The TL;DR Charter: Speculatively Demystifying Privacy Policy Documents and Terms Agreements

Privacy policy and term agreement documents are considered the gateway for software adoption and use. The documents provide a means for the provider to outline expectations of the software use, and also provide an often-separate document outlining how user data is collected, stored, and used--including if it is shared with other parties. A user agreeing with the terms, assumes that they have a full understanding the terms of the agreement and have provided consent. Often however, users do not read the documents because they are long and full of legalistic and inconsistent language, are regularly amended, and may not disclose all the details on what is done to the user data. Enforcing compliance and ensuring user consent have been persistent challenges to policy makers and privacy researchers. This design fiction puts forward an alternate reality and presents a policy-based approach to fording the consent gap with the TL;DR Charter: an agreement governing the parties involved by harnessing the power of formal governments, industry, and other stakeholders, and taking users expectation of privacy into account. The Charter allows us as researchers to examine the implications on trust, decision-making, consent, accountability and the impact of future technologies.

Re-imagining the museum

<p>Twentieth-century museums have become more than displays of art and history. Unlike their nineteenth century origins, museums today are a centre of culture, education and entertainment. Designing a circulation system that connects the transitions between exhibits is like forming a riddle for a visitor to enter, experience, solve and remember. The museum reflects every asset, flaw, scar, crease, emotion, and sole of whom has time to stand and observe. For one to observe, one has to navigate. Seeking the key principles into designing a successful circulation between architecture and visitor will allow a large-scale building to be read effortlessly and seamlessly like a well-written novel. In the late 1980’s a design brief was revealed to the public requesting proposals for a National Museum of New Zealand. 10 years later the doors opened to Te Papa Tongarewa on Wellington’s waterfront. Among the submitted proposals, was a concept design by Ian Athfield and Frank Gehry. Their proposal did not make it past the conceptual stage, thus offering the opportunity to explore its potential interiority and circulation. This thesis engages with the great museums that initiated 21st Century architecture such as the Guggenheim of Bilbao, the Jewish Museum of Berlin and most importantly, investigation into the design of Te Papa Tongarewa to analyse their method of circulation. For these museums both encapsulate the heritage of their location as well as defining future possibilities for museum architecture. This thesis re-imagines the possibilities of the National Museum of New Zealand. This will be investigated through the tools of circulation and the experiential qualities that the architecture initiates as our bodies and the way we move are in continuous dialogue with our architecture. This thesis investigates the importance and functionality of atrium designs, as well as the influence it has on the structures circulatory system. Exploring the potential of an Athfield / Gehry design will inspire an alternate reality to what could have been.</p>

Re-imagining the museum

<p>Twentieth-century museums have become more than displays of art and history. Unlike their nineteenth century origins, museums today are a centre of culture, education and entertainment. Designing a circulation system that connects the transitions between exhibits is like forming a riddle for a visitor to enter, experience, solve and remember. The museum reflects every asset, flaw, scar, crease, emotion, and sole of whom has time to stand and observe. For one to observe, one has to navigate. Seeking the key principles into designing a successful circulation between architecture and visitor will allow a large-scale building to be read effortlessly and seamlessly like a well-written novel. In the late 1980’s a design brief was revealed to the public requesting proposals for a National Museum of New Zealand. 10 years later the doors opened to Te Papa Tongarewa on Wellington’s waterfront. Among the submitted proposals, was a concept design by Ian Athfield and Frank Gehry. Their proposal did not make it past the conceptual stage, thus offering the opportunity to explore its potential interiority and circulation. This thesis engages with the great museums that initiated 21st Century architecture such as the Guggenheim of Bilbao, the Jewish Museum of Berlin and most importantly, investigation into the design of Te Papa Tongarewa to analyse their method of circulation. For these museums both encapsulate the heritage of their location as well as defining future possibilities for museum architecture. This thesis re-imagines the possibilities of the National Museum of New Zealand. This will be investigated through the tools of circulation and the experiential qualities that the architecture initiates as our bodies and the way we move are in continuous dialogue with our architecture. This thesis investigates the importance and functionality of atrium designs, as well as the influence it has on the structures circulatory system. Exploring the potential of an Athfield / Gehry design will inspire an alternate reality to what could have been.</p>

Trajectories of RNA Virus Mutation Hidden by Evolutionary Alternate Reality Thermodynamic Endpoints in Transformations in Response to Abiotic Habitat Stresses

Viruses ensure the vital redistribution of nutrients to maintain sustainability in an ecosystem. This includes repair and survival, growth and evolution thanks to the efficient nutrient recycling and infectious rates of viruses throughout a stressed-ecosystem. If evolution in space–time can be defined by multiple planes which change position according to the evolution rate of the habitat, then the locations and volumes of returning chronic infectious viruses will appear in a logical predictable fashion based on the lissajous trajectory based on thermodynamic modeling.

Producing virtual reality (VR) field trips – a concept for a sense-based and mindful geographic education

Virtual reality (VR) enables users to have an alternate reality experience. The virtual world surrounds users and can be perceived atmospherically. However, VR triggers human perception with far-reaching consequences. VR worlds are hardly questioned by the consumers. The effects of virtual experiences could have a lasting impact on learning or acting. Therefore, it is necessary to reflect on the use of VR in educational contexts. In our research and teaching project students produced VR field trips on topics of urban society–environment research. Based on the project findings we explain how we implement VR as a practice of sense-based and content-based acquirement of space and a (visual) practice of mediation. A key element is the critical reflection on the meaning of body and emotion. This can be a way to mindfulness – both in the context of teaching and in the context of the transformation of society–environment relations in general.

Between the physical and the virtual: The present tense of virtual space

This article explores a way of thinking about virtual environments and how they might be used to create new spaces, not as an alternate reality, but as an integrated part of reality – regardless of this reality being physical and/or digital. Virtual environments can be seen as an extension of reality – the physical and the virtual sitting side by side with one, more often than not, bleeding into the other. The virtual is not separable from the physical and vice versa. This position will be formed by directly referring to traditions that stem from processes and ideas around materiality, poetics and philosophy rather than centring on technical or hardware specifics. At the centre of this exploration is an ongoing investigation into the role of memory and imagination in narrative spaces in immersive virtual environments, stemming from the author’s background in interactive Installation art and designing for virtual environments. The article’s subtitle refers to Robert Morris’s 1978 article, ‘The present tense of space’, which informs the article’s overall position.