Aleks Krotoski

[Event] State Library of Victoria's Digital Society Series

Sun, 12 May 2013 16:34:49 +0000

From 20-21 May, I’ll be in Melbourne to open up the State Library of Victoria’s very exciting Digital Society Series with two evenings of public talks:

[The Digital Society Series is] a new speaker series exploring the interface of digital and analogue worlds and their impact on human experience and innovation. Leading experts will discuss the ways in which connections, meaning and opportunities drive our ways of living and shape our learning and knowledge.

I’m ridiculously excited. I’ve never been to Melbourne and have been assured I will absolutely love it.

If you’re in town, please do join! On the evening of Monday 20th, I’ll be talking about Untangling the Web: What the Internet Is Doing To You, my new book.

On the evening of Tuesday 21st, I’ll be joining an esteemed panel to pick apart Connected Learning:

What happens when you mix technology, information and people together? How does the pace, type and scope of learning expand? This exciting panel will explore these concepts and discuss how connected learning is evolving through a mix of the web, passion and peer relationships.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Untangling the Web: the pre-order kerfuffle

Thu, 02 May 2013 14:27:16 +0000

Despite emails from Amazon to the contrary (twice!), I assure you that Untangling the Web: What the Internet is Doing To You will be released on 4 July this year.

The confusion has arisen because the ISBN listing has been changed twice in its publication cycle, which means the original listings have been replaced and all pre-orders associated with those listings have been voided. For some reason, these pre-orders have not been automatically transferred over to the new listing. I can only apologise.

If you’ve received the email that was sent by Amazon today, or the email that was sent by Amazon last November, I humbly request that you pre-order the book again using this link – the Faber & Faber publisher link – which I hope will not change.

Thank you.

Untangling the Web: Words from New Zealand

Wed, 01 May 2013 14:24:51 +0000

The New Zealand book tour dates approach (16-20th May)! In advance, I’ve been speaking with several folks there about the book, and about my work in general.

The latest comes from CRACCUM, Auckland University’s weekly. It was a really thoughtful series of interview questions about social science and the web. I really enjoyed answering them.

If you’d like to travel down the path of serendipity, Mark Broatch’s interview with me is in The NZ Listener. Mark and I spoke for over an hour, and I’m impressed he condensed all my effusive enthusiasm into something that fit the paper!

And if you’d like to listen to an overview about the book in an interview with Radio NZ’s Nine to Noon, drop in here. This was my first press interview for the book and I had a great time in this conversation.

[DML Central] Lying About the Past: T Mills Kelly explains the origin of an internet hoax

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 03:33:00 +0000

I interviewed George Mason University’s T Mills Kelly for BBC Radio 4’s The Digital Human, for the programme about Mischief. Prof Kelly ran a history course called “Lying About The Past,” which gained attention from (and the wrath of) the internet community, the press and history teachers. Why? because he asked his students to create an internet hoax.

I wanted to know more. Here’s a clip:

I think it’s fair to say that my course made a number of my colleagues, both here at George Mason and elsewhere, very uncomfortable. And I get that. The course made me uncomfortable. As a historian I’ve devoted my career to getting things right and so to teach students how to get things intentionally wrong felt wrong to me at many levels, as I’m sure it did to many of my colleagues.

Unfortunately, I was unsuccessful in convincing my colleagues here at Mason that what I was doing in the ways I was doing it had sufficient pedagogical merit that I should be allowed to continue. Instead, our undergraduate committee rejected my proposal to have the course included as a formal course in our catalog (I’d taught it twice under a special topics number). The only way they would have accepted the course was if I agreed that my students would not turn their hoaxes loose online. To my way of thinking, that would reduce the central motivating force of the class – the need to do excellent work because that work would be public – into yet another abstract classroom exercise. I was unwilling, for good or ill, to accede to that demand, so I won’t be teaching the course any longer.

Continue reading at DML Central.

I've been in LA. Here's why.

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 18:29:32 +0000

I’ve been working on several projects in Los Angeles over the last six months. Some are personal, some professional. All have been delightful and intense in equal measure.

Three in particular stand out:

How The Crow Flew is the title of my next book, a story of exile, espionage and imprisonment. It’s about a close group of remarkable women living out their golden years in Orange County, far from their young lives as spies, freedom fighters and prisoners of war. One of these ladies (all in their 80s) is my grandmother. I spent the first quarter of this year interviewing her and her friends about their lives. More ongoing at howthecrowflew.tumblr.com

Analog Lessons From Masters of the Senses is an ongoing series of interviews with notable people who create stories without words, but rather through senses. Perfumers, sound artists, roller coaster designers, celebrity chefs, theme park planners, sommeliers, touch therapists, super-tasters.. It was inspired by a workshop I organised with Lisa Sargood and Holly Goodier at the Oxford Internet Institute about behaviour change. It feeds into the work I’ve been doing with the Nominet Trust about media literacy and the lenses through which we consume the world. You can see it in the coming months at The School of Life (29 June, 26th Sept) and at the Sydney Reader’s and Writer’s Festival (26 May). Some of the content was also shared on BBC Radio 4’s The Digital Human episode, Engagement, on 8 April 2013. More at there-are-five.tumblr.com

Carless In California documents the challenges faced in going without four wheels in Los Angeles, possibly the most car-oriented city in the USA. Armed only with a bicycle, a pair of c1988 rollerblades, a pair of running shoes and a bus pass, I discovered that it’s actually – surprisingly – easy to get around in the 469 square mile metropolis. And there are many remarkable things that can only be seen when you’re outside a car. Yes, it’s true: I walked in LA. More at carlessincalifornia.tumblr.com

BBC Radio 4's Digital Human: Series 3

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 18:23:02 +0000

The third series of BBC Radio 4’s The Digital Human started on 1 April. This time around, we’re looking outside ourselves, at who we are at the beginning of the 21st century. You can follow all the background research and catch some exclusive interview clips at our official reporter’s notebook on Tumblr.

So far we’ve talked about tricksters, practical jokes and intentional disinformation in Mischief.

We’ve talked about the senses you can’t yet experience online – touch, smell, taste – and what technology designers can learn from perfumers, sound artists and roller coaster designers in Engagement.

We’ve found out if it’s possible to disappear – and what happens if we can’t – in Estrangement

We’ve interviewed an internet troll and one of the prison guards in the famous Stanford Prison Experiment in Transgression.

Today at 4:30pm GMT, we talked about being alone, and whether it’s possible in our hyper-connected world, in Isolation.

And next week, on in our last programme of this series before our summer break, we’re looking at the best way to balance our relationship with technology so it doesn’t take over, in Detox.

Don’t worry if you’ve missed any! You can listen to them all on iPlayer and subscribe to the podcast too. More more more information on the home page.

Untangling the Web: Pacific Rim book tour!

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 18:15:57 +0000

Quite a lot has happened since the last time I updated alekskrotoski.com. Most importantly, I have a book coming out. After a brief bit of confusion over Amazon’s ISBN system (blame the technology, people), Untangling the Web: What he Internet is Doing to You is on general release in the UK on 4 July. You can pre-order now!

I’ll be trooping around the UK and the world over the next few months showcasing the book, starting with the Auckland Reader’s and Writer’s Festival – from 16th to 20th May – followed by a series of public talks and workshops in Melbourne, Australia at the State Library of Victoria on 21st and 22nd May, and then a trip to Sydney for their Reader’s and Writer’s Festival between 23-27th May.

There will be actual paper versions of the Untangling the Web in New Zealand and Australia in May – two whole months before it’s released in the UK!

I don’t yet know when the ebook will be released; it is likely to be before the paper book is, but I’ll have to let you know whether the global release is as early as mid-May.

[Event] DATE CHANGE! Analog lessons from masters of the senses: the feel, smell and sound of immersion

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 19:06:32 +0000

Next Monday 18 March, I will be convening a workshop at the Oxford Internet Institute, speaking with three professionals who have made their livings manipulating fear, sound and smell. How do these masters of the senses design their products to get us to feel, see and do what they want us to?

The drive to digital is everywhere, with announcements daily from newspapers and publishers, government departments and retailers stating that their strategy is now “digital first”. But in terms of genuine user engagement are digital channels those which most inspire behavioural change? What alternatives are proving captivating? How much can we draw from current experimentation here in offline areas too?

Featuring:

John Wardley, creative engineer behind some of the most terrifying roller coasters in the world – including the award-winning Nemesis at Alton Towers, describes how he immerses riders through physical motion.

Odette Toilette (aka Lizzie Ostrum), the curator of the London-based Scratch+Sniff events and creator of the Design Council/Department of Health’s Ode scent machine, describes how olfaction can get people to do things without realising why they’re doing them.

Nick Ryan, the Bafta-winning sound artist behind iPhone game Papa Sangre and who has recently collaborated with Imogen Heap on her single Propeller Seeds, and on her forthcoming album and with Plan B on his recent film, describes how he uses 3D sound to get people to move in new directions.

The videos will be up by Monday on the project

The workshop – Changing Behaviour: Participation, Influence and Impact – is a co-production with BBC veteran Lisa Sargood (also of the OII), myself and BBC Future’s Head of Audiences Helen Goodier. Their sessions are super cool too! Check ’em out here, and sign up!

[DML Central] 'The Virtual Revolution': Argentina

Tue, 11 Sep 2012 16:39:57 +0000

My latest blogpost for DML Central describes some of the things I discovered about the South American technology scene on a recent trip to Argentina. Here’s an excerpt:

Belen Igarzábal from FLACSO is currently producing an 8-part television series inspired by The Virtual Revolution which will look at the impact of this communications technology on Latin America. She and the production team are traveling to Brazil, Peru, Paraguay and Uruguay to explore the issues from a particularly South American perspective: “There’a a lot of research about how the internet is evolving and changing our participation, governments and economics around the world, but nothing about South America. We have particularities: we are a mix of cultures — Aboriginal, Spanish, Portuguese — and that mix makes us different from other parts of the world in terms of how we connect, how the government is involved in connectivity, in education.”

Keep reading at DML Central.

And there’s more from Belen on last week’s Tech Weekly podcast from The Guardian. Have a listen!

[BBC World Service] The Culture of Gaming: this Saturday!

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 07:15:13 +0000

This weekend I return to the topic that I cut my journalistic teeth on: computer gaming. After five years actively avoiding the subject all together – having burned out on the networking events that happened in strip clubs and the offensive press releases that landed in my inbox – I’m on a mission to find out whether the computer games culture has evolved in that time into something that celebrates and respects its artform and influence.

Tune into BBC World Service at 1205pm GMT this weekend for the first of two programmes in the Culture of Gaming series, produced by the fantastic Giles Edwards.

Take a gander at the blurb:

Aleks Krotoski examines how computer gaming is affecting our culture – by creating genuine works of art, by altering our notions of storytelling, and by simple virtue of being the cultural medium many people spend most time attached to.