Folding Plug System: redesigning the UK 3-pin plug
"'Mac book Air,' Apple's latest master-piece, is the world's thinnest laptop ever. However, here in the U.K, we still use the world's biggest three-pin plug. Most people carry laptops with adapters and plugs because laptop batteries have limitations on the time they can be used. When people carry laptops with U.K plugs in a bag, it always causes problems such as tearing paper, scratching laptop surfaces and, sometimes, it breaks other stuff. The main problem is the UK standard 3-pin plug is not considered in the process of designing for mobility. My intention of the project was directed to make the plug as slim as possible and follow the British Standard regulation at the same time."
(Min-Kyu Choi, 20 April 2009)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
The Laptop Studio: mobile individualisation of technologically-rendered space
"Like the walkman and the mp3 player, the laptop raises a set of questions regarding the folding of spatialities as they intertwine with new cultural practices. For instance, consideration of the interface between space and the everyday routines of laptop users raises a number of issues about the personal uses of mobile devices. On the one hand, ... the laptop is insinuated into the mobile individualisation of technologically-rendered space. It becomes a 'bubble' organised around a privatised desire for withdrawal - a kind of utopic hike into introspective technoculture. Here, the laptop becomes a dwelling, shelter or boundary. It separates the inside from the outside and functions as a nest through which creative output is hatched and nurtured, transposing the personal and affective relationship musicians have with music into an inner technological space rendered by Graphic User Interfaces, projects and folders. In many ways, this echoes the way the traditional recording studio seals itself from the outside world, both acoustically and creatively. As the French sociologist, Antoine Hennion argues, removed from the real world by sound proofing, the studio becomes an 'idealized microcosm of creation' (1989: 408) in which trial and error testing and sonic experimentation takes place".
(Nick Prior)
Hennion, A. (1989) "An Intermediary Between Production and Consumption: The Producer of Popular Music", Science, Technology and Human Values, 14, 4: 400-424.
'OK Computer: Mobility, Software and the Laptop Musician', Information, Communication and Society, 11:7, October 2008: 912-932.
Fig.1 'Clint (KA7OEI) and Randy (KG7GI) on the edge of a 1200 foot cliff overlooking much of Canyonlands National Park, using their laptop computers on the CanyonLan'
CONTRIBUTOR
The Constellations ProjectSHARE
Wi-Fi Hot Zones Create Urban Sound Gardens
Mark Shepard
The Tactical Sound Garden [TSG] Toolkit is an open source software platform for cultivating public "sound gardens" within contemporary cities. ... The Toolkit enables anyone living within dense 802.11 wireless (WiFi) "hot zones" to install a "sound garden" for public use. Using a WiFi enabled mobile device (PDA, laptop, mobile phone), participants "plant" sounds within a positional audio environment. These plantings are mapped onto the coordinates of a physical location by a 3D audio engine common to gaming environments - overlaying a publicly constructed soundscape onto a specific urban space. Wearing headphones connected to a WiFi enabled device, participants drift though virtual sound gardens as they move throughout the city.
CONTRIBUTOR
The Constellations ProjectSHARE
