The Mobile Aggressor
This screenshot, taken from the Oscar-shortlisted documentary Mugabe and the White African, is a mesmerizing image. We can hardly consider mobile phones as mere communication tools anymore – they are powerful players in how we defend ourselves. Think of the single girl riding the tram home at night talking into her mobile tacitly signaling she’s … Read more
Angel of Death: tubing and texting. What else?
Even the angel of death tubes and texts at the same time. I spotted him on the Picadilly line en route to central London from Heathrow. There’s a glimpse of coverage just after (or before) Hammersmith and alongside all his fellow passengers he obsessed over messages, music and the web. His mobile fixated him like … Read more
Does SIRI have a heart of stone?
It struck me today after watching Youtube videos about SIRI, Apple’s new iPhone 4S digital assistant, that the thing most people want to do with SIRI is test her/his emotional boundaries. The majority of the clips star male tech fans proudly brandishing newly received iPhones with the programmed female voice*. Typically they start by asking … Read more
Blackberry Break Ups
In a fresh testament to how deep our affective relationships are with mobile phones, last week’s Blackberry out(r)age revealed users “breaking up” with their beloved Blackberrys on Twitter. Amongst all the (by now stale) joke tweets about the Blackberry server crash (What did one Blackberry user say to the other? Nothing…) Blackberry users started posting … Read more
Mapping A City’s DNA
My latest feature published in the Mail&Guardian, South Africa. It’s a relationship rarely considered despite its rigorous reciprocal nature. Undeniably cities are one of our greatest developments and also our accomplices in building social capital, intimacy, innovation and (idealistically) better lives. But how often do we invest time in understanding a city? It was a … Read more
Coming to a 3.5-inch screen near you!
The Assembly,Cape Town, five minutes before 1am and The Gaslamp Killer just let his afro loose. We jump to the beat, we laugh, we dance. Two metres away a guy records the entire gig on his iPhone. I stare at him for the longest time before I see another guy doing the same. Both are … Read more
When in Rome…
I’m not a nostalgic, but can you remember a time when people did one thing at a time? When cops actually patrolled the streets? Now they chat to their girlfriends and scan the streets at the same time, kinda. Just looking at these two gents in Rome, it also had me wondering what has happened … Read more
