TITLE, AFFILIATION
Contributions to Platypus, The CASTAC Blog
View all of 's posts on Platypus, The CASTAC Blog.
Engineering Through Stuckness
This article is the first in a series about stuckness in science and technology. Read the introduction to the series here. What might we learn from the experiences of tech professionals being stuck? How does stuckness come about and what do these moments represent? This post traces two stories from different worlds: an Indian NGO and an American Big Tech corporation. One follows Leena , an employee at InnovateTech, an Indian education technology (EdTech) NGO. The other follows Cody, a software engineer at Microsoft, working in the United States. On the surface, Leena and Cody have more differences than things in common. Their employers operate in very different cultural and technological contexts influenced by distinct economic and political machinations. Their everyday experiences as they move through the world, one as a brown woman, and the other as a white man, have significant contrasts. (more…) (read more...)
Hip Hop Sampling and the Akai MPC as a Platform for Spatiotemporal Discourse
The Akai Music Production Center (MPC, formerly known as the MIDI Production Center) is a series of sequencers/samplers/interfaces first designed by Roger Linn and released in 1988 to critical acclaim. The MPC series soon became one of the most influential technologies in modern music production. The flagship model, the MPC60, included many features that made it an immediate hit with artists: a 4 by 4 layout of comfortable pressure sensitive pads, 16 voice polyphony, 13.1 seconds of sampling, frequency response of 18kHz, and MIDI (an acronym for musical instrument digital interface, a protocol that allows electronic instruments to communicate with each other). These feature allowed for easy connectivity to other MIDI devices found in studios at the time like synthesizers and other samplers, high quality sampling and playback, and an instrument that feels good to play. (more…) (read more...)
Series: Theorizing Stuckness in Science and Technology
What might we learn by studying science and technology through the lens of stuckness? Stuckness is a ubiquitous experience in the everyday work of science and technology. Scientists are constantly frustrated with unexpected obstacles to their research plans (Messeri & Vertesi, 2015). Technologists who aspire to change the world often end up reproducing current structures of power (Rider, 2022). In popular discourse, scientific and technological practice has been associated with progress as steady betterment. As Leo Marx (2010) notes in tracing the emergence of the word “technology” in English, scientific and mechanical innovations became synonymous with social progress in the 19th century. And yet, getting stuck is a quotidian experience among experts in these fields, from experiments that fail to grant applications that are rejected. (more…) (read more...)