LIFT Talk Proposal: Embracing the real world's messiness

I took the opportunity of the upcoming LIFT open stage session to propose a talk on technology and messiness, a subject related to a philosophical aspect in my research that highlights the mismatches between our needs, expectations and behaviors towards technologies.

Embracing the real world’s messiness

Description: Science and engineering aim at improve and facilitate our lives. However, multiple physical, economical, organization and social constraints challenge technologies to seamlessly provide well understood services. Unlike often advertised technologies do not lead us to live in harmony with quiescent and stable systems. Indeed, to live in our everyday world, systems must always be maintained, and our relationships to them must be continually negotiated. The increasing complex integration of technologies in our digital lives and cities further highlights new types noises, failures and annoyances, as the user of any international airport or mobile wireless service can attest. This talk will raise these issues by exemplifying the messiness inherent to technologies.

Update: Presentation of the talk proposal on the LIFT07 blog.

The messiness around us… (the nests of cabling barely hidden in the dropped ceiling)