« Announcing Design Engaged 2004 | Main | Apple's Automator »
August 17, 2004
Sterling at SIGGRAPH
Bruce Sterling's SIGGRAPH 2004 speech is one of his best tech riffs in some time, one of those where ideas are just cascading out in front of him. Note that his description of "Spimes" (which are both "SPeculative IMaginary objects" and "objects in SPace and tIMe", I think) never include examples. This is quite brilliant. He manages to describe a new class of consumer objects almost purely by the set of Services that flow around them: searchability, self-description, configuration, provenance, user community, and future history. Talk about "design dissolving in behavior."
In the future, an object's life begins on a graphics screen. It is born digital. Its design specs accompany it throughout its life. It is inseparable from that original digital blueprint, which rules the material world. This object is going to tell you -- if you ask -- everything that an expert would tell you about it. Because it WANTS you to become an expert.
(Sterling mentions coining "spime" here.)
Posted by Andrew at August 17, 2004 04:58 PM