Wicked environmental problems are complex, illdefined and constantly shifting. Analytical methods alone are typically under-equipped to address these problems. High-low tech is a craftmaking and design practice that encourages makers to merge high-and low-tech materials, processes and cultures. We explore how high -low tech practices can create new ways of understanding wicked environmental problems and lead practitioners towards new ways of approaching them.Through five examples of high -low tech practices, we explore the qualities of these practices-an embrace of complexity, a transdisciplinary approach to work and a maker ethos-that make high -low tech practices particularly well suited to addressing wicked environmental problems.
The Empathy Machine is an interactive installation that augments a visitor's empathic sense during a social conversation. Empathy is a key component of interpersonal interactions that is often neglected by modern communication technologies. This system uses facial expression recognition to identify the emotional state of a user's conversation partner. It algorithmically generates emotional music to match the expressive state of the partner and plays the music to the user in a non-disruptive manner. The result is an augmentation of the user's emotional response to the emotional expression of their partner.
Soundscape studies typically distinguish between three sources of sound: biophony, sounds produced by animals, plants, and other biological entities; geophony, sounds produced by non-living features such as water or wind; and anthrophony, sounds produced by humans and human technology. Recent developments in the study of hybrid ecosystems and ecological robotics challenge these categorizations. A series of four soundscape interventions are considered, which lead to the proposal of a new category: robophony. These interventions -robots and autonomous digital agents -operate in feedback loops with the existing bio-, geo-, and anthrophony in the ecosystem. The properties that emerge from these cases: site specificity, hybrid sourcing, and layered temporality form the basis of this new category of sound in the soundscape.
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