Ned Barker
Biographic Data
| ID | 906346 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ned Barker |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ned |
| FAMILY NAME | Barker |
| SIGNATURE | BARKER N |
| AFFILIATIONS | University College London |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6969-4547 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 8 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Hybrid performances in sport: Cybathlon spectatorship for critically imagining technologies for disability futures
Disabled bodies have been historically marginalised in sporting arenas and spectacles. Assistive technologies have been increasingly featuring in, and changing, sporting landscapes. In some ways recent shifts have made disability more present and visible across many (para) sporting cultures, and yet sport continues to operate on a tiered system that assumes a normative able body. This paper responds to this moment by offering imaginaries of futur…
Living Capsules: Reflections on an Ongoing Art-Sociology Collaboration
Living Capsules is the umbrella name the authors give their art pieces, which are born from an ongoing collaboration between an artist and a sociologist who share interest in the relations between senses, bodies, and technologies. This reflective paper tells the story of the works’ cocreation. The authors first introduce the notion of biohybrid systems as their sociotechnical inspiration. Second, they mark out the conceptual space in which they b…
Collaborative Robots and Tangled Passages of Tactile-Affects
Collaborative robots are increasingly entering industrial contexts and workflows. These contexts are not just locations for production, they are vibrant social and sensory environments. For better or for worse, their entry brings potential to reorganize established tactile and affective dynamics that encompass production processes. There is still much to be learned about these highly contextual and complex dynamics in HRI research and the design …
Feeling our way: Methodological explorations on researching touch through uncertainty
This paper argues that methodological uncertainty, such as that experienced by the social research community through the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2022) is, and has always been, a vital part of the research landscape. Whilst recognising the many damaging effects of the uncertainties of the pandemic on research and researchers, we home in on the potential of the challenges raised by uncertainty as a force for methodological innovation. We introduce …
A collaborative research manifesto! An early career response to uncertainties
Social researchers have been adapting methods and practices in response to COVID-19. In the wake of these adaptations, but still in the midst of intersecting crises that the pandemic has exacerbated or shifted (e.g. health-social-political-economic), researchers face a future suffused with methodological uncertainties. This paper presents a Collaborative Research Manifesto that responds to this by promoting markers for meaningful collaborations i…
Interactive skin through a social- sensory speculative lens
This paper uses a speculative lens to explore the social and sensory trajectories of Interactive Skin, a class of skin-worn epidermal devices that augment the human body in ways that are significant for affective techno-touch. The paper presents and discusses the use of a speculative narrative on Interactive Skin futures produced through an exploratory research-collaboration with a Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) lab, combining data from specula…
Filtering Touch: An Ethnography of Dirt, Danger, and Industrial Robots
“Industry 4.0” marks the advent of a new wave of industrial robotics designed to bring increased automation to “extreme” touch practices and enhance productivity. This article presents an ethnography of touch in two industrial settings using fourth generation industrial robots (a Glass Factory and a Waste Management Center) to critically explore the social and sensorial implications of such technologies for workers. We attend to manifestations of…
Future touch in industry: Exploring sociotechnical imaginaries of tactile (tele)robots
Moving Sensory Ethnography Online
This case study reflects on the process of migrating Sensory Ethnography online in response to the social distancing measures that came into effect in the UK to contain the spread of COVID-19. The research case study in focus sets out to examine whether new industrial robots’ impact how touch works in the industry, affecting the social and sensory character of manual labor. Fieldwork was initially designed with five selected sites. At the time of…
Making sense of digitally remediated touch in virtual reality experiences
An Ethnographer Lured into Darkness
No matter the combination of methods ethnographers bring to their research design and to participant observation, our pursuit to log, interpret, analyse and present the lives of those we meet is never an entirely intellectual or objective one. Ethnographic fieldwork is intimately sensory (Pink, Doing sensory ethnography, Sage, London, 2015), invokes our imagination (Sparkes, Qualitative research in sport and exercise, 1:21–35, 2009) and requires …
Future touch in industry: Exploring sociotechnical imaginaries of tactile (tele)robots
A collaborative research manifesto! An early career response to uncertainties
Social researchers have been adapting methods and practices in response to COVID-19. In the wake of these adaptations, but still in the midst of intersecting crises that the pandemic has exacerbated or shifted (e.g. health-social-political-economic), researchers face a future suffused with methodological uncertainties. This paper presents a Collaborative Research Manifesto that responds to this by promoting markers for meaningful collaborations i…
Interactive skin through a social- sensory speculative lens
This paper uses a speculative lens to explore the social and sensory trajectories of Interactive Skin, a class of skin-worn epidermal devices that augment the human body in ways that are significant for affective techno-touch. The paper presents and discusses the use of a speculative narrative on Interactive Skin futures produced through an exploratory research-collaboration with a Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) lab, combining data from specula…
Moving Sensory Ethnography Online
This case study reflects on the process of migrating Sensory Ethnography online in response to the social distancing measures that came into effect in the UK to contain the spread of COVID-19. The research case study in focus sets out to examine whether new industrial robots’ impact how touch works in the industry, affecting the social and sensory character of manual labor. Fieldwork was initially designed with five selected sites. At the time of…
Making sense of digitally remediated touch in virtual reality experiences
An Ethnographer Lured into Darkness
No matter the combination of methods ethnographers bring to their research design and to participant observation, our pursuit to log, interpret, analyse and present the lives of those we meet is never an entirely intellectual or objective one. Ethnographic fieldwork is intimately sensory (Pink, Doing sensory ethnography, Sage, London, 2015), invokes our imagination (Sparkes, Qualitative research in sport and exercise, 1:21–35, 2009) and requires …
Making sense of digitally remediated touch in virtual reality experiences
Filtering Touch: An Ethnography of Dirt, Danger, and Industrial Robots
“Industry 4.0” marks the advent of a new wave of industrial robotics designed to bring increased automation to “extreme” touch practices and enhance productivity. This article presents an ethnography of touch in two industrial settings using fourth generation industrial robots (a Glass Factory and a Waste Management Center) to critically explore the social and sensorial implications of such technologies for workers. We attend to manifestations of…
Future touch in industry: Exploring sociotechnical imaginaries of tactile (tele)robots
Moving Sensory Ethnography Online
This case study reflects on the process of migrating Sensory Ethnography online in response to the social distancing measures that came into effect in the UK to contain the spread of COVID-19. The research case study in focus sets out to examine whether new industrial robots’ impact how touch works in the industry, affecting the social and sensory character of manual labor. Fieldwork was initially designed with five selected sites. At the time of…
Collaborative Robots and Tangled Passages of Tactile-Affects
Collaborative robots are increasingly entering industrial contexts and workflows. These contexts are not just locations for production, they are vibrant social and sensory environments. For better or for worse, their entry brings potential to reorganize established tactile and affective dynamics that encompass production processes. There is still much to be learned about these highly contextual and complex dynamics in HRI research and the design …
Feeling our way: Methodological explorations on researching touch through uncertainty
This paper argues that methodological uncertainty, such as that experienced by the social research community through the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2022) is, and has always been, a vital part of the research landscape. Whilst recognising the many damaging effects of the uncertainties of the pandemic on research and researchers, we home in on the potential of the challenges raised by uncertainty as a force for methodological innovation. We introduce …
A collaborative research manifesto! An early career response to uncertainties
Social researchers have been adapting methods and practices in response to COVID-19. In the wake of these adaptations, but still in the midst of intersecting crises that the pandemic has exacerbated or shifted (e.g. health-social-political-economic), researchers face a future suffused with methodological uncertainties. This paper presents a Collaborative Research Manifesto that responds to this by promoting markers for meaningful collaborations i…
Interactive skin through a social- sensory speculative lens
This paper uses a speculative lens to explore the social and sensory trajectories of Interactive Skin, a class of skin-worn epidermal devices that augment the human body in ways that are significant for affective techno-touch. The paper presents and discusses the use of a speculative narrative on Interactive Skin futures produced through an exploratory research-collaboration with a Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) lab, combining data from specula…
Hybrid performances in sport: Cybathlon spectatorship for critically imagining technologies for disability futures
Disabled bodies have been historically marginalised in sporting arenas and spectacles. Assistive technologies have been increasingly featuring in, and changing, sporting landscapes. In some ways recent shifts have made disability more present and visible across many (para) sporting cultures, and yet sport continues to operate on a tiered system that assumes a normative able body. This paper responds to this moment by offering imaginaries of futur…
Living Capsules: Reflections on an Ongoing Art-Sociology Collaboration
Living Capsules is the umbrella name the authors give their art pieces, which are born from an ongoing collaboration between an artist and a sociologist who share interest in the relations between senses, bodies, and technologies. This reflective paper tells the story of the works’ cocreation. The authors first introduce the notion of biohybrid systems as their sociotechnical inspiration. Second, they mark out the conceptual space in which they b…
Sociology (10 works) · Psychology (9 works) · Art (7 works) · Aesthetics (6 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Ethnography (6 works) · Innovative Human-Technology Interaction (5 works) · Artificial Intelligence (4 works) · Human–computer interaction (4 works) · Participatory Visual Research Methods (4 works)