How To Live In A Pervasively Networked World
The topic of this talk is based on the research vector I am pursuing around the next order digital networks—those networks that pervade physical and social space and thereby knit together hybrid social beings into thick, contested imbroglios. These next order digital networks are messy, yet nonetheless matter as they have significant meaning-making capabilities. The research is motivated by the profoundly world changing possibilities of a massively digitally networked world of social beings, and to emphasize the latent possibilities for making different kinds of social worlds through these networks and their material instrumentalities.
My research question is this: besides the heady technological advances, the economic exuberance, and social science explications about exciting new networked social formations—blogs, spaces, etc.—a question remains: How does one live sensibly, serenely and sustainably in a networked world? What are the good-living guidelines that will help us digitally hack our ways out of any of a number of impending global catastrophes?
Julian Bleecker is a Research Fellow at the Annenberg Center for Communication and an Assistant Professor in the School of Cinema-TV's Interactive Media Division. Bleecker's work focuses on emerging technology design, research and development, implementation, concept innovation, particularly in the areas of pervasive media, mobile media, social networks and entertainment. He has a BS in electrical engineering and an MS in computer-human interaction. His doctoral dissertation from the University of California, Santa Cruz is on technology, entertainment and culture.