Pervasive media, and the various forms of computing from which they are derived, stem from a tradition of anticipating future scenarios of technology use. Sam Kinsley's PhD research concerned the ways in which those involved in pervasive computing research development imaginatively envision future worlds in which they’re technologies exist.

This lunchtime talk examines the ways in which future people, places and things are imagined in the research and development of pervasive media. Examples taken from prospective pervasive computing research and development in the last twenty years will be explored as emblematic of such future gazing. The aim is to provide a broad means of understanding the rationales by which technological futures are invoked so that pervasive media producers can critically reflect on the role the idea of the future in their work. Such an understanding is important because a history of computing is in large part a history of places and
things that were never created - a history of yesterday's tomorrows.

Sam Kinsley is a Research Fellow at UWE's DCRC. Find our more about Sam's work at: www.dcrc.org.uk/people-1/sam-kinsley