Postcode: Addressing humans and machines

‘Addresses are data which allow other data to appear,’ wrote the media theorist Friedrich Kittler. Over the past 170 years, addresses, adressing and addressability have changed a great deal, and the British postcode offers an unusual window onto that change. Designed for mail-sorting equipment, it contributed to the coordination of the British bureaucracy, and also became part of how people talk about locations and about themselves.

This talk, led by Dr Rebecca Ross, Programme Director for Graphic Communication Design at Central Saint Martins, is based on a forthcoming monograph due to be published by UCL Press in 2027. It follows the postcode from its origin in Victorian London to its many contemporary manifestations. It appears in grime lyrics, interacts with property values, and provides a convenient shorthand for wayfinding and deliveries. The talk draws on a wide range of cultural material: archive film, music, campaigns, advertising and everyday use of postcodes. These show how addressing systems shape the places they describe, and how people have used, adapted and contested those systems.

As more of the work of addressing passes to automated systems, the talk asks what kinds of relationships between people, places and machines are being built into them.

This talk will be followed by a general conversation with the audience about postcodes,

Being Human Festival

This event is part of Being Human Festival, the UK’s national festival of the humanities, taking place 5-14 November 2026. Led by the School of Advanced Study, University of London, in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy. For further information please see beinghumanfestival.org

Image credit: Photograph by Abdalla Elamin for @azcaptures (2026)