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This chapter details a practice-based investigation of a 19th-century astronomical device known as ‘Janssen’s apparatus’. It questions traditional narratives of linear technological advancement and ‘sole inventor’ to reframe the historical artefact as a site which makes visible a network of technological knowledge interconnecting astronomy and visual culture. Approached from this perspective, the Janssen artefact is reframed as an ‘intersite of knowledge’, exploring how the various know-how contained within the device is located across disciplines rather than within a single field. Originally developed to calculate the Astronomical Unit during the 1874 Transit of Venus, Janssen’s apparatus failed in its endeavour as a measuring instrument, but its motion mechanism was successfully adapted into early cinema technologies. This chapter applies praxis through the development of a prototype artwork and the concept of ‘techne’ as speculative means of understanding how this mechanism was transferred from astronomy to the Western cultural realm. It proposes that the development of the apparatus was partially gleaned from moving image techniques already in use within 19th-century visual culture. The development of the prototype artwork is discussed in relation to the specific timing mechanism of the Janssen apparatus and how it establishes its own ‘intersite of knowledge’ relevant to its contemporary context. Finally, this chapter elaborates on how witnessing the Janssen mechanism in motion provided unique insight and how creating a dialogue between historical and contemporary apparatus facilitates a reconsideration of how galleries, libraries, archives, and museums [GLAM] and other host institutions that contain artefacts might share their hidden stories.

This chapter investigates the need to focus on the gap between the pure quantification of the body, expressed by robotic implants, and recent research aiming to recover qualitative aspects of touch, such as sensation. The solution proposed is to analyse new implant technologies with a stereoscopic vision that is able to consider sensation both as intensity of neural signals and as something that we feel. The central question is: what is the value of introducing qualitative analysis into typically quantified robotics research, governed by data?

In the face of increasing resource insecurity, environmental degradation and climate change, more governments and businesses are now embracing the concept of the circular economy. This chapter presents some historical background to the concept, with particular attention paid to its assumed opposite, the ‘linear’ or growth economy. While the origins of the circular economy concept are to be found in 1960s environmentalism, the chapter draws attention to the influence of the then ‘new’ sciences of ecology and ‘cybernetics’ in shaping the public environmental discourse of the period. It also draws attention to the background of the present linear economy in postwar policies that encouraged reconstruction and a social and economic democratisation across the West, including an expansion of mass-consumption. It emphasises the role of the 1960s counterculture in generating a popular reaction against this expansionary growth-based agenda, and its influence in shaping subsequent environmentalism, including the ‘metabolic’ and ecological economic understanding of the environmental crisis that informs the concept of the circular economy. Reflecting upon this historical preamble, the chapter concludes that more attention should be paid to the economic, cultural and social contexts of consumption, now more clearly the main driver of our global environmental crisis. Without now engaging more directly with the ‘consumption problem’, the chapter argues, it seems unlikely that the goals of the circular economy can be met.

This chapter presents a case study on integrating sustainable development (SD) into the Industrial Design Bachelor’s course at Tecnologico de Monterrey (TEC) in Mexico. The research is being conducted at TEC, where the lead author is a Professor of Architecture. Mexico has a five-year national development plan: the “Plan Nacional de Desarrollo 2013–2018” (PND). This provides a basis for guiding the policies and programs of the Government of Mexico. The focus of this study is on the PND’s “quality education goal to make scientific, technological, and innovation development pillars for sustainable economic and social progress.” This case study investigates a curriculum intervention, utilizing interviews with students to gather and analyze their responses to the university’s development of sustainability competencies. Their responses are explored through comparing a traditional semester with a semester in which sustainability contents and assessment criteria were added to the curriculum of the Industrial Design Workshop courses. The results reveal that the students recognized a significant advance in their development of sustainability competencies and that this had resulted from this curriculum intervention. This chapter proposes that the findings of the study indicate that a holistic approach has the potential to contribute significantly to SD education in Mexico.

The tendency for nations to move toward implementing independent and conservative central bankers has gained momentum over the past two decades. This trend continues despite the fact that the benefits of central bank independence (CBI) are highly contested among economists. The ability of a central bank to boost economic growth has been seriously compromised due to the emergence of the concept, or knowledge, of independent CBI as per the New Zealand model. In this chapter, we will propose a new line of research for the knowledge economy to underscore the ramifications of substituting local, or regional, knowledge by international knowledge. The goal of this chapter is to assess whether the new knowledge has real merits vis-à-vis the old knowledge of central banking. If not, this chapter will issue a caveat to policy makers to be careful in replacing old knowledge by new knowledge – the new does not always mean a better knowledge. In other words, this chapter will highlight the potential dangers of using untested new knowledge and its economic consequences. This chapter contributes to the literature on CBI by introducing analytical methods not previously used in empirical examination of central banks. Analysis has uncovered the presence of high mobility in economic variables that is unexplained by changes in CBI. The chapter addresses the question of mobility by making use of mobility measures and linear regression in an attempt to identify the source of this mobility. The results from the regression are significant to the theory of central bank independence as they imply that consolidation of inflation rates are not reciprocated with consolidation of economic growth, as conventional theory would suggest.