Introducing the Smart Utopia

Abstract

Smart stuff has captured the imaginations of governments and industries around the world. In many developed and developing countries, the ‘smart’ tag is attached to all manner of things, including meters, grids, homes, phones, cars, communities, cities and even nations, where it confusingly characterises both the proliferation of new information communication technologies (ICTs) and the rise of resource-efficient technological features (Berry et al. 2007). In its broadest sense, ‘smart’ represents an ultimate desired state across all aspects of contemporary life. It encapsulates ideals of efficiency, security and utilitarian control in a technologically mediated and enabled environment. Further, it is employed by its proponents as a means of imagining and realising social and technological progress, while simultaneously solving a range of social and environmental problems.