*Okay, after reading that earlier post about the endless heaps of tangled indefinable data require to create "spimes," now get your head around the pure limpid low-key Nipponese simplicity of "Mujicomp."
(((("massive semantic heaps of everythingness" "mujicompfrastructure")))
(((Now you know why interaction designers get paid! Tra la la!)))
"In his presentation, he (((Matt Jones, who else))) introduced the notion of “Mujicomp”, a portmanteau word made of “Muji” (the japanese retail company which sells a wide variety of household and consumer goods) and “Computing”. What does it mean?
"According to Jones, the idea of “mujicomp” revolved around the notion that ubiquitous computing needs to “become sexy and desirable… able to be appreciated as cultural design objects rather than technology… they should be tasteful, simple, clear, clean, contemporary, affordable in order to be invited into the home“.
"If designers and engineers want to “make smart cities bottom up with products and not academic ubiquitous computing which are always postponed“, he argued that ubicomp will need some “muji”. And of course, as shown by Jones's use of the quote from Eliel Saarinen, “always design a thing by considering it in its larger context… a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment“.
"Starting from the ground-up can lead to some “almost mujicomp” products he mentioned ranges from energy monitor (Watsson, Wattcher) to more curious devices such as Availabot or Olinda that they develop at BERG. The fon phone is also an example here.
"As computing requires not only artifacts but also infrastructures, there’s a need for “mujicompfrastructures”: (((which are every bit as elegant as they sound!)))
“could you create infrastructures with desirable things?
the importance of threshold: how could we look at the spaces where we used our devices in a same way architect look at things? like bottom-up urbanism?
different elements/gray shades between the private and the public: street, sidewalk, pavement, porch, home
this connects to Jane Jacobs: intervening is not just about creating big infrastructures but sidewalk-scale system that could leak out into the home
Also in his presentation, Matt talked about the “patchy homebrew equivalent of the nearly-net that would work”... (((Mujicompfrastructure favela chic! See, we're advancing by leaps 'n' bounds!)))
