Representing ‘Things to Come’: Feeling the Visions of Future Technologies

Abstract

Within the development of technology, practices to`make futures present' often yield discursive and material products, in the form of reports, stories, and, of particular interest here, images. In this way, detailed depictions of possible worlds of technology use are produced alongside, and often instead of, materially manufactured prototypes. In this paper I specifically address the production of videos depicting imagined futures. I argue such videos are the means and media for rendering the presence of a future. These videos, when watched, rescript the``indeterminate potentiality'' (Massumi, 2007a, ½13) of the future by performatively establishing the presence of what has not happened and may, in fact, never happen. For example, as illustrated in the opening quote, in 2009 Microsoft's Stephen Elop espoused a future orientation, which he suggested is core to the company's strategy, through the medium of video. At its heart lies a process of foresight: literally and figuratively`envisioning' a future.Elop empirically demonstrated what he meant by``an inspirational view of what the world could look like five, 10, 15 years from now'' (Elop, 2009) by showing a video entitled``Future Vision of Productivity''. The attendees at the business conference at which Elop spoke saw a man standing in front of his office window, on which were displayed schematics from a current project (see figure 1). With a gesture the man sweeps them away, sits down at a desk, and begins to manipulate visualisations of information associated with tasks and people with his fingers and change perspective

Rethinking the geographies of cultural ‘objects’ through digital technologies

“…It is easy to fall into a vague and inflated rhetoric when discussing new technologies (Crang et al, 1999b;Kinsley, 2010). This section will therefore focus on a case study of a particular type of digital image, in order to specify empirically the challenges that this new form of cultural 'object' poses to toolkit offered by the new cultural geography: digital visualisations of new urban developments, which are intended to show developers, architects, planners and the inhabitants of urban public spaces what a new development will look -and feel -like when they are complete (see Figure 1).…”

Kuva rajapintana

“…Lisäksi on eritelty tapoja, joilla liikkuvan sosiaalisen verkostoitumisen ja Google Mapsin "lisätty todellisuus" suuntaa arkisia kokemuksia urbaaneista ympäristöistä (Brighenti 2010;Gordon 2010;Graham et al 2013;de Souza et Silva & Frith 2012). On tutkittu myös digitaalista valvontaa (Amoore 2009), jokapaikan tietotekniikkaa (Kinsley 2010(Kinsley , 2012 sekä käyttäjälähtöistä "uusmaantiedettä" (Dodge & Kitchin 2013). Kaupunkitilan digitaaliset visualisoinnit on kuitenkin likimain sivuutettu tässä sinänsä runsaassa tutkimuskirjallisuudessa.…”

Futures in the Making: Practices to Anticipate ‘Ubiquitous Computing’

“…Desired, feared or uncertain futures have long been made present through creative acts of storytelling and science fiction (see : Dourish and Bell, 2008;Kirby, 2011;Kitchin and Kneale, 2001;Rose, 2000), particularly in relation to technology, as well as more formal techniques of foresight such as horizon scanning, scenario planning and visioning (see : Brown, 2007;Lösch, 2006;Meadows and O'Brien, 1998;Winner, 2004 Fiction' (Sterling, 2009). Not only are futures imagined in story form but they are also imagined in images through videos (Kinsley, 2010). These representations can become a double-edged sword, as an informant suggests:…”