What kinds of connectivity infrastructure would reflect the kinds of futures that people in the Orkney Islands might aspire to?
This digital booklet, commissioned by Intel Labs, is a response to that question. It draws on my ethnographic research (Relocating Innovation) to consider how the future is imagined and made in everyday practice in the Orkney Islands, an archipelago off the north-east coast of Scotland. It is intended to open up ideas about what infrastructure is, and how it might be imagined and designed differently.
Published on 21/03/2011 15:32.
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Completed 2009
What counts as ‘innovation’ and how does the ‘new’ come to be, in an era when ‘innovation’ is assumed to be an unquestioned good? This research project with Lucy Suchman and Endre Dányi (Centre for Science Studies, Lancaster University) reconceptualised innovation through a comparison of three different sites of social, technological and political invention: an internationally recognised centre of technology in Silicon Valley, USA; small-scale high-tech industry on the remote Orkney Islands, Scotland; and the centre of democratic politics in Hungary.
My fieldsite was made through a two year ethnography of how the future is imagined and made in the archipelago of Orkney, Scotland. Here, the landscape is filled with 5000 years of technological invention, from the Ring of Brodgar stone circle to the marine renewable energy test site of the European Marine Energy Centre.
Published on 04/07/2010 20:19.
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This one-day workshop on Monday 26 September aims to share knowledge and explore potential collaboration between two sites at the leading edge of the Marine Renewable Energy: Orkney Islands, Scotland, and Denmark.
The workshop is focused in two areas: 1) Exploring the different future visions of the marine energy industry in Denmark and Orkney; 2) Understanding the role of the public and local communities who are involved in making the future of marine renewable energy. This initial workshop is intended to identify future initiatives and collaboration.
Speakers include: European Marine Energy Centre, Aquatera, Wavestar, Danish Alliance for Offshore Renewables, Wavedragon, and members of the local Orkney community.
Published on 16/09/2011 16:38.
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Digital Creativity is a peer-reviewed journal at the intersection of the creative arts and digital technologies. We welcome submissions from those involved in both the practical task and theoretical aspects of making or using digital media in creative contexts, from poets to socio-cultural researchers.
Published on 15/08/2011 15:53.
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Conference session on the society and seascape of marine renewable energy in the Orkney Islands. Featuring local islands stories from biology, ethnography, art, archaeology, and renewable energy.
This interdisciplinary session is focused on the seascape of the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in the Orkney Islands, Scotland. It brings together stories and academic accounts from those people who are living and working at the edge of a new renewable energy industry. As it tries to understand and engage with new demands and opportunities, Orkney has become one of the first communities in the world to have to find common ground between its existing stories (such as farming and fishing, archaeology and art) and these future narratives.
Part of the People Places Stories 2011 conference. Linnaeus University, Kalmar.
28-30 September 2011
Published on 15/08/2011 15:36.
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Orkney Futures: A Handbook is a collaboration between myself and Alistair Peebles of Brae Editions, Orkney. It was inspired by our shared interest in the relationship between the Orkney landscape and its possible futures.
The handbook contains 49 imagined futures for the Orkney islands, Scotland, written by contributors worldwide, from poets such as Seamus Heaney and Alec Finlay, to islanders and anthropologists.
Publication was supported by HI~Arts, Highlands & Islands Enterprise, and the Scottish Arts Council. The book is published by Brae Editions, Orkney, in a limited edition of 1000. Price £7.50. Copies can be purchased online from Word-Power, or by calling Stromness Books & Prints.
Published on 08/08/2010 13:25.
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Time & Society Review of Books (TSRB) is the book review section for the Journal of Time & Society, an interdisciplinary journal which explores social and cultural approaches to time and temporality. We welcome reviews of relevant books and conferences. Visit the TSRB website resource to find reviews, books, and to add your suggestions for books to review.
Published on 08/08/2010 12:56.
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Designing the Future: fables from the mobile telecoms industry, in 'Thumb Culture: The meaning of mobile phones for society'.
Mam Tor Transect and The Dragon Back, in 'White Peak/Dark Peak: An Audio-Visual Word-Map of the Peak District National Park'.
Orkney Futures: a Handbook
Travel Remedy Kit: Interventions into train lines and passenger times, in 'Mobile Methods'.