SANDPIT: TOTeM Tales of Things, Electronic Memory

该研究项目的主要目的是提供一个平台，让记忆可以附着在世界上已经存在的物体上。该项目发现了数字经济新兴领域的一个重大缺口，即所谓的物联网，随着新物体被标记，旧物体将不会被标记，这是一个真正的危险。图腾项目关注的是旧物品的记忆和价值。有人建议，人们的周围会有1000到5000件物品。在数以千计的物品中，其中许多可能没有得到真正的照顾，最终被扔进了垃圾桶或储藏室。但对于每个所有者来说，几乎每个家庭都有一些精选的物品，这些物品具有重要的共鸣，并且已经将它们与记忆和意义的互联网连接起来。人类固有的特征是将意义赋予物体的过程，以便它们提供与人、事件和环境的联系。壁炉架上的文物成为过去发生的事件之间的通道，对那些将占据未来的人来说。这些物品成为家庭和社区的重要坐标，以支持故事的讲述和知识的传递。图腾项目位于新兴的技术和文化现象--物联网中。这个词源于麻省理工学院1999年的Auto-ID研究小组，国际电信联盟对此进行了深入探讨，并在2005年的联合国网络峰会上发表了一份同名报告。物联网这个术语指的是随着社会向无处不在的计算形式发展，预计会出现技术和文化上的转变，在这种形式下，每一台设备都处于打开状态，每一台设备都以某种方式连接到互联网。具体提到的“物”指的是这样一个概念，即制造的每一件新物品也将能够成为这一扩展互联网的一部分，因为它们将在生产过程中被制造商标记和索引。据设想，消费者将能够通过使用移动阅读器来读取标签，并使用与物品相关的信息，来通知他们购买、使用和处置物品的情况。物联网对生产和消费的影响是巨大的，并将改变人们购物、存储和分享产品的方式。长期以来，模拟条形码一直是对商店库存系统的一种愚蠢的加密参考，它将被一个开放平台所取代，在这个平台上，每一件制造的物品都将能够从摇篮到坟墓，通过制造商到经销商，可能追踪到购买后与其接触的每一个人。此外，靠近另一个对象并且在读取器的范围内的每个对象也可以被记录在数据库中，并用于查找所有者和应用程序之间的关联。在一个通过商业街商店在制造商和消费者之间建立线性供需链的世界里，物联网有可能改变我们对待物品的方式，关心它们的原产地，并利用它们来寻找其他物品。如果每个新物品都在读者手中，那么一切都是可搜索和可找到的，因此购物体验可能永远不会一样，随着其他人发现旧物品的新用途，扔掉物品的概念可能会成为过去。Spimes是人造物品，其信息支持是如此广泛和丰富，以至于它们被视为非物质系统的物质实例。Spime以数据开始和结束。它们首先是虚拟物体，其次是真实物体。布鲁斯·斯特林，《塑造事物》(2005)

The principle aim of the research project is to provide a platform to allow memories to be attached to objects that already exist in the world. The project identifies a significant gap in the emerging aspect of the digital economy known as the 'internet of things', which as new objects are tagged there is a real danger that old ones will not be. The TOTeM project is concerned with the memory and value of 'old' objects. It has been suggested that people surround themselves with between 1,000 and 5,000 objects. Of those thousands of objects many of them are probably not truly cared for and end up in rubbish bins or in storage. But for every owner, in almost every household there are a selection of objects that hold significant resonance, and will already connect them to an Internet of memory and meaning. An intrinsic human trait is the process of imbuing meaning onto objects so that they provide connections to people, events and environments. Artefacts across a mantelpiece become conduits between events that happened in the past, to people who will occupy the future. These objects become essential coordinates across families and communities to support the telling of a stories and passing-on knowledge.The TOTeM project is located within the emerging technical and cultural phenomenon known as 'The Internet of Things'. The term is attributed to the Auto-ID research group at MIT in 1999, and was explored in depth by the International Telecommunication Union who published a report bearing the same name at the United Nations net summit in 2005. The term, 'internet of things', refers to the technical and cultural shift that is anticipated as society moves to a ubiquitous form of computing in which every device is 'on', and every device is connected in some way to the internet. The specific reference to 'things' refers to the concept that every new object manufactured will also be able to part of this extended Internet, because they will have been tagged and indexed by the manufacturer during production. It is also envisaged that consumers will have the ability to 'read' the tags through the use of mobile 'readers' and use the information connected to the object, to inform their purchase, use and disposal of an object.The implications for the Internet of Things upon production and consumption are tremendous, and will transform the way in which people shop, store and share products. The analogue bar code that has for so long been a dumb encrypted reference to a shops inventory system, will be superseded by an open platform in which every object manufactured will be able to be tracked from cradle to grave, through manufacturer to distributor, to potentially every single person who comes in to contact with it following its purchase. Further still, every object that comes close to another object, and is within range of a reader, could also be logged on a database and used to find correlations between owners and applications. In a world that has relied upon a linear chain of supply and demand between manufacturer and consumer via high street shop, the Internet of Things has the potential to transform how we will treat objects, care about their origin and use them to find other objects. If every new object is within reach of a reader, everything is searchable and findable, subsequently the shopping experience may never be the same, and the concept of throwing away objects may become a thing of the past as other people find new uses for old things.Spimes are manufactured objects whose informational support is so overwhelmingly extensive and rich that they are regarded as material instantiations of an immaterial system. Spimes begin and end as data. They're virtual objects first and actual objects second. Bruce Sterling, Shaping Things, (2005)