Take me I'm yours: mimicking object agency

This paper speculates, through a design demonstration, upon a future context in which objects will begin to talk to us and even give us instructions. The purpose of the research is to anticipate a time when correlations between the data sets that are associated with different objects are found and the objects themselves are used to impart this 'new' knowledge back to us. Such an occasion may be considered to represent a form of agency. Located within the technical and cultural context of the Internet of Things, this paper introduces a lineage for our relationship with objects from 1. Read Only, 2. Read and Write and 3. Read, Write and Act. The paper proceeds to establish the conditions for a third generation of Internet of Things by articulating the nature of networks, their structure and their capacity to support the principles of Actor-Network Theory which may lead to a condition in which objects may take on a form of agency. The paper further introduces an iPhone App entitled Take Me I'm Yours that operates as a working but speculative design project mimicking the conditions in which objects may talk to us. The designers speculate a design fiction in which object databases may begin to identify associations and propose 'actions' to a user. The application and demonstration at UbiComp 2012 will offer delegates an opportunity to experience a sense of what it may feel like in the future when objects may begin telling us what to do.