“This is how I was born, how my creator, Victor Frankenstein, sparked me into energetic life…” So began my performance-paper at 4S 2015 (Society for Social Studies of Science) and AAA 2015 (American Anthropological Association) in Denver. I performed a character who haunts the islands of Orkney, abandoned out of hubris after her creation by…
Ebban an’ flowan is the world’s first poetic primer on marine renewable energy. The book focuses on the Orkney islands, as the leading international test site for this nascent energy industry, and expands to reflect on its relationship with the Nordic countries across the sea. Through both language and technology, the book explores how use…
Free to download. A collection of seven cards demonstrating the invisible work ongoing at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), in the Orkney islands, Scotland – the world’s first grid-connected test site for wave energy and tide energy – and the place where I have been working since 2003. Seasmith, Prophet, Transducer, Storyteller, Beacon, Selkie:…
As part of my performance paper at Nordic STS this year, at Aalborg University in Copenhagen, I created a Wordmap to guide visitors through my world-made-in-words, a world made from my fieldsite in Orkney. It reflects on the machines we choose to make our worlds, and our futures. The performance featured this wordmap, a reading…
There is a long archaeology of futures in the mobile telecoms industry, futures that have appeared with much fanfare, been forgotten, and then resurrected once more. The ‘watchphone’ (recently popularised by the Apple Watch) is perhaps the most recent example of a walking dead future, with a history and archaeology from decades past. There are…
Poem for an Entangled Age, handcrafted book. This poem was written and edited during the symposium Environmental Entanglements: Art, Technology & Natures at Det Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, Copenhagen, 28-29 October 2014, where both artists and academics performed and discussed their work. The words are drawn from the speakers’ presentations and subsequent discussions. The poem…
This book chapter began as a performance keynote at 4S/EASST 2012 annual conference in Copenhagen. Lucy Suchman, Pelle Ehn, and myself were asked to consider the conference theme ‘Design and Displacement: Social Studies of Science and Technology’ and how that might be situated in different places around the world. (Inspired by the Orkney Mailboats project).…
In September 2014 I gave a paper-performance on my poetic research methods at the Department for Thematic Studies, Social and Technical Change (TEMA-T), Linköping University. In the discussion we talked about the effect of performing a paper, the effect of poetic words, compared to a standard academic presentation: one effect is the silence that comes…
The ‘Energy Walk’ is an ethnographic installation in the landscape. It weaves together the sand dunes and harbour seascape of the Danish Wave Energy Center, in Hanstholm, Denmark, with other landscapes at the energy edge: marine energy in Orkney islands, Scotland, and geothermal energy in Iceland. Over a 40 minute journey it offers you stories,…
I was asked to perform a keynote that spoke to issues of energy security, risk, and futures. This keynote was given at ‘Translations of Security’ an inspiring, interdisciplinary conference held at Center for Advanced Security Theory (CAST), University of Copenhagen, May 2014. The presentation was called Living at the End of the World: a (Science…