this is aaronland.info talks

2023

Wishful Thinking – A critical discussion of "extended reality" technologies in the cultural heritage sector

Museum Computer Network (MCN) 2023, Philadelphia

The web happened and while it was absolutely the new, shiny, cool thing at the time it also happened to be the technology that most closely aligns, by design and by intent, with the purposes and motivations of the cultural heritage sector. The web is the means by which the acts of revisiting and recall of our collections, our programming and our institutional histories have become technically feasible, economically viable and with a reach and on a schedule that has literally never before been possible.

Wayfinding at SFO Museum

California Map Society Annual Conference, Stanford

But one of the important threads that runs through all of this work is the idea that visiting the Museum, that fundamentally the Museum itself, extends beyond the building. That simple idea is also largely antithetical to the way most museums operate in 2023.

2022

Interactive Maps at SFO from 1930 to 2022 (and beyond) at the T2 SkyTerrace

North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS) Annual Conference, Minneapolis

Importantly, we had also created a generic framework for developing web applications that could, with predictable and manageable costs, run offline and be deployed to any 4x4 foot space at the airport. When I talk about costs I'm not talking about the five or six figure budgets that external agencies might charge for something like this. I'm talking low four figures plus the cost of application development and building furniture to house the installation.

have you now or have you ever

University of San Francisco

If we adopt these new technologies uncritically we will have, effectively, replaced the web with a fancier and more sophisticated system of economic and editorial chokepoints that came to define the systems which pre-dated the web.

2021

The Mythologies of Museums

MCN 2021, Online

Museums and libraries, on the other hand, can still barely keep their own websites running for more than five or ten years before they are rebuilt from scratch as part of whatever new initiative is being advanced by the organization.

2020

the elephant in the room: build it or buy it?

MCN 2020, Online

One of the things that's happened this year is that the long bet the museum sector has made around touchable surfaces as the principal interaction model for visitors in our galleries is facing an existential crisis. Until there is some resolution to COVID-19 all the touchable surfaces we've invested in are untouchable.

Capacity Planning for Meaning – Build or Buy?

MuseWeb, Online

There is a pervasive, and I think ultimately destructive, belief that everything we do needs to compete with and be measured in terms of the so-called "attention economy". We don't and we shouldn't.

2019

Mapping Space, Time, and the Collection at SFO Museum

Museums and the Web, Baltimore

Everything I've described so far has been built using the same raw materials that we've made available for you to do something with.

2018

be the diorama you want to take a selfie with

Conference on Mobile Position Awareness Systems and Solutions (COMPASS), San Francisco

Disney is to the museum sector what Google is the technology sector.

2017

Who's On First :fist-bump: OpenStreetMap

State of the Map US, Boulder

For the record, punching OpenSteetMap (OSM) is not what I had in mind.

maîtres chez nous

North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS) Annual Conference, Montreal

The past I am sorry to say is our burden.

fault lines — a cultural heritage of misaligned expectations

MuseumNext, Melbourne

I fundamentally believe that the distinction between museums and libraries and archives, in the minds of people outside the cultural heritage sector is collapsing.

2016

mapping with bias

Mapping with Perspective, San Francisco

The toxic trinity of "geo" has always been the unholy union of: licensing and coverage and quality.

the pendulum of bespokiness

Bosch Connected Experience, Berlin

We live in a world with enough technological surprise as it is.

2015

henry moore on the runway

Museum Computer Network, Minneapolis

...but there are wall labels so it must be a museum, right?

Who's On First

FOSS4G, Seoul

the data is not the database

Everyone is Design Eagle

Code For America, San Francisco

A standing leap rarely succeeds.

Strategies against architecture: interactive media and transformative technology at Cooper Hewitt

Museum and the Web, Chicago

A scaffolding for managing absence

history is time breaking up with itself

Visual Resource Association, Denver

That's pretty much the entire reason the Pen exists.

the holodeck of motive

MoMA R&D Salon 13: Big Data, New York City

Email. They talked about this stuff in email.

2014

this is my brick / there are many like it but this one is mine

LittleNets, New York City

Perhaps the greatest narrative abstraction we've ever known is the one we call "shareholder value".

debate is history

The Search is Over!, London

an "iconography of bias"

still life with emotional contagion

dConstruct, Brighton

hero objects

Collecting the present / digital code and collections

Museums and the Web, Baltimore

The point of asking the question is ... to point out that the question forces us to be able to articulate what we are trying to preserve and to account for and judge the how of the preservation methods accordingly.

what would elizabeth david do?

WebWise, Baltimore

Most important of all is the idea that "language is culture" is as true in programming as it is in the body politic as it is in cooking.

objects in the mirror are closer than they appear

Technology experiments in art: Conserving software-based art, Washington DC

Which is hard for museums because we are all about the Rapture.

2013

Quantified Selfies

National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program's Digital Preservation, Washington DC

protecting the present from itself

saving face

Museums and the Web, Portland

Honestly, I don't think we're "getting away" with anything because I don't think we're doing anything particularly subversive or even unusual.

2012

time pixels

New Zealand National Digital Forum, Wellington

If anything what I am suggesting is more like Benoit Mandelbrot's map of England which keeps getting bigger as you measure it.

Parallel-TMS

Museum Computer Network Conference, Seattle

To make explicit a kind of literal random access memory to our collection.

We Were Otaku Before It Was Cool

Access Conference, Montreal

And all we'd be doing is showing people what they've trusted us to keep safe.

Stories from the New Aesthetic

The New Museum, New York City

Which brings us to the Fifth Law of Robotics: That your insurance rates will always go up.

I am awake and connected to the network

CCA Urban Lab, San Francisco

the mappy equivalent of the electric bread knife

building=yes

Museums and the Web, San Diego

Professionals may look at this and see so-called "vernacular" places but what everyone else sees is an avenue and a means to participate.

Archiving Flickr and Other Websites of Interest to Museums

Museums and the Web, San Diego

The New Aesthetic

SXSW Interactive, Austin

a lifesize balloon drone, though, remains a hard idea to let go off

parallel-flickr

Personal Digitial Archiving Conference, San Francisco

shadow copies

2011

in the age of ubiquitous reproduction

an undisclosed location, New York City

the cost of inclusion

gossip begets genealogy

North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS) Annual Conference, Madison

the confidence of difficult

Using OpenStreetMap As a Divining Rod

State of the Map, Denver

the city and the city

Polymaps — Theory, Working Code and Gotchas

Where 2.0, Santa Clara

var map

(Authority Records, Future Computers and Other) Unfinished Histories

Museums and the Web, Philadelphia

the record player of authority

Pass the Corbusier

Built Works Registry Advisory Board Meeting, New York City

osm:way=96565937

Agency is the Intelligent Design of the Internet

UCLA Statistics Department Seminar Series, Los Angeles

I want to believe (but I don't)

2010

we need / MOAR dragons

California College of the Arts, San Francisco

banana noodles and bacon ice cream

Buckets and Vessels

Museums and the Web, Denver

the act of choosing

Machine Tags — Theory, Working Code and Gotchas

Museums and the Web, Denver

the shape of content

Agency Is the Intelligent Design of the Internet

Data and Cities Conference, San Francisco

consequences

2009

The Undiscovered Country

GeoWeb, Vancouver

We need more dragons.

Communities of Authority

State of the Map, Amsterdam

What Would Mike Do?

$tag[$tags] = $tags;

Visual Web Meetup, San Francisco

That’s the funny thing about language.

The Bias of Interpretation

Museums and the Web, Indianapolis

The Hammock of Interpretation

ETech 09, Notes and Links

Flickr, San Francisco

This was just me projecting.

Talking a Line for a Walk

PaperCamp, London

The cost of interpretation

History Boxes

The Guardian, London

2008

Capacity Planning for Meaning (in the age of personal informatics)

Design Engaged, Montreal

How things break and how they'll break us (?)

Aware Of Only One Voice

Where 2.0, San Francisco

Telling someone what neighbourhood they're in is a good way to start a fight.

(Part of Going Places on Flickr: The Significance of Geographical Information in Photos)

The API as Curator

Museums and the Web, Montréal

Computer programming is the acid bath of the Internet.

The Papernet 2008

Station C, Montréal

The learning is in the making

Data, Not Answers

NASA AMES, Mountain View

All APIs are basically just search.

2007

rose:rose=rose

Yahoo! Hack Day UK, London

My URL is a machine tag

The Papernet

XTech, Paris

Walking the line between making it easy enough for people to bother putting data in to a system and still useful enough to make it worth the trouble of getting it out.

The Scribblenet

Bay Area ACM, Palo Alto

APIs, Machine Tags & Magic Words & Building the Do What I Mean Engine

WTF Is On First?

SXSW, Austin

Last year online mapping was emerging, now it's everywhere; on your mobile, in your camera, on your wearable head-up display, in your location aware clothing, even on paper and in your kids. Which of those did I totally make up? Guess it's time to check in with those people who actually make maps, merge virtual and real worlds at location flux points, and, you know, put maps online.

2006

Snakes On A Phone

Yahoo, Sunnyvale

mobile nokia python s60

2004

That's Quite A Moutful

Canadian SemanticWeb Interest Group Meeting, Montréal

Design Issues and Technical Challenges Making the Eatdrinkfeelgood Markup Languge RDF-Friendly