Phase Media: Space, Time and the Politics of Smart Objects

James Ash's Phase Media explores how smart objects, connected by networks and sensors, reshape users' environment, creating phases that modulate spatio-temporal intelligibility. He argues that these objects have their own phase politics, offering opportunities for new forms of public to emerge.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 224 pages
Publication date: 22 August 2019
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

James Ash's work in Phase Media explores how smart objects, characterized by their connectivity and sensor capabilities, are reshaping users' interactions with their environment. He proposes that smart objects create phases, distinct space-times that influence the understanding of both humans and non-humans. Ash examines a wide range of objects and services, including the Apple Watch, Nest Cam, and Uber, and suggests that the modulation of spatio-temporal intelligibility is influenced by the commercial interests of the industries that design and manufacture smart objects, but can also transcend them. Building upon the ideas of Martin Heidegger, Gilbert Simondon, and Bruno Latour, Ash argues that smart objects possess their own phase politics, which offer opportunities for the emergence of new forms of public. Phase Media develops a conceptual framework to challenge the notion that smart objects solely facilitate increased corporate control and surveillance, highlighting their potential to expose and re-order the very logics and procedures that gave rise to them.

Weight: 348g
Dimension: 152 x 228 x 17 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781501353888