Democratising Technology

In 2007, Lois received Arts & Humanities Research Council and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council funding for a  research project, entitled Democratising Technology (2007-2008). This project investigated ways in which performance techniques could be used with older people to facilitate their engagement in technology and technology design. The project marked the beginning of my performance work on the subject of age and culminated in The Not Quite Yet (January 2008), a public exhibition of commissioned artworks and interactive exhibits at SPACE Gallery in London, followed by the Not Quite Yet Symposium (February 2008) and a DVD (September 2008), by the same name, that documents the methods of exploration and the exhibition, and is a resource for designers, activists, and policy makers. The project was further disseminated through conference papers, peer-reviewed chapters, and articles, in addition to a website.

The project goals were:

  • to explore the effectiveness of performance techniques in supporting people outside the design world to envision alternative social arrangements enabled by technology

  • to link performance envisioning methods with the way we actually adopt tools so as to produce new techniques in design

  • to devise forms of interaction that require the minimum amount of input from researchers so that people's own values and interests lead the work.

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Development and dissemination included: workshops with Elder Groups including Bow Women’s Choir, Geezers, S-AGE, Sundial Centre, AGLOW; workshops with interactive design students and professionals; workshops with Participatory Design Conference attendees (2007-09); a Long Table on Technology and Democracy, The Not Quite Yet Exhibit, London (2008); a Long Table at the Participatory Design Conference (October 2008).  

Democratising Technology was an interdisciplinary collaboration involving performance artist, Lois Weaver; cognitive scientist, Prof. Pat Healey (School of Engineering and Computer Science QMUL); media arts strategist, Gini Simpson; and interaction design researcher, Dr. Ann Light (Visiting Research Fellow, School of Engineering and Computer Science QMUL). The team sought to investigate how performance methodology can facilitate elder engagement with transformations engendered by technology and contribute to methodologies of participatory design. Continued performance collaborations with Association of Greater London Older Women resulted in a Community Cohesion Award from the London Health Commission (2010). Ongoing work included an arts-led engineering project with Loraine Leeson and The Geezers that tested effectiveness of tidal turbines in the Thames (2008-2013). 

The project was funded by AHRC/EPSRC and Arts Council England. The conference paper ‘Geezers, Turbines, Fantasy Personas: Making the Everyday into the Future’ presented at the ACM Creativity & Cognition Conference (October 2009) was awarded an ACM Creativity & Cognition Award for best paper promoting social creativity.