The categories of 'the Natural ' and 'the Artificial ' are ancient and fundamental to the cultures within which I and many of you exist. The intricate assembly of a beaver 's dam and lodge are understood to be of nature whereas the autobahn and Brazilia are clearly not. Yet, if we suspend the egocentrism for a moment, we can see that these are differences in degree rather than of kind. All the products of human activity are'natural' ones. There is no artificial.
Machines are part of the ecosystem.
The development of computation machinery in the last half of the twentieth century is one of the primary developments during this period. This migration fundamentally changes the nature of the environments that we inhabit. There is an erosion of inertness by the injection of intelligence. We must begin to consider the role we are to play within the context of intelligent environments. This work is concerned with issues in technology where the inability to control is at the heart of the matter.