Dans le descriptif de ce cours donné par l’Ecole Urbaine de Lyon, on trouve cette notion “d’enquête anthropocène” qui correspond à un “diagnostic territorial”. Lequel “s’appuie sur une approche systémique pour saisir les interdépendances et les interrelations généralisées”, pour aborder le “besoin ...
Digital parlance #73
Staatstrojaner: literally “State Trojan Horse”, employed to refer to malware/spyware used by intelligence agencies in Germany (such Militärgeheimdienst or Verfassungsschutz) to track computers of people under suspicion. (Source: netzpolitik et Techtrash). See also Bundestrojaner in Switzerland or G...
Digital parlance #72
Zipai: literally ‘self-shot’, is the Chinese word for ‘selfie’, and it indicates both the action and the product of taking a picture of oneself. (Source: Gabriele de Seta and Michelle Proksell)Zoom town: geographical places that are booming as remote work takes off because (or not) of the Covid sit...
Technology in Rural China
“Smart city, smart city, y en a que pour les city, et le rural ça compte pas ?” (“Smart city, smart city, it’s always just about cities, what about rural areas? don’t they count?”). That’s a quote from a old farmer I met in one of my alpine field trips. Blockchain Chicken Farm by Xiaowei W...
Hugh Raffles on ethnography
Found in an interview of Hugh Raffles about his recent work. He starts off with its anxiety towards theoretical branding and moves to his own ethnographic practice:“I'm always wary of branding and work pretty hard to not be brandable, quotable, transposable, or in any way modular. I want to encoura...
Anthropocene and Digital Imaginaries
An art project I ran across at the Lyon Art Biennale back in 2011. The Post-Digital seminar at ENS in Paris organized this rather interesting conference in few weeks : Sans ordinateur / Without computer : Anthopocène et imaginaires numériques / Anthropocene and Digital Imaginaries. The c...
Organic informatics
Seen in Italy last week-end, the eco-trend is here. That being said, I’m fascinated by the 100% bamboo thing, made me think of all those artists and designers interested in creating wood-based computers. ...
Introduction to ethnography & field research at the Angewandte
Context: this month I’ve been invited by Anab Jain to give the introductory workshop to the Design Investigations program at the Angewandt (University of Applied Arts Vienna). This is the brief.Context Among the means of framing and inspiring design projects, understanding people and their practice...
Figures mobiles: une anthropologie du smartphone
Ma thèse de sciences sociales est en ligne ici sur l’archive ouverte de l’Université de Genève :Au croisement de la sociologie des usages et de l’anthropologie des techniques, cette thèse de doctorat se penche sur la signification du smartphone pour ses usagers. Sur la base d’une ethnograp...
"Notice the strange and wonderful as well as the terrible and terrifying"
Why do I blog this? It's a fascinating quote that I found in the book called "Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet" by Anna Tsing, Heather Anne Swanson, Elaine Gan, and Nils Bubandt (eds.) 2017. I somewhat describes nicely what I think I'm interested in. ...