Energy Babble

Energy Babble is organised into three main sections – Framing, Designing, and Circulating – that trace the story of how a team of design and STS researchers made and deployed a set of computational devices to UK–based community groups. The book is introduced by way of a preface and introduction and contains subsections that describe the various ways in which the research into local energy practices was conducted. Katherine Moline provides a reflection on her three-year experience of curating exhibitions that features the Energy Babble device and the book comes to a close with an Afterword by Bill Gaver.

The contents include:

Preface. Bill Gaver

Introducing the project: Entangling speculation, design, and STS. Mike Michael

Framing

- A prehistory. Mike Michael
- My energy monitor: Chronicle of a failed attempt. Liliana Ovalle

Designing

- That’s not my name. Bill Gaver
- Why an ‘Energy Babble’? Bill Gaver
- Sound design. Alex Wilkie
- Babblebot stories. Matthew Plummer-Fernandez
- Shaping the Energy. Babble Liliana Ovalle
- The microphone and the algorithm. Andy Boucher
- Studios, problems, publics. Alex Wilkie

Circulating

- ‘Engaging with’ and ‘engaged by’: Publics and communities, design, and sociology. Tobie Kerridge & Mike Michael
- Design and Science & Technology Studies. Mike Michael
- Community as a state of mind. Liliana Ovalle
- Three years of living with an Energy. Babble Katherine Moline
- The stuff of method: Open things and closed objects. Mike Michael

Afterword. Bill Gaver