Networks, Sensor Networks, Human Sensors

While I was in Barcelona to attend the Barcelona Design Week, Josep Blat presented at the Foro de Movilidad de RedIRIS in Madrid the research themes and works developed with him as my PhD supervisor. RedIRIS provides highspeed Internet connectivity and other network facilities for the academia in Spain. On their invitation we shared some insights on the innovative exploitation of network data and their implications.

The presentation ran under the name “Networks, Sensor Networks, Human Sensors” (pdf).

Connecting people
Wires and their exploitation under new scrutiny

Why do I blog this: Publics institutions that make a living transporting bits also become curious on extracting value from network data. Our presentation complemented very well a day that had started with a demonstration of the use of animal digital traces in the Doñana natural park in the South West of Spain.

Thanks to Gerard Alcorlo i Bofill for the invitation!

Volume Issue on the Moon

Tuesday October 26 15:22

Tuesday October 26 15:22

Tuesday October 26 15:23

Just a short note to draw your attention to this cool quarterly journal called Volume which you may already know about but which I only heard about when they asked if I would contribute a short piece on Design Fiction. Basically it is a condensation of the longer essay from last winter which is presently offline due to some Internet wrangling and movements which won’t be sorted until later when the shipping crate gets back from the data networks.

The issue is focussed on the Moon which is a wonderful topic. Included are a photo essay on a lost astronaut and an insert product catalog of fictional/speculative objects, magazines, gifts and other items that might be appreciated by people who live on the moon.

In either case, this quarterly is quite intriguing and somewhat reminiscent in my mind to Cabinet (although quite a bit more expensive). It seems to consist mostly of excerpts and extractions of existing material, which is fine of course.