http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?tid=10603&ttype=2
I just started Shaping Things by Bruce Sterling at lunch (I was a half hour late getting back to work, and it was not only because of the rain. I really think you’d like this book. Stirling is a science fiction author by trade but a design critic by avocation, because [good] designers are by definition futurists.
To quote the first paragraph of chapter 1 “To Whom it Ought to Concern”:
This book is about created objects and the environment, which is to say it is a book about everything. Seen from sufficient distance, this is a small topic.
The book is sculpted around four idiosyncratic terms and one, according to Stirling, “flat-out neologism.” These are: artifact, machine, product, gizmo and spime. He talks about the interaction between people and objects also known as technosocial order.
Chapter 3 has a great example about wine.
He uses the term cognitive load, which struck a nerve. I want to keep reading and see what he says about cognitive overload. What really reminded me of you was the way he talked about design and becoming a design critic. He met Tucker Viemeister in 1989 and described him as culturally radioactive.
[Since I had never heard of Viemeister I of course hit Google. That lead me to General Thinking which is a blog I am obviously not going to be able to keep up with. ]
I just wanted to recommend the book because I thought you would like it.
On a totally different note: do you know anything about a woman named Catherine de Hueck Doherty or a concept called poustinia? I was looking up small dwellings and found information on her and her community.
