immutable mobiles (Latour, 1990), quasi-objects , black boxes
(Latour, 1988) to name but a few. Accordingly, a focus on material,
empirical and conceptual objects brings into sharp relief overlaps and
disjuncture between the two disciplines and a rich space for dialogue.

This seminar series will seek to bring into view and explore existing
objects of both design and social science as well as draw out objects of
novelty for both disciplines. In doing so we will seek to engage with
emerging issues and topics in both disciplines such as the outputs of
speculative and critical design, participation, engagement and publics as
well as addressing notions concerning heterogeneity, process and event.
This series will continue to serve as a platform for opening up
interdisciplinary research futures

i just found a series of sketches I made during the Domestic Space and Interfaces for Located Mobility project back in 2007. It is interesting to see these sketches all together. I’ve started to collate them here in order to see how they might develop.

This week is busy!

In addition to applying for this, chairing this and talking at this, I am also attending these two INCITE events:

On Thursday

ATMOSPHERES OF PARTICIPATION: ART, MEDIA, POLITICS
Two talks and a discussion about presence, liveness and the importance of participation

Kris Cohen (Art History, University of Chicago) – “Intimacy without Reciprocity: Suffragists, Trolls, and Sharon Hayes’ Art of Protest”

Edgar Schmitz (Art, Goldsmiths) – “Some rather ambient attitudes: indifference, exit and the question of affirmation.”

Chair: Nina Wakeford (Sociology)

Location: IGLT, Whitehead Building
Cost: Free – all are welcome, no booking required
Department: Sociology
Time: 12 November 2009, 18:30 – 20:30

On Friday

ATMOSPHERES OF PARTICIPATION: A WORKSHOP
Friday 13th November 2009
Goldsmiths, University of London
Depford Town Hall, Lewisham Way (map at www.gold.ac.uk)
Organised by Nina Wakeford, Sociology & Goetz Bachmann, CCS

9.30am Welcome and introductions
10am Irmela Schneider (University of Cologne) – “Tele-dialogue in 20th Century German Television: a case study of participation.”
Respondent – Goetz Bachmann (Goldsmiths)

11.30am Coffee break
11.50am Anne Cronin (University of Lancaster) – “Urban billboards, fabulation, and the animation of public space”.
Rachel Moore (Goldsmiths) – ‘Not what the neon sign says…’
Respondent – Celia Lury

Lunch (1.15-2.15, DTHB 110)
2.15pm Karen Mirza (http://www.no-w-here.org.uk/) – “The Museum of Non Participation”
Karen Tam (Goldsmiths Cultural Studies & http://www.karentam.ca/) – “Orientally Yours: Karaoke Singers, Opium Addicts, and Chinese Diners”
Nina Pope (http://www.somewhere.org.uk/) – “Fully Engaged?”
Respondent – Kris Cohen

3.45pm Tea
4.15pm Scott Lash (Goldsmiths) – “Public Sphere as Atmosphere”
Respondent – Ken Anderson (Intel)
5.30 Closing remarks

THIS EVENT IS NOW FULLY BOOKED

Who says I don’t have a job -I don’t have time for a job : )

I have the pleasure of chairing the ‘Working with Industry’ on Wednesday at Goldsmiths which features a presentation by Ken Anderson of Intel and aims to look critically at the possibilities and tensions created in collaborations, as well as the opportunities presented within internship programmes for graduate students. Should be good.

This is the side of a house I partly own in Sydney. A friend recently sent me this pic showing new graffiti on one full side of it. I think it’s amazing.

Thanks Al.

I missed it this year. Hoping to get there next year. Thinking, thinking…… I really want to make a sewing-machine-freakbike, and this could be a good place for it. Hmmm

Call for Expressions of Interest: Format 2010
September 20, 2009

Our call for submissions for the 2010 Format Festival is out now! Email stuff to us before November 15th (or thereabouts).

Call For Expressions of Interest
Format Festival, March 2010
Due Date for Expressions – November 15th, 2009 (although that’s kind of flexible)
Email: contact@format.net.au

Format is a two week festival themed around DIY, artist run initiatives and participatory culture. It’s been described as Adelaide’s answer to This Is Not Art or ‘the Fringe of the Fringe’. In 2010, we’ll be running it out of a central city venue from Saturday Feb 27th through to March 14th.

If you’ve got art, music, film, publications, walking tours, picnics, performances, lectures, ideas for workshops or whatever else, and you’d like to expose it to the good people of Adelaide, please send us a 50 word spiel outlining:

-Who You Are
-What You Want To Do
-What You Need To Do It

If you’ve got websites or links to images of your work etc, let us know that as well.

Email it all to: contact@format.net.au

We should point out that, right now, we’ve only just got our minimum operating budget, so we won’t be able to pay you anything. That said, we’ll be able to provide the venue, the fittings, advertising and, if last year was anything to go by, pretty decent crowds and the ‘party good times’ atmosphere. And if we get a few more grants we should be able to help out with travel and running costs. yours,
Ianto Ware
On behalf of the Format Collective.

I’ve been invited to participate in a workshop exploring practical knowledge and modes of sociological expression at Goldsmiths. I’ll be talking about WiFi makers and bike makers. It should be very interesting.

Workshop: Analysing Practical Knowledge
Goldsmiths, University of London
Wednesday, 11 November 2009

The idea of this event is to explore how we can make sociological sense of the kinds of practical knowledge that cannot necessarily be spoken, nor even readily observed. What we mean by practical knowledge is an embodied or tacit skill, competence or feel for something such as being in a place or undertaking a particular activity or job. At this workshop, we want to discuss the possibilities and limitations of talk, sound, image, and objects in producing understandings of practical knowledge. Participants are asked to articulate general issue/problems of analysing practical knowledge and how these might be worked through with reference to a specific research project.

Participants include Lynne Pettinger (Essex), Les Back (Goldsmiths), Dawn Lyon (Kent), Alison Rooke (Goldsmiths), Alex Rhys-Taylor (Goldsmiths), and Kat Jungnickel (Goldsmiths).

The fact that five colleagues alerted me to this post-doc more than hints at common knowledge of my professional and personal interest in cycling : )

POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH FELLOW – Fixed term until 31st December 2011
School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Reference: 074R2009
Closing Date: Wednesday 11 November 2009
Interview Date: Monday 07 December 2009
Salary: £25,659 to £32,432 pa inc.

The University of East London is a dynamic and rapidly expanding university at the heart of Europe’s largest regeneration area and adjacent to the site of the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics. In the 2008 RAE exercise we are in the top ten modern UK universities for research. The Guardian League tables ranked us 52 of 84 university departments teaching Sociology and results of the RAE ranked us 25th of 40 submissions for Sociology.

Dr. Rachel Aldred, Senior Lecturer in Sociology within the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, has been awarded an ESRC First Grant to study “Cycling Cultures in a Mass Motorised Society: a multi-method case study of four English urban areas”. You will be the research fellow on this project; you will be carrying out the majority of the empirical research and you will participate in other stages of the research including data analysis and research dissemination and networking.

You should have a PhD (or near completion), or a Masters plus substantial research experience. You will have in-depth knowledge of an academic or policy field of relevance to the research area. You must have experience of carrying out qualitative interviews, be interested in cycling as a research area, and be willing to travel around the UK to conduct fieldwork. You should be available to start work on 1st March 2010 or soon afterwards.

To obtain further details about this vacancy please visit our website at http://jobs.uel.ac.uk (ref no: 74r2009). For an informal discussion about this post please contact Rachel Aldred, R.E.Aldred@uel.ac.uk. The closing date for applications is 11th November 2009 and we anticipate that interviews will take place on 7 December 2009.