The MIT Computing Culture Research Group was an applied research group at the

MIT Media Lab The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fi ...

founded and led by technologist and artist Christopher Csikszentmihályi, who also co-founded the MIT Center for Civic Media. Between 2000 and 2009, Computing Culture focused on "embedding poetic and political considerations in the development of new technologies." Its stated mission read in part: :To refigure what engineering means, how it happens, and what it produces. Drawing on fields from the humanities, like

Science and technology studies Science and technology studies (STS) or science, technology, and society is an interdisciplinary field that examines the creation, development, and consequences of science and technology in their historical, cultural, and social contexts. Histo ...

, we create new technologies that function as instances of material power, but also as exemplars of what future goals engineering should pursue.

Research and development

Computing Culture designed and built tools to comment on technology and its implications for social power dynamics, but also to function when applied. Tools produced within Computing Culture included, but are not limited to: *Afghan eXplorer ( Christopher Csikszentmihályi, 2001), a solar-powered, four-wheeled robot designed to report news from warzones. *MarchToWar.com (Tad Hirsch, Ryan McKinley, 2003), a website devoted to wagers on when the United States' military would invade Iraq * Government Information Awareness (Ryan McKinley, Christopher Csikszentmihályi, 2003), a crowdsourced website devoted to identifying connections among United States elected officials and lobbyists * TXTMob (Tad Hirsch, Christopher Csikszentmihályi, Institute for Applied Autonomy, 2003), a SMS-messaging service for mass-protest coordination *Blendie (Kelly Dobson, 2004), an interactive, intelligent, voice-controlled kitchen blender *Freedom Flies ( Christopher Csikszentmihályi, 2005), an

Unmanned aerial vehicle An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or unmanned aircraft system (UAS), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft with no human pilot, crew, or passengers onboard, but rather is controlled remotely or is autonomous.De Gruyter Handbook of Dron ...

designed to observe militia activity in the Southwestern United States *Random Search ( Ayah Bdeir, 2006), a wearable garment that tracks touch patterns during airport patdowns *RoBoat ( Christopher Csikszentmihályi, 2006), a robotic kayak designed to protest at island prisons *Seeing Yellow (

Benjamin Mako Hill Benjamin Mako Hill is a free software activist, hacker, author, and professor. He is a contributor and free software developer as part of the Debian and Ubuntu projects as well as the co-author of three technical manuals on the subject, ''Debia ...

, 2007), a campaign against computer printer manufacturers' practice of including traceable, invisible yellow dots on printouts

Notable alumni

Computing Culture awarded degrees at the Master's and PhD level. Notable alumni include: * Ayah Bdeir, founder and CEO of LittleBits * Limor Fried, owner,

Adafruit Industries Adafruit Industries is an open-source hardware company based in New York City, New York, United States. It was founded by Limor Fried in 2005. The company designs, manufactures and sells Electronic Products, electronics products, electronics comp ...

*Tad Hirsch, professor, University of Washington School of Art{{cite web , url=http://www.art.washington.edu/design/design-faculty/tad-hirsch/ , title=Tad Hirsch {{! School of Art {{! University of Washington , website=www.art.washington.edu , url-status=dead , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130225033618/http://art.washington.edu/design/design-faculty/tad-hirsch , archive-date=2013-02-25 *

, free software activist, hacker, and author *Saoirse Higgins, practice-based research and lecturer, Orkney Islands

References

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Scientific organizations established in 2000 2000 establishments in Massachusetts 2000 in computing Science and technology in Massachusetts