Physicality and Technology

It’s a little ironic that, despite the sizable quantity of conferencing technology available, we’re all bussing and training and carring and planing in to Providence to meet about the Digital Humanities. The situation illustrates how technology, from GPS’s to projectors to iPads, is located as a supplement to physical space. What happens when we look at it from the opposite angle? How does physicality have the potential to enhance, diminish or otherwise inform a technological experience? For example, consider geographical areas with limited internet access (or conversely, Silicon Valley), or technology that responds to your location and proximity to particular items, or the difference between a book and a Kindle, or an acoustic concert vs. computer music. How does information translate across the divide?