Main entry:

Sterling, Bruce.

Title & Author:

Shaping things / by Bruce Sterling.

Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, ©2005.

Description:

149 pages : illustrations ; 20 cm

Series:

Mediawork

Notes:
1 To Whom it Ought to Concern 5 -- 2 Tomorrow Composts Today 8 -- 3 Old Wine in New Bottles 15 -- 4 The Personal is Historical 25 -- 5 Metahistory 37 -- 6 A Synchronic Society 45 -- 7 The Rubbish Makers 55 -- 8 The Stark Necessity of Glamor 61 -- 9 An End-User Drinks Gizmo Wine 70 -- 10 Meet the Spime 76 -- 11 Arphids 85 -- 12 An Internet of Things 92 -- 13 The Model is the Message 95 -- 14 Fabbing 102 -- 15 Spime Economics 107 -- 16 The Designer's Questions 112 -- 17 Tomorrow's Tomorrow 133 -- 18 Ublopia or Otivion 138 -- Endtroduction 146.

Summary:

A history of shaped things. We have moved from an age of artifacts, made by hand, through complex machines, to the current era of "gizmos." New forms of design and manufacture are appearing that lack historical precedent, Sterling writes; but the production methods, using archaic forms of energy and materials that are finite and toxic, are not sustainable. The future will see a new kind of object -- we have the primitive forms of them now in our pockets and briefcases: user-alterable, baroquely multi-featured, and programmable -- that will be sustainable, enhanceable, and uniquely identifiable. Sterling coins the term "spime" for them, these future manufactured objects with informational support so extensive and rich that they are regarded as material instantiations of an immaterial system. Spimes are designed on screens, fabricated by digital means, and precisely tracked through space and time. They are made of substances that can be folded back into the production stream of future spimes, challenging all of us to become involved in their production. Spimes are coming, says Sterling. We will need these objects in order to live; we won't be able to surrender their advantages without awful consequences. - from publisher web site.

Resources:
Table of contents
Table of contents

ISBN:

026219533X (alk. paper)
9780262195331 (alk. paper)
0262693267 (pbk. ; alk. paper)
9780262693264 (pbk. ; alk. paper)

Subject:

Design 2016
Technological forecasting.
Technology assessment.
Prévision technologique.
Technologie Évaluation.
Produktentwicklung
Design

Added entries:

Mediawork.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 241614
Call No.: BIB 171476
Status: Available