“Not only do we need engineers working alongside anthropologists to do good quality engineering, I also think that we need to do an anthropology of engineers… Engineers are…
The video-screen carrying robot used by doctors to converse with patients. The headline on the local news station’s website was sensational: “Bereaved Family Upset Kaiser Used Robot…
As the presenter encouraged the academics in the room to consider what it means for nanotechnology to sell itself as ‘magic’, boots appeared outside the window behind him.…
The past month has been a big one for the moon. There was a total solar eclipse across Chile and Argentina on July 2, a partial lunar eclipse…
Jack Stuster poses with a NASA space shuttle. Jack Stuster In the fall of 1957, the Soviet Union satellite Sputnik 1 streaked across the night’s sky. The event kicked off…
Disponible en español aquí. On July 13th, the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (Center for Investigative Journalism) leaked 889 pages of a Telegram App chat between the governor of…
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…
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…
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…
Luger, M., Graf, F., & Budka, P. (Eds.). (2019). Ritualisierung – Mediatisierung – Performance. (Ritualization – Mediatization – Performance). Göttingen: V&R Unipress/…
“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…
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…
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…
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.), …
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.
“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,…
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…
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,…
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 &…
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 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 …
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…
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…
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…