Ubiquitous Media, Tokyo, July

A colleague and I are trying to find people who might be interested in doing a roundtable with us at this conference. At the moment we’re thinking of something on the (very) broad theme of ‘surveillance’, and roundtables need at least 5 participants. Interested? Give me a shout in an email or below.

Some workplace affects, 2007

1. 2. “Sure, networking is more focused in its intentions than merely hanging out with one’s friends, but that doesn’t make it crassly utilitarian. I may say to myself, “Self, you really need to increase your visibility in Sub-Subspeciality A.” But I don’t go and find all the Important People in that field and try [...]

Online intimacy: On crushes and stalkers

From Daniel Miller and Don Slater, The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach As in the transient family, one finds with Internet relationships that larger appeal to sentiment or obligation on the basis of nearness or proximity often have little authority. Rather, there is a large pool of potential contacts that can be realized for either or [...]

Burnout babies

There was some great feedback from the last post – thanks. I’m still interested in pursuing some of the bigger questions in it, especially since I think they got a bit sidelined in the Brisbanalia. I particularly want to hear more thoughts on the structures of support available for those many people in Australia who [...]

Unbecoming

“I really am getting bored in a way I think Brisbane either causes, or at least cannot resolve.” Eric Michaels‘ AIDS Diary is – scarily – the only accurate representation of Brisbane I’ve come across in print, so it shouldn’t be surprising that I found it for $1 in the half price bin at the [...]

Forster on love and friendship

‘It is so easy to talk of “passing emotion,” and how to forget how vivid the emotion ere it passed. Our impulse to sneer, to forget, is at root a good one. We recognize that emotion is not enough, and that men and women are personalities capable of sustained relations, not mere opportunities for an [...]