‘Rethinking the urban experience: the sensory production of place’
An ESRC Research Seminar Series

Seminar Three: Senses and infrastructure

The Smells, Sights, Sounds, Textures and Tastes of Socio-
Technical Transitions: An Exploratory Workshop

The third seminar in the series focuses on the relations between senses and the socio-technical
infrastructure of everyday life. What if we re-designed infrastructure for all of our senses?
Given the pressure to develop systemic transitions in the social and technical organisation of
energy, water, waste, and transport infrastructures in response to climate change and resource
constraint there is a need to raise the “visibility” of networks to users. Suppose for a moment
that taste, sound, touch, and odour were treated as the equals of sight. What would our
infrastructure be like if sensory response, sentiment, and memory were critical design factors,
the equals of structure and function? The Sensory Infrastructure workshop will explore two
key themes:

1. Understanding the politics of infrastructure transitions and the (ambivalent) role of
sensory perceptions - this theme focuses on the role of managed shifts in user roles in
relation to infrastructure systems and the issues involved in attempting to reshape users
sensory perception of infrastructure.

2. Redesigning infrastructure to enhance and extend sensory perception - this theme will
focus on social groups whose sensory deprivation may constrain their abilities to
effectively interact with conventional infrastructure networks and asks what it means to
redesign infrastructure so that they embrace all our senses.

Convenors: Prof Simon Marvin and Dr Mike Hodson, SURF, University of Salford

Date: Friday 19th October 2007

Venue: ARUP Manchester, 8th Floor St James’s Buildings, Oxford Street, Manchester, M1 6EL

Directions: See http://www.arup.com/_assets/_download/download115.pdf for directions to ARUP

Programme Details:

Main Programme: Friday 19th October 2007
Seminar

09.30 - 10.00	Registration and coffee
10.00 - 10.15	Introduction and welcome - Mike Hodson and Simon Marvin, SURF
10.15 - 11.45	Session 1 chair Tim May – Understanding the politics of infrastructure transitions and the (ambivalent) role of sensory perceptions Speakers: 'Sweat and the Indoor Environment' Elizabeth Shove, University of Lancaster '‘Limb Objects’ and the Touchiness of Disability' Mariela Gaete Reyes and Rob Imrie, King’s College London 'Getting over Yuck: Moving from Psychological to Cultural and Sociotechnical Analyses of Responses to Water Recycling' Stewart Russell, Institute for the Study of Science, Technology and Innovation (ISSTI) University of Edinburgh
11.45 - 12.45	Discussion and coffee
12.45 - 1.30	Lunch
13.30 - 15.00	Session 2 chair Beth Perry – Redesigning infrastructure to enhance and extend sensory perception Speakers: 'What Does a Low Carbon Future Smell Like? A Sensory Exploration of Unmanaged Transitional Infrastructures' Noel Cass, University of Lancaster 'Visualising Power: Social Representations of Electricity' Hannah Devine-Wright and Patrick Devine-Wright, UMARC, University of Manchester 'Sense and Sanitation: Reshaping the End-users' Sensory Perceptions of Waste Water Infrastructural Transitions' Bas Van Vliet, Environmental Policy Group, Wageningen University
15.00 - 16.00	Discussion and coffee
16.00 - 16.15	Next steps – Mags Adams and Simon Guy

Booking forms can be downloaded or obtained from Vicky Simpson, Research Centre Manager, SURF at
v.simpson@salford.ac.uk. See also http://www.surf.salford.ac.uk/CityRegional/SenseCity.htm
to download the programme and abstracts. Limited funding is available to contribute towards
the travel costs of PhD students and contract researchers.  

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