Papers by Natalie Jeremijenko
How much do we, and should we, seek to understand and control 'nature'? If life is define... more How much do we, and should we, seek to understand and control 'nature'? If life is defined in terms of information and calculation, systems, structures and organisation, Where is the political in the biological and the ecological? Do we value stability or change? Organised by the new Systems Research Group in IED (http://ied.rca.ac.uk/research/systems
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This paper describes an innovative as... more <jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This paper describes an innovative assessment method that provides formative feedback on the effectiveness of an engineering textbook. We describe the development of the Text Learning Capture Method and the prior art that it is drawn from. We then go on to interpret and analyze the protocols captured with the method and describe the preliminary results generated with its application. Concrete examples of how the feedback enables us to identify the text's readability, comprehensibility, and usability are given. From the analysis a list of questions was generated about how students learn from engineering textbooks.</jats:p> <jats:p>The textbook assessment work presented here was motivated by a desire on the part of the author of the textbook (hereafter the text-author in contrast to the authors of this paper) to understand more fully the role of this textbook in supporting student learning. We began with questions such as: "Do students relate to the real-world examples given?"; "How do students work through the equations?"; "How are figures utilized?"; "Are students excited by a textbook that uses a familiar multi-faceted artifact to demonstrate engineering principles?". In our attempts to carefully answer these questions we generated questions such as: "Can learning from a text book be thought of as passive?"; "What constitutes effective learning from texts?"; "What are best reading practices?"; and "How much control does an author have over this?".</jats:p>
Ctheory, 2015
Critical making, as a term, was initially used by Matt Ratto in 2008 and first published in 2009 ... more Critical making, as a term, was initially used by Matt Ratto in 2008 and first published in 2009 to describe the combination of critical thinking with hands-on making, a kind of pedagogical practice that uses material engagements with technologies to open up and extend critical social reflection. 1 In Ratto's words, "critical making is an elision of two typically disconnected modes of engagement in the world-'critical thinking,' often considered as abstract, explicit, linguistically based, internal and cognitively individualistic; and 'making,' typically understood as material, tacit, embodied, external and community-oriented." 2 Ratto wanted the term to act as glue between conceptual and linguistic-oriented thinking and physical and materially based making with an emphasis on introducing hands-on practice to scholars that were primarily working through language and texts, like in the fields of communication, information studies, and science and technology studies. 3 Because of its stress on critique and expression rather than technical refinement and utility, Ratto acknowledges that critical making has similarities to the practice of "critical design," a term popularized by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby 4 Critical design comes from the background of industrial design and builds objects that work to challenge the narrow conventions and biases that products play in daily life, primarily those that determine that products need to be convenient, affirmative, soothing, and empowering for the user. Critical design is focused on building
This paper examines the use of integrated circuits that produce speech in consumer products, comm... more This paper examines the use of integrated circuits that produce speech in consumer products, commonly called voice chips. The goal of this paper is to document what these products actually say and to try to understand what the voices of these products represent, specifically, what they say about techno-social relations. The paper describes how voice chip technology differs from other 'talking hardware' of the recording and communications industries, and places it in a unique social position. I then survey the voice chip patent literature and sample the products currently on the market. Finally, I investigate how the voices of these products can be interpreted as speech and interaction, drawing largely upon Suchman's examination of human-machine interaction. I conclude by using the chips’ voice to question their performance of abstract speech, if they demonstrate preprogrammable interaction, and therefore what we mean when we attribute speech as literal agency to technolo...
Thresholds, 2005
Inverse technology might be defined as machinery used to interrogate the very nature of its own m... more Inverse technology might be defined as machinery used to interrogate the very nature of its own machinery. The diverse projects developed by the bureau of inverse technology (BIT)-which include robotic dogs, tree cloning, and an anti-terror hotline-all beg the obvious question: Why inverse technology? The easy way out might be to read the term "inverse technology" as a reference to a general subversive sensibility that pervades these projects. Yet there is something else-naggingly obvious but somehow hard to pinpoint-that unites these projects, something that might be best described as an endless re-invention of the methods of transmitting information. This recurring trope suggests that a more specific application of the term inverse
Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems - DIS '16, 2016
Reimagining and redesigning our relationship to natural systems to improve human and environmenta... more Reimagining and redesigning our relationship to natural systems to improve human and environmental health, increase biodiversity, build soil, and improve air and water quality is the Space Race of the 21st Century; i.e. the most complex systems design challenge we face, and one that current and emerging interactive technologies provide the opportunity to address. This assertion is intended to reframe the discourse of contemporary environmentalism in terms of creative agency that transcend market and regulatory incentives and disambiguates from "sustainability" which in research universities internationally seem to have been institutionalized as non-academic*. The second, but most novel and critical assertion, is that we can design infrastructure, and specifically the built environment, data, energy, food, waste and distribution systems to IMPROVE human and environmental health, rather than lessening negative effects in efforts to reduce energy use, food miles, waste, emissions, greenhouse gasses or more conventional maintenance and labor costs. For instance, (1) the ELEVATORxPITCH project upgrades the sky-line-defining vertical transportation to create both cultural venue that produces views, and transforms this electric vehicle infrastructure into a building's power plant. Simultaneously the combination of sensor-actuated venting and fire-code upgrade can create cross-season passive air circulation that removes the need for heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems (typically approx. 40% of the energy use in cities is building related and most of this: HVACs).
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This paper describes an innovative as... more <jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This paper describes an innovative assessment method that provides formative feedback on the effectiveness of an engineering textbook. We describe the development of the Text Learning Capture Method and the prior art that it is drawn from. We then go on to interpret and analyze the protocols captured with the method and describe the preliminary results generated with its application. Concrete examples of how the feedback enables us to identify the text's readability, comprehensibility, and usability are given. From the analysis a list of questions was generated about how students learn from engineering textbooks.</jats:p> <jats:p>The textbook assessment work presented here was motivated by a desire on the part of the author of the textbook (hereafter the text-author in contrast to the authors of this paper) to understand more fully the role of this textbook in supporting student learning. We began with questions such as: "Do students relate to the real-world examples given?"; "How do students work through the equations?"; "How are figures utilized?"; "Are students excited by a textbook that uses a familiar multi-faceted artifact to demonstrate engineering principles?". In our attempts to carefully answer these questions we generated questions such as: "Can learning from a text book be thought of as passive?"; "What constitutes effective learning from texts?"; "What are best reading practices?"; and "How much control does an author have over this?".</jats:p>
Ctheory, 2015
Critical making, as a term, was initially used by Matt Ratto in 2008 and first published in 2009 ... more Critical making, as a term, was initially used by Matt Ratto in 2008 and first published in 2009 to describe the combination of critical thinking with hands-on making, a kind of pedagogical practice that uses material engagements with technologies to open up and extend critical social reflection. 1 In Ratto's words, "critical making is an elision of two typically disconnected modes of engagement in the world-'critical thinking,' often considered as abstract, explicit, linguistically based, internal and cognitively individualistic; and 'making,' typically understood as material, tacit, embodied, external and community-oriented." 2 Ratto wanted the term to act as glue between conceptual and linguistic-oriented thinking and physical and materially based making with an emphasis on introducing hands-on practice to scholars that were primarily working through language and texts, like in the fields of communication, information studies, and science and technology studies. 3 Because of its stress on critique and expression rather than technical refinement and utility, Ratto acknowledges that critical making has similarities to the practice of "critical design," a term popularized by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby 4 Critical design comes from the background of industrial design and builds objects that work to challenge the narrow conventions and biases that products play in daily life, primarily those that determine that products need to be convenient, affirmative, soothing, and empowering for the user. Critical design is focused on building
Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems - DIS '16, 2016
Reimagining and redesigning our relationship to natural systems to improve human and environmenta... more Reimagining and redesigning our relationship to natural systems to improve human and environmental health, increase biodiversity, build soil, and improve air and water quality is the Space Race of the 21st Century; i.e. the most complex systems design challenge we face, and one that current and emerging interactive technologies provide the opportunity to address. This assertion is intended to reframe the discourse of contemporary environmentalism in terms of creative agency that transcend market and regulatory incentives and disambiguates from "sustainability" which in research universities internationally seem to have been institutionalized as non-academic*. The second, but most novel and critical assertion, is that we can design infrastructure, and specifically the built environment, data, energy, food, waste and distribution systems to IMPROVE human and environmental health, rather than lessening negative effects in efforts to reduce energy use, food miles, waste, emissions, greenhouse gasses or more conventional maintenance and labor costs. For instance, (1) the ELEVATORxPITCH project upgrades the sky-line-defining vertical transportation to create both cultural venue that produces views, and transforms this electric vehicle infrastructure into a building's power plant. Simultaneously the combination of sensor-actuated venting and fire-code upgrade can create cross-season passive air circulation that removes the need for heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems (typically approx. 40% of the energy use in cities is building related and most of this: HVACs).
Proceedings Fifth International Conference on Information Visualisation, 2001
Unlike traditional information centers like a local library, the web as we know it today lacks an... more Unlike traditional information centers like a local library, the web as we know it today lacks any kind of system to organize or describe what information it contains. Search engines, price comparison sites, and other web tools must visit every possible page and guess their meaning and ...
2nd IET International Conference on Intelligent Environments (IE 06), 2006
Proceedings of the 23nd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology - UIST '10, 2010
ABSTRACT Can new interfaces contribute to social and environmental improvement? For all the care,... more ABSTRACT Can new interfaces contribute to social and environmental improvement? For all the care, wit and brilliance that UIST innovations can contribute, can they actually make things better - better in the sense of public good - not merely lead to easier to use or more efficient consumer goods? This talk will explore the impact of interface technology on society and the environment, and examine engineered systems that invite participation, document change over time, and suggest alternative courses of action that are ethical and sustainable, drawing on examples from a diverse series of experimental designs and site-specific work Natalie has created throughout her career.
CHI '01 extended abstracts on Human factors in computer systems - CHI '01, 2001
Noise level in public spaces sometimes makes imposible to focus on particular sound information. ... more Noise level in public spaces sometimes makes imposible to focus on particular sound information. In other cases, such focus is needed even when environmental sound information is also important. In this paper, we describe the use of bone vibration as an applicable technology in both public and private interfaces, when environment sound information or environmental sound contamination are regarded as important factors.
CHI 98 conference summary on Human factors in computing systems - CHI '98, 1998
Book of Hours is a stand-alone program that operates upon PocketPC-based handheld computers such ... more Book of Hours is a stand-alone program that operates upon PocketPC-based handheld computers such as the Ipaq, HP Jornada, and Casio Cassiopeia. The Book of Hours critically comments upon the similarities between the medieval books of hours, which contained schedules of Catholic devotions, calendars of festivals and services, and collections of votive texts based around the High Medieval Marian cult, and shows these similarities to the PDA by turning it into a 'Book of Hours' for the Church of Technopoly. The program calls upon the similarity of the Book of Hours as a medieval PDA, and transposes this cultural structure to that of the handheld organizer. The program generates its own devotional 'hymn' and lush computer-generated illuminations based on information from the texts contained in the Book's data. Users are entreated to follow its daily schedule of rites, such as checking e-mail, making cell phone calls, tracking one's portfolio, and asks for the user to consult the Calendar of High Upgrades and System Scans. In addition, the user can read from devotional passages from the writings of Pope William I of Gates, and Bishop Stephen of Wozniak, and can enter their own passages, thus allowing the Book to modify itself to the user's style of interaction. The Book will hold all information on itself in a file in the PDA's memory, so it's use will be 'remembered' over time. Over time, the Book of hours takes note of its owner's interaction, and periodically modifies its texts through the use of a software-based 'divine agent'. In this way the Book of Hours becomes almost a form of satirical Spiritual Tamagotchi that asks for the user to reflect upon technology as secular religion much as the medieval noble was asked to reflect upon Christianity, with a bit more humor. Rockefeller Foundation New Media Fellowships 2003 Sample Work Form NAME: Patrick Lichty If you are sending more than one sample, please copy this page. Sample(s) must be cued: indicate how long each sample should be viewed for a COMBINED viewing time of no more than 15 minutes. If slides are included in this application, please list the title and year of the work on this form.
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Papers by Natalie Jeremijenko