Chris Chesher
Biographic Data
| ID | 3080046 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Chris Chesher |
| GIVEN NAMES | Chris |
| FAMILY NAME | Chesher |
| SIGNATURE | CHESHER C |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Sydney |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9377-4512 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 17 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Mobile AI Service Robots and Everyday Politics of Space
This article examines the rise of a new generation of mobile service robots that use AI for navigation and communication in public and semipublic spaces. Reviewing the state of the field of service robots and robot scholarship, this paper is a literature-informed commentary on mobile AI service robots as mobile media and their implications for human workers and the public, shared environments, and regulation in everyday spaces. We examine how mob…
Between invocation and agency: AI deep research as a scholarly problem
This probe explores the experience of writing alongside ChatGPT’s Deep Research feature and asks what becomes of authorship, agency and ethical responsibility when scholarly work is performed through negotiations between humans and AI systems. Drawing on media ecology and actor-network theory (ANT), the probe theorizes advanced large language models as invocational actors : non-human entities summoned through prompts that appear to undertake auto…
Evocations that haunt the computer interface
Although computers are rationalist, they recall the occult in answering users’ invocations with evocations. Invocations call non-humans for signs during crises. Outputs are evocative signs with affective impact and meaning. While legacy media are evocative, transporting or broadcasting signs, invocational media creates networked cybernetic relations in a lively quasi-magical communication. This article evaluates the evocative intensity of two inv…
Discovering smart: Early encounters and negotiations with smart street furniture in London and Glasgow
In the late 2010s, publics in the UK encountered new kinds of street furniture: Strawberry Energy Smart benches in London and InLinkUK kiosks in Glasgow, with smart features such as phone charging, free Wi-Fi, free phone calls, information screens and environmental data. This article analyses how smart street furniture is socially constructed by relevant social groups, each with different interests, forms of power and meanings. Smartness became a…
The emergence of autolography: The 'magical' invocation of images from text through AI
In mid-2022, AI systems automatically translating text into evocative original images became an internet sensation. People compared it to magic: invoking an uncannily competent artist-magician. We call it 'autolography' from the Greek 'automatos + logos + graphos' (self + word + drawing). Following a discourse analysis of online publications comparing autolography to magic, we analyse its enthusiastic reception from some and critique from others.…
Eye Machines: Robot Eye, Vision and Gaze
Beyond Anthropomorphism
Situated, Yet Silent: Data Relations in Smart Street Furniture
This article provides new evidence of the ways that smart cities materialize within specific sites and contexts through smart street furniture (SSF). Drawing on empirical data generated through mixed-method field research, the article examines the situated data relations that emerge in the context of the adoption of InLinkUK smart kiosks in Glasgow and Strawberry Energy smart benches in London. The concept of “silences” is proposed to analyze ins…
Visibility and security in the smart home
Smart home, media and security systems intervene in the territory and boundaries of the home in a variety of ways. Among these are the capacity to watch the home from afar, and to record these observations over time, as well as using the home as a site of performance for those on the outside. In this paper, we map the meanings of the smart home and explore the tensions between security and visibility, adopting a cultural history and cultural anal…
Robotic Faciality: The Philosophy, Science and Art of Robot Faces
Lifestyle, opportunity and attraction images: Real estate platforms and the digital remediation of space
Searching for and selling real estate in Australia and worldwide changed this century with the proliferation of web and mobile platforms for real estate, now often known as Realtech. These platforms offer enticing images of homes as commodities, emphasizing desirable lifestyles and opportunities for renovation and capital gains. In comparison with previous advertising media, real estate platforms powerfully mediate spatiality, mobilizing attracti…
Preparing for smart voice assistants: Cultural histories and media innovations
Smart voice assistants have become popular thanks largely to their default naturalistic female voices and helpful personae. In this article, we trace changes in robot voices in popular culture and explain how this history influenced the voice design of smart voice assistants. Our research draws on cultural analysis of Hollywood and international films, television and literature, and observations from our personal experiences with voice assistants…
Becoming the Milky Way: Mobile Phones and Actor Networks at a U2 Concert
The world's biggest band, U2, brought their spectacular Vertigo show to the Sydney Telstra Stadium in November 2006. Alongside 70,000 people who came to each performance, tens of thousands of mobil
Multimedia
Multimedia is the integrated use of more than one medium of communication, usually mediated through digital computing technologies. “Multimedia” is a term with a complex and ambivalent history that risks being either too narrow or too broad in its meaning. In its narrower sense, it was closely associated with the dead‐end that was CD‐ROM interactive multimedia in the mid‐1990s. In its broad sense, multimedia can refer to any text, technology, or …
Why Media Scholars Should Not Study Computer Games
Preparing for smart voice assistants: Cultural histories and media innovations
Smart voice assistants have become popular thanks largely to their default naturalistic female voices and helpful personae. In this article, we trace changes in robot voices in popular culture and explain how this history influenced the voice design of smart voice assistants. Our research draws on cultural analysis of Hollywood and international films, television and literature, and observations from our personal experiences with voice assistants…
Becoming the Milky Way: Mobile Phones and Actor Networks at a U2 Concert
The world's biggest band, U2, brought their spectacular Vertigo show to the Sydney Telstra Stadium in November 2006. Alongside 70,000 people who came to each performance, tens of thousands of mobil
The emergence of autolography: The 'magical' invocation of images from text through AI
In mid-2022, AI systems automatically translating text into evocative original images became an internet sensation. People compared it to magic: invoking an uncannily competent artist-magician. We call it 'autolography' from the Greek 'automatos + logos + graphos' (self + word + drawing). Following a discourse analysis of online publications comparing autolography to magic, we analyse its enthusiastic reception from some and critique from others.…
Why Media Scholars Should Not Study Computer Games
Becoming the Milky Way: Mobile Phones and Actor Networks at a U2 Concert
The world's biggest band, U2, brought their spectacular Vertigo show to the Sydney Telstra Stadium in November 2006. Alongside 70,000 people who came to each performance, tens of thousands of mobil
Multimedia
Multimedia is the integrated use of more than one medium of communication, usually mediated through digital computing technologies. “Multimedia” is a term with a complex and ambivalent history that risks being either too narrow or too broad in its meaning. In its narrower sense, it was closely associated with the dead‐end that was CD‐ROM interactive multimedia in the mid‐1990s. In its broad sense, multimedia can refer to any text, technology, or …
Preparing for smart voice assistants: Cultural histories and media innovations
Smart voice assistants have become popular thanks largely to their default naturalistic female voices and helpful personae. In this article, we trace changes in robot voices in popular culture and explain how this history influenced the voice design of smart voice assistants. Our research draws on cultural analysis of Hollywood and international films, television and literature, and observations from our personal experiences with voice assistants…
Visibility and security in the smart home
Smart home, media and security systems intervene in the territory and boundaries of the home in a variety of ways. Among these are the capacity to watch the home from afar, and to record these observations over time, as well as using the home as a site of performance for those on the outside. In this paper, we map the meanings of the smart home and explore the tensions between security and visibility, adopting a cultural history and cultural anal…
Robotic Faciality: The Philosophy, Science and Art of Robot Faces
Lifestyle, opportunity and attraction images: Real estate platforms and the digital remediation of space
Searching for and selling real estate in Australia and worldwide changed this century with the proliferation of web and mobile platforms for real estate, now often known as Realtech. These platforms offer enticing images of homes as commodities, emphasizing desirable lifestyles and opportunities for renovation and capital gains. In comparison with previous advertising media, real estate platforms powerfully mediate spatiality, mobilizing attracti…
Eye Machines: Robot Eye, Vision and Gaze
Beyond Anthropomorphism
Situated, Yet Silent: Data Relations in Smart Street Furniture
This article provides new evidence of the ways that smart cities materialize within specific sites and contexts through smart street furniture (SSF). Drawing on empirical data generated through mixed-method field research, the article examines the situated data relations that emerge in the context of the adoption of InLinkUK smart kiosks in Glasgow and Strawberry Energy smart benches in London. The concept of “silences” is proposed to analyze ins…
Evocations that haunt the computer interface
Although computers are rationalist, they recall the occult in answering users’ invocations with evocations. Invocations call non-humans for signs during crises. Outputs are evocative signs with affective impact and meaning. While legacy media are evocative, transporting or broadcasting signs, invocational media creates networked cybernetic relations in a lively quasi-magical communication. This article evaluates the evocative intensity of two inv…
Discovering smart: Early encounters and negotiations with smart street furniture in London and Glasgow
In the late 2010s, publics in the UK encountered new kinds of street furniture: Strawberry Energy Smart benches in London and InLinkUK kiosks in Glasgow, with smart features such as phone charging, free Wi-Fi, free phone calls, information screens and environmental data. This article analyses how smart street furniture is socially constructed by relevant social groups, each with different interests, forms of power and meanings. Smartness became a…
The emergence of autolography: The 'magical' invocation of images from text through AI
In mid-2022, AI systems automatically translating text into evocative original images became an internet sensation. People compared it to magic: invoking an uncannily competent artist-magician. We call it 'autolography' from the Greek 'automatos + logos + graphos' (self + word + drawing). Following a discourse analysis of online publications comparing autolography to magic, we analyse its enthusiastic reception from some and critique from others.…
Mobile AI Service Robots and Everyday Politics of Space
This article examines the rise of a new generation of mobile service robots that use AI for navigation and communication in public and semipublic spaces. Reviewing the state of the field of service robots and robot scholarship, this paper is a literature-informed commentary on mobile AI service robots as mobile media and their implications for human workers and the public, shared environments, and regulation in everyday spaces. We examine how mob…
Between invocation and agency: AI deep research as a scholarly problem
This probe explores the experience of writing alongside ChatGPT’s Deep Research feature and asks what becomes of authorship, agency and ethical responsibility when scholarly work is performed through negotiations between humans and AI systems. Drawing on media ecology and actor-network theory (ANT), the probe theorizes advanced large language models as invocational actors : non-human entities summoned through prompts that appear to undertake auto…
Computer Science (12 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Psychology (7 works) · Artificial Intelligence (5 works) · Political science (5 works) · Business (4 works) · Computer security (4 works) · Digital Games and Media (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Advertising (3 works)