The Dissertation is handed in and defended in 2008

Title:
Re:configuring interface culture. Digital aesthetics in the age of pervasive computing

Abstract:
The dissertation investigates how pervasive/ubiquitous computing can be understood from an aesthetic perspective. Through the approach of software studies and digital aesthetics, and through using hermeneutic analyses of art and design artefacts as primary sources for understanding the interplay between culture and technology, the dissertation seeks to widen the perspective of pervasive computing. Firstly, my analyses argue that these dynamics are fundamental to both our understanding and our design of contemporary technologies, and secondly I emphasise how aesthetic artefacts can serve as entryways for our investigations into new technologies. The dissertation is comprised of six published papers and three summarising chapters. The papers each perform a detailed analysis of specific artworks and technologies, and the summarising chapters use the papers to identify ways that pervasive computing creates renewed focus on the dynamics between culture and technology. Here, focus is on the deconstruction of transparency, on how intimacy is increasingly sought mediated and finally on how mobile media affects the dynamics between public, private and intimate space. By identifying several technological dreams, hopes and cultural paradigms implicitly embedded in pervasive computing, I discuss how pervasive technologies are in a dynamic and complex relationship with cultural paradigms, and thus much more than enablers of efficiency and fun.
The PhD project was funded by The Danish Council for Research in the Humanities through the research project The Aesthetics of Interface Culture (2004-8).

The Dissertation is not available online