things – beyond objects

Two new books add depth to my long-running ruminations on the character of things. Nonobject, by Branko Lukic and Barry Katz, was published this week by MIT Press [Link] It’s a rather beautiful book about Branko’s design work. Barry (and Bill Moggridge in his foreword) provide fascinating commentary. The nonobject is inbetween, relational, interstitial, combinatory….

dot com material culture

Start-up company Box dot Net – preparing for its move to new offices. I usually prefer the term “design studies” over “material culture studies” – the term typically used in cultural anthropology for a focus upon humanity’s material accoutrement. I don’t think the distinction between material and immaterial or intangible is always that useful (isn’t…

Automotive futures – featured on iTunes

Leading Matters – Download free content from Stanford on iTunes. The iTunes Facebook page is today featuring the event hosted by Stanford’s “Leading Matters” last May when we debated the future (and past) of automobility – see my blog entry here – [Link] Here is what Apple says (on its wall at the moment –…

Design, RES and RESPUBLICA

In Tokyo for EPIC – Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference. 6th edition. [Link] Some summary points from my keynote. How could I not respond to Kenya Hara’s wonderful opening keynote and his emphasis on the dialectic of making and its deep connection with human being? [Link] The range of research techniques and methods that I…