Lilly Irani on her book, Chasing Innovation
https://press.princeton.edu/titles/13362.html Lilly Irani, in conversation with Christopher Kelty (Note: Interview was transcribed, unlike many other interviews on this site which are conducted by e…
Tag: Technology
Seminar: Media Activism
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OccupyHandSignals.pdf For the MA Program “Visual and Media Anthropology” at the Free University Berlin, I am organizing a newly developed semi…
Mack Hagood on his new book, Hush: Media and Sonic Self-Control
https://www.dukeupress.edu/hush Interview by Jacob Smith Jacob Smith: Hush offers a strikingly original take on the history of devices and practices that offer control over the sonic environment. As…
Book: Ritualisierung – Mediatisierung – Performance
Luger, M., Graf, F., & Budka, P. (Eds.). (2019). Ritualisierung – Mediatisierung – Performance. (Ritualization – Mediatization – Performance). Göttingen: V&R Unipress/…
Dumbwaiters and Smartphones: The Responsibility of Intelligence
“I don’t have to drink alone,” she paused for comedic effect, “now that I have Alexa.” Thus was the punchline of a story told by a widowed octogenarian…
How I kicked chronic migraine (And what that has to do with anthropology)
This post is about the biopsychosocial medical model and how it relates to the treatment of chronic pain. As an anthropologist, I’m particularly interested in the social part…
Out-of-Body Workspaces: Andy Serkis and Motion Capture Technologies
Upper image, production shot of live action actor James Franco (Left) and Andy Serkis, with digital character superimposed (Right). Lower image, the finished shot of live action and…
Book Chapter: Indigenous Media Technologies in “The Digital Age”
Budka, P. (2019). Indigenous media technologies in “the digital age”: Cultural articulation, digital practices, and sociopolitical concepts. In S. S. Yu & M. D. Matsaganis (Eds.), …
Mapping USA electronics manufacturing pollution
The US ‘tech sector’ has been a major source of toxicant releases. These interactive maps show the chemical legacy of electronic manufacturing in the US.
Ep. #32 ‘Hula Hoops not Bicycles’: Genevieve Bell talks Anthropology, Technology & Building the Future
“We were bringing the voices of people that didn’t get inside the building, inside the building and making them count. And I took that as an incredible responsibility,…
The NASA Ames Junk Tent
History matters when explaining why we should fund NASA’s science. A junk tent with broken exhibits doesn’t tell that story. If you ever need a NASA logo pattern to…
Silicon Satire
How memes articulate tech trouble and signal “all the things.” History repeats itself, “the first time as tragedy, the second as farce”—especially in Silicon Valley. In April 2018,…
Seminar: Digital & Visual Technologies as Material Culture
In the summer term 2019, I am giving a seminar on digital and visual technologies as material culture at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology (MA &…
Tech Startup Culture: ‘I am machine’
By Vivienne Schröder For my master Anthropology at the VU Amsterdam, I am doing three months of fieldwork in San Francisco, where I am researching Tech Startup Culture.…
Writing disability
Writing inequalities Writing disability through rewriting representations of inequality and vulnerability. Image: R. Cupitt 2018 When writing inequalities, the language we use and our writings betray …
Japan’s Emerging Emotional Tech
Are we developing emotional machines with all-too-human capacities for care? An interactive scene from Gatebox Inc.’s promotional video. Gatebox Inc. There is a moment in Spike Jonze’s film…
Behold the hot computer technology of 1985
What was it like to do use a computer for chat, graphic design, banking or online shopping in the mid-1980s? What were the most innovative hardware and software…
Digitale Anthropologie
Dieser Text wurde 2017 für den Blog der Universität Wien geschrieben; für eine überarbeitete und erweiterte Version des Textes siehe Budka, P. 2019. Von der Cyber Anthropologie zur…
John Postill on his new book, The Rise of Nerd Politics
Interview by Angela VandenBroek https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/R/bo27407562.html Angela VandenBroek: The Rise of Nerd Politics is a captivating description and analysis o…
Web Roundup: Trapped in the Tar Pit by Kathleen Lynch
Earlier this month, Atul Gawande, physician-author and new CEO of the yet-to-be defined health venture formed by JP Morgan, Berkshire Hathaway, and Amazon, published the long-form New Yorker…
Greetings from Silicon Beach
Does technology mean something different when it leaves the Valley and goes to the Beach? In the summer of 2016, during preliminary fieldwork in California, I met with…
Navigating Silicon Valley’s Contradictions
Silicon Valley’s workers must maneuver their way through this place of diversity and discrimination, capitalist aims, and countercultural aspirations. You can spot the extremes on the street in…
Is Space a Human Place?
[no-caption] David Williams/SAPIENS From space junk and the International Space Station to space colonization and SpaceX, space is becoming a more human place. What will it mean when…