Intimate (Ubiquitous) Computing
From ThesisWiki
Contents |
Authors
Genevieve Bell, Tim Brooke, Elizabeth Curchill, Eric Paulos
Overview
This is the introduction paper to the workshop held at Ubicomp 2003 on Intimate Ubicomp. They take a broad view of intimacy in computing and describe it in three ways. 1. cognitive and emotional closeness with technology, 2. intimacy as physical closeness with technology and 3. intimacy through technology. They mention how intimacy has always been linked to ubicomp, but that normally ubicomp promises scalability and that intimate objects imply a sense of detail in support of niches and individuals. The paper also considers how play relates to intimacy, noting that humans are "more exploratory and more willing to entertain ambiguity in their expectations" during play, and that such conditions may more easily give rise to intimacy.
Reflection
Are play and intimacy linked? It's interesting to see that themes such as phatic communication, ambiguity, and play are arising around intimacy. Great Plato quote in this paper: "You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation." This captures what I'm looking for -- intimate actions are communicative, but not conversational or informational.
