Cover image is by Charlie Egalie Tjapaltjarri (Australian, b. ca. 1940–2002)Possum Dreaming , 1994 In my last blog post I wrote about the Pintupi community from Australia’s Outback that is the subject of an Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) video from 1988. In this post I will delve deeper into this community around that time to …
Author Archives: benjibex (Tracy Keys)
Innovation: its not what you know but who you know
In this post, I am looking at technological innovation from a critical perspective, covering appropriating technology, hacking and the process by which the name “innovation” is bestowed, or not, using a video from 1988 as provocation. In 1988, the national Australian public broadcaster ABC and journalist Jill Emberson produced a short 7 minute story on …
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Interacting with Technology- hacking vs appropriation
A thought provoking task given to me in class this week was about comparing the practices of hacking and appropriating technology. Tim Jordan’s Introduction talks about hacking, the hack and hackers and outlines his research in order to justify his definition of the hack. His definition is “a hack is a material practice that produces …
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Innovation is not society’s silver bullet
In today’s society, pursuing innovation is a cure for many ills, and sometimes a end in itself. In the concluding week of my innovation course, we looked at a couple of themes of dissent against the cult of innovation: that innovation is a hegemonic practice (Lilly Irani) and that innovation is has many downsides and …
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TAP LA: My product idea to get Angelenos on the Metro
This Spring, in my final semester in my Master of Science (in Communication Data Science) at University of Southern California, I had the pleasure of having Jaime Levy as my Professor for UX Strategy and Design. She is one of the trail blazers of digital media and has written a great book called “UX Strategy: …
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Smart Cities and the Importance of Public Trust
A critical review of the Waterfront Toronto Smart Cities Project UPDATE: On May 7, 2020 Sidewalk Labs pulled out of Waterfront Toronto https://medium.com/sidewalk-talk/why-were-no-longer-pursuing-the-quayside-project-and-what-s-next-for-sidewalk-labs-9a61de3fee3a There are places I’ll remember All my life, though some have changed Some forever, not for better Some have gone, and some remain The Beatles, “In My Life” Over the last …
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Lilly Irani’s Entrepreneurial Citizenship in India
Lilly Irani conducted a multiple year critical study of design schools and entrepreneurship in India, participating as a designer and an ethnographer with one particular design studio for a number of years. Irani is both a researcher and an tech professional. In her book, Chasing Innovation, she coins the term “entrepreneurial citizen” to explain how …
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Shenzen, Shanzai and Maker Culture
Reading Wen Wen, and Gu and Shea and a preview of work by Lindtner about Shenzen, I was asked to reflect on what is Chinese maker culture and who or what forces are cultivating it and why. These works put forward a picture of Chinese maker culture as a hard-working ethos, that has arisen from …
Silicon (V)alley
Excerpts from books by Indergaard and Neff describe Silicon Alley: a new media hub located in downtown New York City from the early 1990s with ambitions to become a regional innovation hub like Silicon Valley in California. Silicon Alley grew rapidly during the dot.com boom but failed to withstand the dot.com crash at the end …
A foray into researching: all about Twitch users
Introduction This research paper explores the psychological and social motivations for using the amazingly popular social media/live streaming platform Twitch by conducting a small survey of users. Keywords: Live Streaming, Twitch, Social Identity Theory, Uses and Gratifications Theory, Psychological motivations Psychological Motivations for Twitch users This research paper explores the psychological and social motivations for …
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Tracy Keys 