Goldsmiths - University of London

Alex Wilkie BA (Hons), MA (RCA)

Teaching

BA Design

Research interests

Design as a prospective practice; the politics of technology; object-centered practices; the role of user entities; participatory and user-centered design; design and social science; poststructuralist theory.

My current research, entitled ‘Turning people into silicon: an ethnography of users and user-centered design’ is a study of user-centered design within, but not limited to, the organisational boundaries of a major semiconductor manufacturer. This includes a detailed examination of how multiple user entities are enrolled and enacted within innovation practices in relation to the development of information technologies. Accordingly, my research entails three core tasks: 1) to map empirically the diverse uses of the ‘user’ within the research environment and development programmes that employ or are engaged with UCD practices and articulated as ‘user’ oriented outcomes. User entities are analysed in terms of the multiple expectations they embodies around persons. How, for example, the capacities of humans and non-humans and, ultimately, functionality are modeled and organised around the attributes of the imagined end-user. Moreover, the performative role of such ‘expectation discourses’ are also examined to see how design futures and the future of the organisation are enacted in the present. 2) To detail the ways in which different and multiple versions of the user are coordinated, contested and ordered in the course of specific practices and emerging corporate strategy. 3) To identify the conditions under which the multiple meanings of ‘user’ are accepted or discarded and explore how meanings of users emerge. How, for example, particular versions of the ‘user’ are enacted and exchanged amongst a wider community of practice.

Selected publications

• Wilkie, A. Michael, M. (2007) Colonizing the Spectrum: Enacting future users. Submitted to Science, Technology and Human Values (SHTV) forthcoming.
• Marres, N. Wilkie A. (1999) Remote/Involved: Highlights from Outer Space. If/Then: Design Implications of New Media. (eds) Abraham, J. Netherlands Design Institute. ISBN-10: 9072007522.

Conferences, seminars and overseas research visits

• 7 June 2007. Negotiating the Future. Centre for Technology Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo.
  Paper given: Colonizing the Spectrum: Demos and the future users of location-based technology
• 6 March2007. Market, Economics, Culture and Performativity. Goldsmiths College University of London.
  Paper given: Colonizing the Spectrum: Demos and the future users of location-based technology
• May 2006 – October 2006. 5 month ethnographic fieldwork in Hillsboro Oregon. Study of User-Centered design practices and related innovation actors.
• Saturday, 16 October 2000. Preferred Placement: The Hit Economy, Hyperlink Diplomacy and Web. Theatrum Anatomicum, de Waag, Society for Old and New Media Nieuwmarkt, Amsterdam
• 14 October 2003. Re-visiting the ‘user’. Presentation to the American Institute of Graphic Artists (AIGA), Design Council, London.

Events

Wednesday 9 June 2003. Following the Displacement of Politics on the Web. With Richard Rogers, Media Studies, University of Amsterdam & Govcomorg Foundation, Amsterdam. Noortje Marres, Department of Philosophy, University of Amsterdam. Role: event organizer.

Grants & awards

Patents and software