Anti Federalist
12-21-2014, 07:51 PM
Unseen Sensors: Constantly Sensing but Rarely Seen
http://designmind.frogdesign.com/articles/unseen-sensors-constantly-sensing-but-rarely-seen.html
Sensors are inherently of their context: the physical context they sense and the human one they often infer, but also of the corporations that manufacture them, and the organizations that install them and base decisions on the supposedly objective data that they create.
They’re everywhere. We attach them to our wrists, embed them into our medical devices, and mount them onto the lampposts that dot every block of our city. Some sensing technologies capture our imagination and attract our constant attention. Yet many go unnoticed, their insides packed with unknowable electronic components, ceaselessly counting, measuring, and transmitting. For what purpose, or to whose gain, is often unclear.
These unseen sensors are the instantiations of large invisible systems that have a very real impact on the lived urban experience, and we want to examine them, their contexts, and their consequences from the vantage point of a single human being at street level in New York City.
They are invisible by default. Housed in anonymous plastic or metal boxes, these sensors rarely give away even a hint as to their purpose, intention, or ownership. Only sometimes adorned with a manufacturer’s label or an owner’s logo, there is seldom any information to explain what these barnacles of our urban landscape are or what they are doing.
More at link with pictures...
http://designmind.frogdesign.com/articles/unseen-sensors-constantly-sensing-but-rarely-seen.html
Sensors are inherently of their context: the physical context they sense and the human one they often infer, but also of the corporations that manufacture them, and the organizations that install them and base decisions on the supposedly objective data that they create.
They’re everywhere. We attach them to our wrists, embed them into our medical devices, and mount them onto the lampposts that dot every block of our city. Some sensing technologies capture our imagination and attract our constant attention. Yet many go unnoticed, their insides packed with unknowable electronic components, ceaselessly counting, measuring, and transmitting. For what purpose, or to whose gain, is often unclear.
These unseen sensors are the instantiations of large invisible systems that have a very real impact on the lived urban experience, and we want to examine them, their contexts, and their consequences from the vantage point of a single human being at street level in New York City.
They are invisible by default. Housed in anonymous plastic or metal boxes, these sensors rarely give away even a hint as to their purpose, intention, or ownership. Only sometimes adorned with a manufacturer’s label or an owner’s logo, there is seldom any information to explain what these barnacles of our urban landscape are or what they are doing.
More at link with pictures...