Rather than trying to construct an internet of things, London-based artist and architect Usman Haque is trying to construct an ecosystem of environments. “It’s not about objects or corporate-determined sensor systems it’s about developing a means through which I can share the context of my environment with the context of your environment and making it relatively easy to do so” says Usman who is co-winner of the World Technology Award 2009.
In his presentation at Lift France, Usman talks about his initiative Pachube and the three aspects that drove him: The idea of being connected, the idea of constructing environments and the idea of participation. “The condition of being extremely connected is somewhat daunting. We still have neighbors but the topology of our neighborhood has changed” Usman points out. The second theme that guided the idea of Pachube is the idea of environment. According to Usman, the environment is something we build through our relationships to each other. Usman’s third observation is our propensity to participate: “I’m really taken by the idea that we can be wranglers, that we’re actively engaged in the production of our environment and we’re wrestling with the things that we are putting into the world.”
Pachube was designed to be a generalized broker for networked environments. If you have an environment, you send the data to Pachube and with a fairly simple protocol you can share it in real-time with other environments. It’s still by invitation only, but feel free to send an e-mail to beta@pachube.com
Coming up on Thursday: Timo Arnall’s presentation from Lift France 09. To view more videos from the Lift event in Marseille, please visit our Lift France category.
