Abstract
Smart objects are all around us. As James Ash reminds us in his book Phase Media: Space, Time and the Politics of Smart Objects, the term has an ever-expanding meaning – from smart photos to tooth brushes to watches, light bulbs and even fridges whose content can be monitored via smartphone apps. Ash’s book is built on the premise that smart objects should be understood ‘in terms of the qualities they disclose outside of the realms of human sense’ (p. 5). His argument is that smart objects generate phases – ‘space-times, around which human and non-human life is organized’ (p. 16). By focusing on this process, Ash’s aim is to analyse smart objects as new forms of political contestation as opposed to the prevailing interpretation of them as tools of corporate control and oppression in the context of neoliberalism. The book is divided into eight chapters: Phase Media, Objects, Spaces, Times, Politics, Involution, Ethics and After Networks. Ash argues that smart objects are different from other technical objects because they have intentionality and protentionality, and they modulate space and time – topics he explores in the first three substantive chapters. Chapter 5 then investigates the process of phase politics. In Ash’s view it is precisely through phases that ‘particular publics form around a specific issue in relation to smart objects’ and ‘there is no public before or prior to the appearance of an issue that is produced through a phase’ (p. 124). Chapter 6 focuses on the process of involution – a process of change for smart objects that leads to the reorganisation or dismantling of existing phases and the emergence of new ones. The final substantive chapter discusses the ethical issues around the development and use of smart objects such as self-drive cars. This is an issue of growing importance especially after a 49-year-old woman was recently killed in the United States by an Uber self-drive car. Ash questions the suitability of the prevailing utilitarian and deontological approaches and offers an alternative framework of ‘phase ethics’, which recognises the limitations of machines. While the book does not necessarily offer answers to all questions posed, it challenges conventional thinking and offers an interesting framework for evaluating the importance of smart objects with a view towards the future.