Category Archives: Friendly Crowds

Design, Friendly Crowds, Projects

Peer Economy Research Proposal

[For many reasons I can’t go into my current affiliation would not be able to help me get this proposal in and fully signed off for the FuseLabs current call.

So I thought I would post it here, its still a draft as I can’t submit it but think that its an interesting problem that could do with investigation.

If you know of any links or work that should be looked at regarding this (either bits already done, or work that could relate) then please leave a comment.

I’ll try and do the work as and when I can, or when some funding for time can be found. If anyone else can do it then please let me know what you find out:]

Proposal for FuseLabs Research 2015 Peer Economy Research Awards

The language of the Peer Economy is one of sharing, sustainability and resilience. It is targetted at users who believe in a community, yet one who sees all items as a commodity.

Whereas before we would have looked at an object and when it was not in use it would remain in a number of possible states:

  1. Ornamental
  2. Functional – Potential
  3. Functional – Dormant

Many of the platforms that are now described as part of the Peer or Sharing economy try to make use of these objects so that they remain in these other states for less time.

In the process many of these platforms assign a value to these objects, so that there can be some kind of transaction in return for the use of the object.

This project aims to prepare a number of mappings of this economy, to examine the physicality of the organisations, users and objects across the globe and understand the boundaries of the communities of presence for the objects.

It also aims to map the flows within the platforms, of the data and interactions as well as the financial flows. Where does capital, the value designated within the objects end up?

Finally we look at the language used in description of the platform, particiaption (e.g. terms of service, policies and sign-up forms).

This is then presneted as an atlas of the Peer Economy, where necessary noting the potential mappings into the exitsing capitalism markets, where the perception of sharing and peer may differ from other uses.

 

Friendly Crowds

Asset Mapping – a small experiment

Asset mapping is a thing. Creating catalogues of the assets that are a part of a community is a vital and useful thing. From the creation of this knowledge of what is out there, methods of sharing and supporting can be implemented.

Community Asset Mapping as an approach to development was developed by John Kretzmann and John McKnight, the assets do not really have a spatial quality, the mapping is more a cataloging and classifying.

There are a number of platforms and services that are designed around doing this mapping or cataloging but as an experiment I was thinking it might be useful to try something new.

If we use the hashtag #assetmapgazeteer and tweet an asset from your community. Name (URL? not every asset will have one of these),  a postcode/zipcode/location identifier and country identifier (e.g. UK, US, FR, IR, etc.)

As we get a set of example tweets, we will look at different ways of gathering, sharing and linking the data.  Maybe trying to link people who talk about the same or similar assets, yes create a general spatial map but also lets see if we can create more conceptual maps of these assets, identify the gaps.

 

Art, Friendly Crowds

Art, Archive and Help

I need your help!

I need people who are willing to be recorded answering the three questions on the ‘What does privacy mean?‘ project.

Those questions again are:

  • What does privacy mean to you?
  • What does protection mean to you?
  • What does security mean to you?

I will be using the audio in a piece called The Numbers Station, which is designed to be an audio installation both physically located and occasionally broadcast over radio waves (a la numbers stations).

The audio will also be released with a creativecommons licence as a part of the archive for ‘What does privacy mean?’ (which will include written responses to these questions as well as submissions submitted via a web form).

The aim of the archive is just to record the feelings of people on those three questions. If your opinion changes you can do it again, there is no right or wrong answer and I fully support the idea that you have the right to change your mind about anything.

If you would like to take part in the audio part of the project then please either email me at mark@geekyoto.com or ping me on twitter @marksimpkins and we can arrange either meeting to record or you sending an audio file.

Please do share this request with anyone who you think might be interested in taking part. When the audio is released it will not have any information pertaining to who you are.

If you have any questions as well then please email me as well.

Thanks and I hope to hear a lot of your answers soon.

[By the way: I am geocontrol On Audioboo and on Soundcloud if that helps to get your recording to me.]

Art, Design, Elegant Cyborg, Emotional Infrastructure, Friendly Crowds, Projects

Elegant Cyborg

The #elegantcyborg project is a multipart investigation into the instrumenting and augmentation of ourselves via technology delivered by the Stacks (see Stacktivism).

The first stages of the project is the development of a set of maps and visualisations to show the connection of cyborg technology, the individual and the corporate owners of the technology.

Also the creation of a questionnaire for people who use activity/health trackers (apps and devices) to try and get an idea on the landscape of usage.

Below are our first set of proposed questions:

* Why did you decide to get/use a health/activity tracker (app or device)?
** Was it a gift?
** Was it a personal decision?
** Was there any medical/professional intervention (e.g. A doctor suggested more physical activity).
*** If so, did they suggest using an app or device and if they did was it the one you use?

* What factors affected your decision as to which app or device to use?
* How long have you had it?
* Is this the first one you have had or used or have you tried other apps or devices?
** If so, would you write some more about your experience with the other apps or devices? What was it like, why do you no longer use it?

* Did you read the EULA fully, especially where pertaining to data?
* Did you understand the EULA?
* Do you understand or know about the privacy options and settings for your app or device?

(Where app or device can be any combination of the two. You may use the device in conjunction with a number of other devices, such as base stations and mobile phones.)

* Do you share your activity data online with the app device service?
* Do you make this available publicly or do you keep it private?
* Have you shared, commented or discussed anyone else’s activity / health data that you have public access too?

If you think there are any other questions that should be posed here, or any of the above reworded then please let me know in the comments.

Emotional Infrastructure, Friendly Crowds, Infrastructure, Lighthouse, Smart Cities

Emotional Infrastructure

I am working on this small project, its called Emotional Infrastructure and lives over at the Friendly Crowds site.

A set of paper diaries, produced using Bookleteer.

Record your thoughts on that piece of infrastructure as you interact with it in your everyday life and when you have finished a diary send it back to join the archive.

The first was called ‘The Surveillance Diaries’ but I have added ones on power, water and communications.

A few people are currently filling in some of these early prototypes, including me.

It is whilst I am at the Lighthouse as a part of their beta residency studio project that I am working on evolving these diaries into something more formed.

Please do make and complete a diary and feedback your ideas on the structure of the diaries and concept as well.