how people observe, think about, approach, relate to, and interact
with the 'smart' [device] likely spans from those who stay away from
such treacherous novelty to those who invest themselves in it ('all
the world's a stage- here is a webcam performance..') in some way, and
hybridization of devices is nothing new - which correlates with an
aspect of trial and error development or prototyping of future goods
or categories- though the networking aspect is, and it involves an
entire 'nother model or system within the artifacts as part of the
interface and interaction than previous iterations or relations.
thus how is the basic situation conceived and considered - the before
and after of pre- and post- networked and media-carnivalized devices,
whether electric, electronic or not, at the start. that is, what is
the core function of a device prior to this transformation (say
exampling development category Internet of Things)
if the experience is what is mediated, encountered, interfaced and
interacted with, then beginning observation at that functional use
could yield a path of least resistance to what is networked, online,
digital, internet/www, intranet/extranet (WAN) in terms of
datalogging, supply chains, logistics, surveillance.
and so thinking about it as a trial, an independent device fixed
somewhere in the concrete consumer landscape, this new beast of a
machine could be like an artificial lifeform tested against its
environment- how fit is it, can it survive, will people feed it data
and money, or can the information be sold, monetized, profit made
beyond the drinks dispensed and expanding a business model from media
commercials via signs (screens) to that screen becoming the point of
sale with the corporate agenda in its branding, marketing,
communications- an intimate one on one relation, customized as if
meeting a friend as context for the exchange, a familiar face (mirror
of self, say, looking into the metaphorical water and seeing
reflection).
so it can be very easy and immediate to jump into this analysis and
seek to describe or define, yet are these parameters the overall
structural condition of this exchange. is it an issue of data with
Facebook or the weather that is capable of describing and defining the
larger dynamics of what is occurring in its behind the screen
functioning and purpose, such that it the functionality can be mapped
out and understood as if an archaeological artifact of some strange
culture, the service person who tends to the device as if a focus of
study for anthropologists, and the 'smart cooler' users of
sociological and psychological interest, these in relation to business
models, prior to internetification and networked multimedia integrated
into cultures, business and popular. are there taboos, for instance,
for certain peoples and not others. are youth more likely to embrace
the technology or experiment.
so business and other interdisciplinary analysis could occur, and
describe things in a context of language or statistics, yet what about
the thing itself as an artifact. is the beverage dispenser understood
as an entity, prior to this additional layering of (informatic)
functionality. do people or observes have a sense of what is going on
in these relations, some semblance of grounded understanding of How It
Works, not just the dispenser though also, the manufacture of canned
beverages in factories, via raw materials and chemical additives and
labor issues going back decades, their global shipment and
distribution networks, the history of such drinks in culture, the
relation of soda shops where such drinks were made custom at a counter
by soda jerks, prior to or in parallel with mass manufacturing and
radio/television/news advertisements marketing the portable sealed
sugary drinks.
in that, at some point these mass distribution networks did not exist,
the dispensers had to be invented and put into the field, assimilated
and normalized as everyday cultural objects, melding into the
background as a 'known entity' world wide even. peoples languages and
communication may stop at certain borders and boundaries, yet a Coke
machine is a understandable beyond this limit of particular
spoken/written language via its corporate brand and symbolism, and the
product it sells. it could be considered a universal, even, in some
sense, moreso than the words that are needed to describe it in one
country or the next.
one of the areas it seems a tremendous gap exists in education and
culture is that visual analysis is not related to that of words, for
description, in basic communication. and so 'words' can seek to
describe the artifact at issue, yet its shape, form, geometry, details
may be very important to understanding what it is and how it functions
in the various parameters involved. this is where archeology is
involved, though also the basic realm of the physical environment, of
machines and buildings and 'things' that populate environments
alongside people and nature and
