ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on electronic and digital technologies, being applied in everyday contexts, that use sensors and software to automatically produce spaces that can react to people or at a minimum bodily-shaped objects, in meaningful ways without direct contact. An increasing number of examples are evident in public buildings and office environments, such as software-controlled doors that open automatically when a person approaches, lights and air conditioning that turns itself on when a sensor detects human motion in a room and keyless locks that open with the proximity of contact-less radio frequency identification (RFID) cards. Indeed, digital sensors and decision-making software are all about us, monitoring background infrastructures, supervising utility services, regulating material flows, animating objects and environments and enrolled in solving the myriad tasks of daily living. All embracing software automation also offers up the means to avoid the disgusting animality of others that we are forced to encounter in shared public toilets.
