Machine Encounters

Design studies of new human-machine assemblies

A range of new and resurgent research programmes associated with computing appear to be on the cusp of changing how we interact with technology. Advances in machine learning, quantum computing, nanotechnology and ubiquitous computing infrastructures, for example, promise some very different possibilities for how computing machines might work and, consequently, how we will use them. So hardware ranging in scale from the size of the city to imperceptibly small microbes, systems capable of interpreting massive amounts of data, and software-hardware hybrids incorporating sophisticated mechanisms for learning and adaption will give rise to technologies that transform our human-machine relations.

But what will it be like to live with this new wave of machinery? When they are everywhere, what impact will autonomous robots, nano materials, sensor networks and so on have on our ordinary lives? If they really are set to radically transform how we interact with technology, might they also fundamentally alter how we interact with one another? More importantly, perhaps, might they also change how we think of ourselves, of what it is to be human?

This theme aims to speculate on current and future technological innovations and consider such questions. Broadly, it brings together a range of research perspectives to examine the interplay between the material, the technological and the social. We draw heavily, for example, on our experiences with design, science and technology studies, and sociology to further investigate what form these technologies might take and how such forms might give rise to very different kinds of human-machine encounters.

Research Questions

• What are the implications for the new wave of scientific and technological innovations?
• How might these innovations reconfigure the relations between humans and machines?
• How might they also reconfigure the intersections between design and form, the social sciences, and science and technology?
• How, in turn, might new disciplinary couplings be used to investigate technological possibilities?

Projects 

• Rudimentary machines
• The Other Brother
• Rethinking RFID
• Energy autonomy