Energy Babble

Boucher, Andy; Gaver, William; Kerridge, Tobie; Wilkie, Alex; Michael, Mike; Ovalle, Liliana; Plummer-Fernandez, Matthew

doi:10.28938/9780995527720

Cited by 9 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 18 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…By asking members of different communities to concoct a common community, the differences between, and tensions amongst, these communities were very likely downplayed. Energy communities become so because they are funded under various schemes -schemes which require competition amongst the communities who must bid for funds (Boucher et al 2018). None of this tacit conflict amongst energy communities found expression through the map exercise.…”

Section: A Community Mapsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The engagement with the issue of energy-demand reduction as well as with local energy communities took numerous forms over the course of the three-year project, most notably culminating in the design and three-month deployment amongst the communities of a computational and interactive research device entitled Energy Babble (see Figure 1 & Gaver et al 2015, Boucher et al 2018. This was an automated talk-radio like appliance that scraped, sourced and emitted energy-related content from social media, notably Twitter and the UK National Grid.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Aesthetics and Affect: Engaging Energy Communities

2018

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Engaging publics in participatory events has been regarded as a central means to introducing lay people's voices into processes of technoscientific innovation and governance. While many criticisms have been levelled at the methods and techniques of participation and engagement, little attention has been paid to the role of aesthetics. This is especially the case when aesthetics is understood in terms of opening up new and potential ways of critically and creatively engaging with technoscientific matters of concern. The terms semblamatic and matters of potentially are proposed as usefully capturing this dimension of aesthetics. Drawing on practice-based design research, a probe workshop was developed and members of energy communities were invited to it. These lay people had an invested interest in reducing energy demand in their communities. Three probe exercises were implemented: these were designed to playfully to open up potential re-articulations of, respectively, such core themes as energy, communities and futures. Our goals were to examine the extent to which such probes enabled semblamatic responses in relation to the core themes, and to explore whether the exercises facilitated participants' engagement with these themes as matters of potentiality. Findings were mixed. The retention of standard meanings of these core themes was certainly in evidence, showing that such events can be, despite the best intentions, anaesthetic, blunting people's affective access to the semblamatic aspects of engagement. Conversely, there were also instances of a novel opening up in which the core themes were creatively re-articulated, though this required a semblamatic reading of collective participant responses. The present perspective, with its three novel terms -semblamatic, matters of potentiality, and anaestheticmight prove useful in alerting scholars to the complex role of aesthetics in the methodological and analytic practices entailed in engagement with publics.

show abstract

Section: A Community Mapsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Aesthetics and Affect: Engaging Energy Communities

2018

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The underlying model of the consumer is one of a rational, calculative individual who can draw on this information to increase domestic energy efficiency (for instance, by reducing the use of energy-hungry appliances, or switching off standby-enabled devices). Putting aside such difficulties as installation in a multi-apartment building or technical issues in information processing (see Boucher et al, 2018), evidence has gradually accumulated that such smart monitors do not seem to facilitate the presumed energy savings (e.g. Buchanan et al, 2015;Hargreaves et al, 2010).…”

Section: Lay Metrology: Practices and Sensesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lay metrology and metroscoping: Towards the study of lay units

Michael

2023

Public Underst Sci

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This exploratory article provides groundwork towards a tentative framework for exploring how lay measures and units – what is here called ‘lay metrology’ – intersect with formal metrology, and its various mediations. This article concerns itself with the role that everyday ‘units’ – grounded in part in the material culture of bodies and experience – play in relation to a metrological landscape, or ‘metroscape’ that is also inhabited by standardised units routinely popularised through various media. After a brief overview of the relevant literature on metrology, examples of lay metrology are provided that examine the relation of everyday units of, for example, length and area, to particular forms of bodily experience, social identity and sensorial capacities. This article draws on elements from science communication and affect theory to develop the notion of ‘metroscoping’ and to articulate a series of orienting questions for engaging with lay metrological processes.

show abstract

“…). It also activated participants using 'design probe' inspired prompts [Boucher et al, 2018;Mattelmäki, 2005;Wallace et al, 2013]. These prompts were provocation questions printed on paper in the shape of garments, which participants could write on, then 'peg out to air' publicly, or put in the machines to 'wash' anonymously, encouraging both individual reflection and collective dialogue.…”

Section: Designing the Engagement Incubatormentioning

confidence: 99%

The ‘Engagement Incubator’: using design to stimulate reflexivity about public engagement with science

Bailey¹,

Salmon²,

Horst³

2022

JCOM

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Public Engagement with Science calls for scientists to think more reflexively about their research, and how assumptions, power and contexts influence associated communication. To interrogate this, we utilised design to stimulate reflexive thinking about science communication through a residential ‘Engagement Incubator’ that took the form of a pop-up cardboard laundromat. Participants reported an increased appreciation for, and insight into, PES theory, and its relevance to their work. In addition, our experience of enacting PES theory, and reflexive thematic analysis of data collected through the process, deepened our own understanding of PES and reinforced our appreciation of engagement as reproductive, and inherently circular work.

show abstract

Energy Babble

Cited by 9 publications

References 18 publications

Aesthetics and Affect: Engaging Energy Communities

Aesthetics and Affect: Engaging Energy Communities

Lay metrology and metroscoping: Towards the study of lay units

The ‘Engagement Incubator’: using design to stimulate reflexivity about public engagement with science

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About