Ducks, Dolls and Divine Robots: designing our futures with computing

We have relationships with technology – we always have had. And these relationships have regularly strayed beyond the merely functional, or rational. Whether anthropomorphising all manner of objects from steamships to guitars, or systematically attacking and breaking machines out of fear and loathing, we have had strong emotional connections with technology. Furthermore, this emotionality is not only borne out of daily activity, it also has its origins in the realm of fiction, myth and even legend. As such we can tell a story where Excalibur, the Luddites, The Turing Test and Cyberdyne share a common genealogy – they are all about our relationships with technology.

Today we inhabit a world in which there are many pieces of technology in our lives, our homes and our places of work, worship and leisure. Early mechanized objects like looms, pianolas and wireless radios have given way to digitally connected computational devices, but have we developed a new emotional register with which to engage with these objects? In this talk, Genevieve offers a meditation on the nature of our relationships with computing, locating them within this larger conversation, and offering a much wider space for human computer relationships to flourish.

Bio:

Dr. Genevieve Bell is an Australian-born
anthropologist and researcher. As director of User
Interaction and Experience in Intel Labs, Bell leads
a research team of social scientists, interaction
designers, human factors engineers and computer
scientists. This team shapes and helps create new
Intel technologies and products that are increasingly
designed around people’s needs and desires. In
this team and her prior roles, Bell has fundamentally
altered the way Intel envisions and plans its future
products so that they are centered on people’s needs
rather than simply silicon capabilities. Her first book,
‘Divining the Digital Future: Mess and Mythology in
Ubiquitous Computing,’ was co-written with Prof.
Paul Dourish of the University of California at Irvine
and released in April 2011. In 2010, Bell was named
one of Fast Company’s inaugural ‘100 Most Creative
People in Business.’ She also is the recipient of
several patents for consumer electronics innovations.

Please rsvp to Angelo: angelo.tardio@rmit.edu.au