The use of wireless sensor networks to study environmental phenomena is an increasingly prevalent practice, and ecological applications of sensors have been central to the development of wireless sensor networks that now extend to numerous ‘participatory’ applications. How might environmental sensing projects be understood as giving rise to new practices for sensing environmental processes, and […]
I presented recent work on citizen sensing and environmental computing as part of the “Sense of Planet: The Arts and Ecology at Earth Magnitude” symposium, an event organized by Jill Bennett and Douglas Kahn at the National Institute for Experimental Arts (NIEA), University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia (25 August 2012). The presentation drew […]
The trophic ecologies of cities play a distinct role in how urban matter—and particularly urban waste matter—biodegrades. Insects are key participants in eating, breaking down and “recycling” refuse, and at the same time waste sites provide unique ecologies for insects. While first sketching a picture of the some of the distinct insect ecologies that may […]
“The Politics and Affect of Environmental Computing” was a working group that I participated in at the Field_Notes / Cultivating Ground arts and sciences environmental data workshop, hosted by the Finnish Bioart Society and held at the Kilpisjärvi biological station, Finland (26 September – 2 October 2011). During the workshop, I focused on the […]
“Media in the Dump” examines the phenomenon of electronic waste through five locations, from sites of manufacture (Silicon Valley) to disposal (China). Not only are digital media not “immaterial,” this essay suggests, but the wastes that they generate circulate through complex material global geographies. This 2006 essay is published through Alphabet City’s special collection, […]
In 1970, the artist Robert Smithson proposed a Floating Island to Travel around Manhattan Island. Composed of a tug boat and barge planted with trees and rocks, the small pastoral island would form a displaced geography against the looming skyline of that other urban island. While this project was never realized during Smithson’s lifetime (1938-73), […]
This photo-essay documents fieldwork conducted in Silicon Valley in 2005, which contributed to the book-length study on electronic waste, Digital Rubbish: A Natural History of Electronics. Published as “The Quick and the Dirty: Ephemeral Systems in Silicon Valley” in “Ephemera,” Thresholds, Issue No. 31 (Cambridge: MIT Department of Architecture, 2006; ISSN: 1091-711x), 26-31.
This research report, “Residue in the E.A.T. Archives,” documents work undertaken while I was Researcher in Residence with the Daniel Langlois Foundation Centre for Research and Documentation (2004). The project area, “From Outside Art to E-waste: Translating the Research Environment of E.A.T.,” focused both on the relationships between art, technology and materiality within Experiment […]