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Loading... Shaping Things (Mediaworks Pamphlets)by Bruce Sterling
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.  phildec | Sep 10, 2009 |  I ordered this little book after an enthusiastic recommendation from Charlie Stross. Shaping Things is where Bruce Sterling lays out his idea for what some futurists are calling the Bright Spime Future (in contrast to Joshua Ellis’ Grim Meathook Future). He discusses the progress of technocultures, from handcrafted items to mass production, and coins a neologism, “spime”, to describe “manufactured objects whose informational support is so overwhelmingly extensive and rich that they are regarded as material instantiations of an immaterial system.” The book then explores how this will be necessary in order to create a sustainable technoculture that can handle reuse and recycling, and the technological underpinnings of that technoculture. (He rejects the hair-shirt greens; we need to go forward, not backward.) The book is an excellent starting point for thinking about our next technological steps. Sterling is up front that the book is a signpost, not a roadmap, but I like the way it’s pointing. The book itself is about design, and has a great deal more design than most books; its layout is much like I would imagine Wired Magazine to look like if it grew up. The use of color and font changes is surprising to someone used to ordinary text, but it supports the text rather than distracting from it. (  ) slothman | May 31, 2009 | This is a tough read. On first pass, I wasn't quite getting it. After several conversations and sifting thru it again, I'm locking onto Bruce's story. You can feel spimes coming. They're damn close. Manage your life with spimes... all on your celltop, desktop, mindtop. Rock on Bruce. Maybe I still don't get quite everything in the short book but this much I do get: spimes are a bunch of services that surround other services... which in turn will help us see, manage, and define our lives. Your financial life has 30+ services surrounding it... banking, saving, checking, mortgages, retirement, stocks, micro investments, spending sprees, etc. I want to see my LifeSpimeDashboard. Shaping things is a lovely mind screw. ( ) jsonin | Jan 5, 2007 | Bruce Sterling is a science-fiction writer and he should stay that way. I still cannot understand why he was commisioned to write this book. He doesn't really seem to grasp what design really entails. Rather, he speaks about it like an outsider would speak. His comments are often unsubstantial--lacking much relevance. However, he does make some interesting insights into a future world of spimes and bots. And, on some level, I did appreciate his matter-of-fact way of discussing the field. In general I was confused what his point is. He makes some vague statement that the book is about 'everything' but to me it just amounted to nothing. My views are subjective as I've heard him in interviews talking on these subjects previously. Nonetheless he himself seems too technologically-centered and misses many philosophical points of design (or, over-simplifies them). Specifically, I do not understand his fascination with RFID (or arphid as he calls it). In the book he basically constructs a world centered around these types of things and proposes hypothetical questions about how this will affect design. I have problems with people who forecast in almost any field--especially technology. Predictions and models for the future can be useful in terms of creating scenarios for use (as he mentions well) but this book goes beyond into the realm of science-fiction. He creates a world that is based on too many assumptions (such as the pervasiveness and ubiquity of arphids). I suppose if I am to read futurist perspectives I like to buy what I'm being sold and Sterling did not sell me on his construction. (  )1  cmbeck82 | Dec 30, 2006 | rcampoamor | Jan 7, 2006 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0262693267, Paperback)"Shaping Things is about created objects and the environment, which is to say, it's about everything," writes Bruce Sterling in this addition to the Mediawork Pamphlet series. He adds, "Seen from sufficient distance, this is a small topic."Sterling offers a brilliant, often hilarious 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, he 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. The vision of Shaping Things is given material form by the intricate design of Lorraine Wild. Shaping Things is for designers and thinkers, engineers and scientists, entrepreneurs and financiers -- and anyone who wants to understand and be part of the process of technosocial transformation. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:18 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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The "spime" theory were all objects are communication hubs and the "biot" society based on biotechnologic/sustainable objects are both relevant but still too obvious given todays technological trends to make this book groundbreaking. (