elee-thesis

[elee-thesis]

See You Later, Alligators

Final presentation video above! Message me/ look on slack for the pw.

FINAL CRITIQUE

My crit didn't go quite as planned. I decided that, instead of explaining my concept from beginning to end as one typically expects in a crit, I explained very little and dunked my crits headfirst into my project. I was a bit sleep deprived from the weekend, trying to get finals work finished, and of course putting together this video. I only realized that my critiques may have an issue with only just seeing this video on the train ride over to present! I think the issue here was that I accidentally replaced the crits with my classmates in my mind, and almost expected them to have been with me throughout the semester. Of course this isn't something that I literally thought, but I think I failed to think ahead in terms of how much set-up I might have to do to receive a successful critique.

Some of the main takeaways:

It seemed that one of the crits thought the project was about data security which means that I definitely need to think about what limitations I can place on my project so that the thread between each "tool" is apparent.

Also I received criticism about using code when it *is* in fact binary. I spoke to Waverly about it and they framed it in a way that made sense to me: rather than using code, I am exploring cyberspace, which of course in order to do so I'm using code to run my own experiments in this sphere. I don't think my project is *about* subverting the binary of code, but needed to be made clearer that it's specifically about subverting UI, which of course uses code.

Having felt disheartened after my crits, I asked to speak to my thesis prof for next year. She really helped me come to understand where my work is right now and I formulated marching orders for the next semester:

Approach making backwards. Identify the sites of oppression that I am focused on, and start making based upon the mechanics that constitute that particular oppression. Figure out the internal logic of these structures and build concepts off of that research and investigation. 

Decide whether I want to focus strictly on superficial interface design, or the deeper infrastructure, etc.

Define the limitations for my project and stick to them. (See #2)

Develop the queer strategies that I plan to employ, taking example from my successful prototypes created in Thesis 2.

Overall, I was thrown a bit with my initial critiques but I also think I learned a really big lesson which is that, I can't expect people to read my mind! I really have to set folks up if I want a specific response from them, which I honestly didn't do. While I think much of their feedback wasn't super helpful, there are definitely nuggets of helpful critique buried in there.

 Advice to Thesis Baby

Lastly, here's some advice I'd give myself if I were to do semester 1 again:

I wish I had started talking to more people about my thesis sooner. My friends seemed really excited and *got* it when I talked to them about it, but I was so unconfident in the beginning that it took me a while to get heated up.

I went to 2 conferences this semester but I wish I had had the guts to go up to certain speakers and strike up a conversation, rather than just find them on Twitter later :')

Read more full books! I read a TON of work but I would sort of read snippets here and there which definitely became helpful, but I wish I could have taken in an entire book, rather than just a chapter or two. I'm not sure I actually had the time for this but one can dream….

Ending On a Lil’ Cheese

I think this semester went really well and I'm so grateful for the class we had. I have truly never felt this comfortable in a class setting and I seriously feel a little teary knowing I'll never get to have a thesis class with y'all again :'(. I think this just goes to show how the folks who you surround yourself with during the creative process is soooo important. Even if you love the professor, it often has to be about the combination of loving your professor *and* your classmates, which is really hard to get! But…we got it this semester <3 Sorry to end my post on an incredibly cheesy note, but I'm also not sorry ;)

[elee-thesis]

:Sweats Nervously:

The Concept Notes Part

Just kidding! I’m not that nervous.......yet. For week 15, I just wanted to add a bit of concrete direction to my previous post, since I feel like that post really contains the MEAT of the newest direction my project is going in.

As per my most recent blog post, I've been leaning into creating tools that allow users to subvert the oppressive system engineered into their tech, and provide space to explore the materiality of this technology, by pushing at the boundaries set in place. One thought I had: I realized that it might make most sense to create a google chrome extension that contains my final suite. After doing a bit of research on what exactly is allowed in the Google Chrome store, I noticed that apps can only have "one function" or if several functions they all must pertain to one main function. My "suite", of course, in no way meets that rules, so I’m guessing there's no way I can publish it on the app store. While this may initially seem like a disappointment I'm actually feeling pretty good about it having to be distributed via zip file and then uploaded as a "package" in the Developer Tools section of folk's Chrome Extension library. It creates kind of an interesting dynamic because enabling developer mode and loading a package from there opens up a ton of vulnerabilities to someone’s computer. This means that the person that want to have their _own_ suite *must* trust me... this is definitely something I’d like to think more about.

I also read a bunch of "The New Dark Age" by James Bridle this weekend and found an excellent quote:

"We have been conditioned to think of the darkness as a place of danger, even of death. But the darkness can also be a place of freedom and possibility, a place of equality. For many, what is discussed here will be obvious, because they have always lived in this darkness that seems so threatening to the privileged. We have much to learn about unknowing. Uncertainty can be productive, even sublime"

Using the darkness as a metaphor for the subversion let's say, or the chaos created by my tool set, allows for the opening up of this beautiful liminal space. Those that are familiar with these spaces, I hope, will recognize it as a home. I'm not entirely sure if this is how my project will be perceived, but it's something to work on never the less.

I also talked to a bunch of folks over the age of 55 about technology this weekend to glean some info about what their interactions are like with their computer/phones/etc. I heard a lot about trying to interact with a computer that is constantly evolving, and just when they felt that they had a grasp on the "latest" feature, etc, things would change again. Specifically, my mom, who happens to be pretty internet savvy said she feels badly when she sees all these folks on twitter enjoying memes or other online tomfoolery, and she wishes she could be more ~*~in on it~*~*. She said something about missing out on having online friendships. She said this feeling of sadness always turned inward; "is there something wrong with me?". I had never really talked to folks who felt alienated by technology because of their age, and especially when as of late, it’s become a point of contention with younger folks. So, I'm now a little nervous about my suite pushing people who share these feelings further into the shadows. I ended up showing these folks what I had been working on, though, and most of them found it conceptually interesting and also said how some of the "effects" of the tools I had created replicated ways in which they would "accidentally mess something up” something, which I thought was interesting. Specifically someone commented that the “click” chrome extension that I created that slid words of the page really looked like something he had accidentally done once. I'd definitely like to think more about their feedback...after all my projects doesn't have to do something for everyone so I'm hoping this doesn't add too much pressure. 

The Form Notes Part

SO for form: I'm thinking that I'd like to ultimately have a sort of "tool bar" at the bottom of my screen that pops open a box and provides a bunch of "tools" that folks can choose from. I'm not sure if this should become something that I continuously add to or not, but in the meantime this is my running list:

Cursor as Medium

Having bits of data from past browsing history that is "summoned" by one's cursor

Browser Shimeji

Aka Tamagotchi for your computer that roams around your screen and is cared for by browsing activity (TBD)

Shy Cursor

Having the cursor hide when you move too quickly (it seems that the shy hyperlinks prototype was wonky, but might be more effective with the cursor)

Blur/replace faces

OpenCV is my friend!!!!!!!!!!!! It might be ridiculously intensive to load in each image on a computer, detect a "face" and cover it… this might end up looking more like my mad face "click"

Random intervals of touching your computer for its warmth

Connecting with your computer and feeling how hard it's worked

Illustrate one's journey online

Visualize a little map of each link you've visited

Though I haven't actually made something like this yet, I *think* it'll be easy-ish to implement…

Close Button Death

Implement the naming and formalization of a ritual surrounding closing tabs

Word FLIP

Flipping words around on a page. I'd like to change how this currently functions because I think it might be interesting to parse each word from a sentence and reorder them (?) Something to play with

Reorder google search

There's so much blatant oppressive tactics surrounding the order in which google searches are revealed, I'd like to work on creating a randomizer that randomizes the links presented. I have no idea if this is feasible so we'll have to see :')

Ugly!

I'd like to work to mess with CSS styling and randomize what a page's style could look like.

SO my game plan is so mock up the above (most of them are already actually functional), or if it's easy enough, create real solid versions of them. Easy Peasy! Bring on the final presentation ;) I am feeling a little anxious about what I'm creating but also feeling fairly good about it all. We'll see how I'm feeling in a week!

Check out some mocks of the form below:

Before clicking!

After clicking! 

Version 1 of the tool set all laid out

Version 2 of the tool set all laid out

[elee-thesis]

Finally

I started off this week really feeling like I was at a stand still. I tossed around a couple of ways to improved my project but ultimately felt like I had "plateaued" with my work. Liza had suggested a week or two ago that I start to think about the overarching theme of my project, and at the beginning of the week I felt that I had determined that my smaller projects were about creating these entities that built this sort of human, less logical, less mechanized relationship with the human using it. To be honest, this to me felt like I was suddenly moving away from my original concept statement. My concept was all about highlighting the oppressive foundation of interface, etc rather than exploring the limits of human/computer relationship (even if that tied into my larger concept). I realized that after talking to Liza this week that I really needed to buckle down and think about my original intention and how it had transformed.

I did a bit more research over the weekend and think I landed on a stronger concept statement for my project. There’s an aphorism that explains that the purpose of art is often one of two things: "afflicting the comfortable or comforting the afflicted". While I think this might be a crude distillation of what art is and can mean, I used this aphorism to reassess my audience after having originally decided that I wanted to “afflict the comfortable”. I chatted with my partner a bit about my thesis and he seemed to think that these tools/this suite that I had built would transform the internet/interfaces/the computer into something strange, alien, and unexpected (perhaps the way a marginalized person would experience technology that was not made with them in mind). Thus, he claimed, that my project *was* achieving what I had originally set out for it to achieve. I then spoke to Waverly about my thesis and they were incredibly helpful, but also contrary to my partner, they thought that my project did the latter or "comforted the afflicted". They pointed out that my work allowed for this shift in data-laden spaces that created an open canvas, so to speak and sometimes literally, where they could imagine what alternatives were possible. They pointed me to this quote:

“Technology comes with an aura of fixedness: once immured in things, ideas seem settled and unassailable....By re-enchanting a few tools, we might see the myriad ways in which this realization is immanent within multiple modes of contemporary everyday life.” –James Bridle NewDark Age

I love the idea of my project as "re-enchanting tools". It sort of made me rethink my entire concept statement. While I originally intended this to be for an audience of people who currently don't have a problem for tech (those not marginalized), I think it also creates a space for people who are marginalized and struggle with current technologies that do not include them in their design. How might providing tools that "break" the fabric of these designs empower people who were oppressed by them in the first place? While I still think this suite might be interesting for folks that are *not* marginalized, Waverly pointed out that these people might just think of this suite as a bunch of silly/funny tools, and not anything to think more deeply about. I have some suspicion they're right, but I also probably would need to test that.

I'm really stoked on the progress I made! I *think* I want to change the direction of my project a bit and start thinking about how to create this suite for marginalized folks. I think some of my projects push this idea, but ultimately I'd like my final form to take on several tools that feel cohesive and specifically pointed at certain interfaces or design (on the internet or elsewhere).

This week, I plan to try and think more deeply about these instances of oppression, and write about them in all of the projects that I have made, and plan to make. I'd also like to make a game plan for which projects I'm going to include in my final, and how I'll tie their narratives together.

[elee-thesis]

-Upgrade Available-

This week I decided would be a week of research after having made a ton for my 7-in-7. I read a bit about queer theory and software design, the use of a queer interface in video games, and bit about disposability in design. It made me realize that I kind of dropped the ball on one of my initial questions that examined the relationship between humans and computers. I sort of forgot to think more deeply about that, and it might be important to try and create something that explicitly addresses this relationship. I think the pieces I've made so far reference this relationship but don't obviously point to it. On top of this, I think it might be interesting to think more deeply about disposability. So much of our design is meant to be "upgraded", while tossing the old design, be it hardware software, away. There's this notion of progression that's expected. What might it mean for our design to evolve naturally? Or rather to regress? I might want to play with this a bit.

I've also slowly, but surely, been reaching out to quite a few people but it seems that folks are really busy right now and can’t meet. I also went to a TLC party on Saturday, which probably wasn't the most conducive environment to talk about my thesis, but I pitched my thesis to a few TLC folks who didn’t seem too excited about it:'(. I imagine it was a combination of  the loud music and darkness that made it difficult to talk, but it still was a bummer! I'm thinking I might reach out again, though.

Lastly, I want to start thinking about what I might present for my project at the end of the semester. I think I have to start doing work on the underlying thread that connects all of my work so far, as Liza suggested. Once I can kind of distill this down, it might be easier to come up with the final form, be it a suite or something larger.

Hoping to end this week by reaching out to a few more folks and also continue to research and think about the questions I posed above!

[elee-thesis]

7-in-7 (part 3)

7-in-7 cont’d:

“How might a click express a change in perspective?” 

I created 5 google chrome variations on this. In the first, a click sends the text dripping down the screen. Text is no longer stable but, moves at its own pace downwards, increasing the window size infinitely. The second produces this dark, shadowy cast over the screen, creating a sort of horror filter. The third blurs the screen into oblivion, and creates these pretty cool effects once the image information can no longer blur the images anymore. The fourth rearranges the text on a page. Text is read into my script, and then reassigned around the page randomly. This one is particularly interesting because it really changes the layout on the page. In the video, I’m on StackOverflow, and its amusing to see people’s questions become answers and answers becomes questions. Lastly, I created an extension that just replaces all images with an angry face. It’s maybe a little less meaningful and just silly? It makes me laugh every time :’) The videos are in order in the way they’re described.

I think my 7-in-7 was successful to some extent, but I also really want to hear feedback from folks. Should I continue down this route? Are these compelling? Is there a way to shape these within some kind of overarching container?

[elee-thesis]

7-in-7 (part 2)

7-in-7 cont’d: 

“How might a cursors express mediumship?” 

This one was probably one of my favorites. The question is meant to see if I could replicate the relationship with spirits that a medium might have, to one that a cursor might have to “dead” bits of code, text, hyperlinks, etc.  It functions like this: the cursors grabs all of the text elements from links featured in the browser’s history and they appear circling the cursor, moving in and out or disappearing suddenly. Every so often, a “spirit” will leave and a new one will appear.

One more post so I can upload all 5 of my day 7 videos!

[elee-thesis]

7-in-7 (part 1)

My 7-in-7 unfortunately took quite a while and ended up becoming 7 projects that I kept tweaking over the course of 2 weeks. Though I’m not entirely sure how I feel about them, I did enjoy making some of them. I’m still unsure if this is the right path to take, and whether this communicates my original concept.

“How might scrolling express loneliness?” 

I could think of a bunch of conceptual web “art” pieces that I could create, but I decided I wanted to anthropomorphize “scrolling” and create this creature that reacted to it. I originally create a few variations on this idea, one being a creature that needed endless scrolling in order to stay “happy”, another that needed slow scrolling, and the final iteration, a creature that dreaded the end of a page. As you reach the bottom of a page via scrolling, the creature’s mood goes from bliss to deep dread.

“How might input/buttons/levers express curiosity?”

I think that this project didn’t quite achieve what it set out to, but it had me thinking about whether I wanted these questions to create these personified interface elements, or inspire this expression in their user. I had originally thought it was the former, but I decided to try to create something that achieved the latter for this particular day. In the following video, the property box that one calls up almost feels dadaist. The buttons don’t make sense, the levers are meaningless, but the user is compelled to click them anyway (I think) to see what happens.

“How might a clock express stillness?” 

While I think this project answers the question, it’s probably my least favorite/ the least interesting. A clock appears, and as the second, minute, and hour hand move, the remnants of the hands stay in place and eventually, after 12 hours create one solid circle with spokes, unmoving.

“How might hyperlinks express shyness?" 

This project ended up being a bit buggy. I wanted to create hyperlinks that shied away when a mouse approached them too quickly. In order to click on a link, you must approach the link very slowly as to not scare it away. While the link was increasing in size after being scared, it’s rendered unclickable.

“How might screens express warmth?” A

Admittedly, I lifted this from my MS2 project because I really liked it and it addressed the question in a succinct way. I’m not sure exactly where this would appear, or what interface it riffs on exactly. It encourages users to touch their screen and feel for the warmest spots. The longer they linger, the brighter that part of the screen glows.

The rest of my 7-in-7s are on another post because I can’t add more than 5 videos on one post!

[elee-thesis]

Picking myself back up

Truthfully, I have had a really hard time the past couple of weeks. Some of you know, but I experienced a death in the family and have had a really difficult time dealing with it and being thrust back into work, especially in a creative capacity. This post will be short, because I'm still trying to tweak my 7-in-7 presentation, but I think I'll need some time still to really get back into the swing of things. I'm struggling to feel excited about being creative, but hoping I can try to channel my feelings into making as a form of catharsis. While I'll write a more detailed post about 7-in-7 later, I found that initially my 7-in-7 was horrible. I started it, was thrown out of it because of having to travel back and forth, console my family members, and grieve, and then attempted to pick it back up resulting in something that I felt utterly uninspired by. Because of this, I've basically been re-doing my 7-in-7, and though I finished last Wednesday, I've been tweaking the work for basically 2 weeks straight now. I think there's something kind of nice about this, and it has helped me feel attached to the work in some way, even If it wasn't in classic 7-in-7 style. I had a conversation this weekend about my thesis with friends who I hadn't discussed it with before, and felt a glimmer of excitement for the first time in a while. This gives me hope! I hope I can continue to seek out that feeling.

Lastly, I went to the computer mouse conference and was utterly blown away by the talks there. I'm really excited to have new contacts to reach out to.

More on 7-in-7 in detail soon, and a discussion of my role playing exercise with Tingwei. Hope to get these up by tomorrow or Wednesday.

[elee-thesis]

Midterm Crit Feedback

Overall, it sounds like my project is on the right track and is both making sense to my critics and also seemed to provoke some excitement (?) I'm really looking forward to continuing with my thesis making now. From the sound of my feedback, it seems that I need to work on trying to work the "why" into my pitch a little bit better. While my paper strongly addresses this "why" and roots my project in anti-capitalism, I didn't necessarily try and heavily introduce that in my 10-minute presentation. This was mostly because of the way that my first mock presentation was received and also, of course, because of the time limit. I *believe* my paper really does delve more deeply into this question, but that's also something I need to confirm. Secondly, Kyle seemed to think my work might function interestingly as a series of "mini games". I'm not sure if that feels quite right, or if it might push down the original intent of the project, but again something I need to start thinking about. Thirdly, I think it's important that at some point (maybe not immediately) I need to think about how to convey my core thesis question through my prototypes. Though this is of course essential, I think I can let myself continue to make for now, and think more about that later.

Questions that still need to be answered:

* Do I want to focus solely on the internet?

* Perhaps I can shift to queering HCI (though my research hasn’t really focused yet on that)?

* Do I want to continue to make smaller experiences for my 7-in-7 or should I work to answer another series of questions over the course of the next week?

* How might games fit into the form of my project? Play seems to be the ultimate non-utilitarian behavior and therefore would make sense in the context of my project, but do I want to also mix my project up in the world of games as well? 

Regarding the last question: I applied to speak at QGCon 2020 in the summer with what I think will be my thesis project. My project doesn’t exactly discuss games, but I did talk about the importance of incorporating play as a methodology. I suppose if my application is accepted then perhaps that is telling...

[elee-thesis]

A Revelation? (Or Maybe What I Always Knew)

This week has been fairly productive! My illness somehow turned into something full-blown and I've been feeling pretty awful the whole weekend unfortunately, but at least sick days in bed mean that I don't have much else to do. This week I've begun experimenting with additional prompts from my "How might [INSERT TECH HERE] express [INSERT QUEER HERE]?" series:

1.  "How can Close Buttons express Connection ?"

I thought about the act of "closing", something I had incorporated into my MS2 project quite a bit as a ritualistic “ending” of a digital experience, or even a cleansing of sorts. Closing, especially in the context of the internet is done so casually, but also carries a lot of weight. An accidental closing of a page with information that might be lost can be devastating. This led me to think about the life cycle of a tab, or a browser window. I realize that I often carry some sort of sentimental feelings toward browser windows (hoarder tendencies?) and often hesitate to close tabs just in case their cumulative presence is meaningful to me in some ways. Though I don't think of them quite as anthropomorphically, what if they were? The image above depicts a scenario in which all browser windows were "named” and delivered a short message to you containing their last "memory" and a brief thank you for their birth and death. Would we feel indebted to them in some way? Would we adapt a new ritual around opening and closing windows?

2. Shutdown, Restart, *Sleep*

(Apologies for the horrible quality, tumblr and their gif size limits!!)

My second project didn't quite follow my format, but instead thought about what a bedtime ritual might look like, specfically for our desktop icons. What if, at the end of an evening, we quite literally "put our computers to sleep". In the above gif, I set my desktop background to depict a room with the sun setting. As my time on the computer came to an end, I took my icons (distributed amongst the virtual shelves, floor cushions, etc) and put them in their virtual bed, one by one. When all icons had been put in bed, I then reduced the brightness as low as possible, and closed my laptop.

3. How might Switches/Levers/Buttons(etc) express Purposelessness?

The above gif depicts an interface (I used a classic Windows 95 interface) and tried to render some of the visual input mechanics useless. What would it look like if the levers that existed were there for play? Or perhaps made people frustrated, or maybe laugh? What if these input systems didn't take in any meaningful input, or perhaps only dispensed meaningless output? How might that change the way we navigate our interfaces/ make decisions? What role would these input devices play?

4. How might Push Notifications express Promiscuity?

What if our push notifications, while containing information (something new is happening here!/ This number of new things are here for you to pay attention to!) also moved around freely amongst other push notifications to engage in some sort of intercourse. While, I didn't really try to define what that might look like in the above gift, I tried to capture the ways certain notifications might develop a relationship with other notifications, or perhaps how some might seek certain partners over others. How might we interact with these notifications that no longer provide information but instead live freely to be "intimate" with one another in a way that doesn't quite carry the stigma that it doesn’t among humans.

The Big WHY?

I think these projects gave me a bit of a grasp on the big why of my project and further convinced me that my methodology should continue to take the form of experimentation and play. Through these experiments I had the chance to think more deeply about how our relationships might change with the devices that help us navigate our journey on the computer. I think experimentation is so important regarding this topic because the radical reimagining of technology just doesn't have a concrete outcome. We can't be quite certain what would happen in world containing this kind of technology because of its impossibility (at this very moment); America operates under a capitalist system that necessitates technology that is speedy and efficient to ultimately commodify time. My project can't change that, and I don't expect it to, but my question, rather, lies in the what ifs? What *if* our technology purely mirrored our humanness, over its tool-ness? What would that look like? What effect might that have? Who might benefit from it? What problems might it tackle? Etc, etc, etc. I'm not sure if that is the *right* reason to pursue a project, but knowing that my thesis will not be complete in one year, but rather is the start of a life-long pursuit/ I think it makes sense that my thesis project grants me permission to investigate deeply and make freely. I understand that this might sound a bit cheesy, but you get the gist.

This leads me to my new question "How might queering our relationship with the internet begin to erode its oppressive tendencies?". My prototypes thus far don't quite focus on the internet (just yet), and they also don't really *focus* on their oppressive tendencies. Overall they aren't quite solution-focused at all, and I think that's ok!

This week I plan to work on the narrative of my thesis midterm presentation and work on discussing it in a structured, engaging way, finish my paper, and then finally start to recover from my illnesses. My birthday is on Friday and I hope to feel a bit lighter by then :)

[elee-thesis]

Unfortunately I was sick with the flu this whole past week and I think it took a bit of a toll on me creatively. I was supposed to have produced *two* prototypes and instead couldn’t find the energy to make either. Now that I’m feeling well, I really hope I can push myself to make rather than research, which I believe has been part of the cause of my inability to move forward the past week.

A More Refined Question?

I ended up speaking with a few of my friends this week about my thesis, desperately trying to get folks to validate the path I’ve chosen in my moments of deep insecurity: “Does this make sense to you?” “Are you excited about this project?” Ultimately it seems that most folks could feel my excitement, which is important but also had a few questions on the foundation this project is built on. The biggest question that I received was: “Why are you looking at this through the lens of queer theory?”. Queerness is a big part of my identity and has come to be the way that I see the world, but is also really important to me because of its implicit political connotation. To me, queerness is an embodying of the radical erosion of oppressive systems. The act of existence is a radical act. My knowledge of queer theory is still young; I’ve only begun to study it seriously in the past two years (grabbing snippets from tumblr doesn’t quite count!!) but I hope that my thesis can be brought to life using it as a lens.

I think I’ve settled on a new question that encompasses my excitement about the human/computer relationship as well as the erosion of capitalist design features embedded into our technology: 

How might queering our relationship with the internet begin to erode its oppressive tendencies?

I’m pretty set on exploring the internet still, and I think I am no longer going to be focusing on hacking, though I still think it’s important to study. The two sub questions that I’d like to explore (at least this semester) are 

How might we render these systems/(tendencies) powerless?

How might we redefine what is useful and useless?

Speculative Design

I think I’ve also come to the conclusion that my project *has* to be speculative in nature. There isn’t really technology that exists to form a symbiotic relationship with us now, nor is there any mainstream personal technology device that subverts the idea that technology *must* be efficient, powerful, and fast. 

So, what does a future look like with technology that chips away at what we currently (modern-day) think technology “should” be? 

What does technology look like when it is engaged in a symbiotic relationship with humans? 

Does such a symbiosis work to pull humans away from their ego? 

If humans are no longer working as one entity, but constantly in tandem with another, are they not quite human? I’m interested in exploring these questions, and hoping that imagining this project as a speculative one might help push my ideas forward. 

Electricity With Agency

Lastly, I’ve also decided that it might be important to think about other technologies we might consider to be autonomous or intelligent in their own way (not AI). One of my roommates told me about the work of Jane Bennet, and specifically her book “Vibrant Matter”. From the descriptions of the book, “She suggests that recognizing that agency is distributed this way, and is not solely the province of humans, might spur the cultivation of a more responsible, ecologically sound politics: a politics less devoted to blaming and condemning individuals than to discerning the web of forces affecting situations and events.” She points at one case study of electricity in the case of a black-out, and its ability to shut down cities. Because my research has been very internet-focused, I’ve missed out on exploring other non-human agency.

Plans For The Week

My plan for the week is to make a list of possible concepts, something I’ve been anxiously avoiding (fear of commitment still?) I’d like to storyboard some of them out, or at least try to flesh out the ideas so that I have something to present during the midterm. I also hope to try and do two “form tests” that look at possible forms this project could take by this week, I think scheduling to get them done last week was ambitious and though I was sick, I actually needed a whole week to just sort of mull over the details of my work. Overall, I was panicked this whole past week but am feeling a bit better by allowing myself to ~go with the flow~.

[elee-thesis]

A Setback

This week started right on track. Excited about the progress I had made last week and the tasks I had before me (create an interview, interview people, start to brain storm concept ideas), I went to start on the draft for my paper. For some reason, the act of compiling all of my resources to articulate my motivation, audience, guiding questions, etc sent me into a bit of a panic. I suddenly didn't feel that I knew quite what I was doing. Thinking about my project in relation to my MS2 project (read first post for more details), I realized that I really do want to create something concrete, something that folks can interact with. I'm still having a hard time figuring out how to approach my community when I still have such a vague idea. Yesterday I did about 12 hours of research straight (which as a mistake!!) because it confused me even more. I spent about 4 of those hours wondering if I should switch my thesis topic.

Thinking about my end project differently

Part of my 12 hours of researching was trying to find a project that resonated with me. The goal was to find something that I felt connected to, and try to figure it out from there. I truly couldn't find anything that was quite as concrete as I wanted; All of the pieces I found were either too loosely related to my topic or too purely academic, setting no framework for an actual designed object, experience, etc. I kept coming back to two projects: Pippin Barr's "It's As If You Were Making Love" and Queer OS. There's something that draws me to this idea of a computer OS experience in disguise. Both projects present traditional parts of an operating system, but their function is not as expected at all. The idea of both of these projects taking form in a way we might expect (either an OS with memory, applications, etc, or a standard Windows 95-esque slider) and then completely twisting the form, was really exciting to me.

Thinking about these two projects also surfaced an interest I had expressed earlier in the month about what a symbiotic relationship between a human and a computer might look like. In Barr's game specifically, you're give pleasure to an application of some kind. Your interaction with the computer is purely for the pleasure of the computer, and not for your own. Of course, we can imagine a world in which after you're done with this particular application, a user might go about their business as usual within the confines of the OS. This reciprocity feels like what I imagined a symbiotic relationship between a computer and human might look like. Thinking more deeply about this, I tried to find research that addressed this particular kind of symbiosis (one in which sometimes the human is only doing things purely for the benefit of the computer). I couldn't find anything which was disheartening! Still, I pushed on, knowing I was still interested in this, and wondering if I needed to incorporate it into my thesis somehow.

I came away from my 12 hours realizing that I think I want to try my hand at creating parts of a Queer computer. In fact, there's a world in which I could see myself trying to create a real, live manifestation of Queer OS. I *think* I've resolved to take a big ol' break from researching for the next few days. I've been thinking about what a queer interface that morphs as users interact with it might look like, or perhaps what a queer internet browser might look like, and I'd like to make progress on that. I'm really hoping these are good ways to spend my time, because I feel pretty discombobulated after not really hitting my goals for this week, and just panicking instead.

Audience (!?)

I do have a quite a few worries about adjusting my topic. If I were to make a queer browser, for example, who would really care about that? Is my community of practice still the same? Do I reach out to the folks I had identified last post and just tell them about my project and ask for their thoughts. What's the point of making something like this anyway? I have a lot of questions to answer, I think.

Question Change

My question was How can hacking the internet dismantle its underlying capitalist systems by specifically attacking the commodification of people? I think this is still relevant, but again, for example, would a "Queer Browser" fall under this category? It feels like it might not completely encompass this project, and I no longer feel totally comfortable with the work hacking.

Ideas for different questions:

How might transforming the human-computer interaction undermine the system's capitalist underpinnings?

How might reimagining the way we use a computer afford safer spaces for marginalized peoples?

How might reimagining the way we use a computer allow us to create a symbiosis between human and machine?

How might reimagining the way we use a computer transform the oppressive history of technology?

These questions all hit at similar ideas but are still distinctly different. If you're reading this and have thoughts about what question is maybe most interesting or actually makes sense, please let me know!

Overall, this week was kind of a dud, and I hope that I get back on track after doing a little more soul searching. I wanted to have a solid grasp on both my audience and ideas for potential concepts by now and I'm really disappointed that I've lost so much confidence in my question/ idea, though I imagine it's inevitable. I'm hoping to take a break from research and try and create this week to see if I can figure this all out.

[elee-thesis]

HACKING and CAPITALISM

I've started thinking about my methodology and attached an image of my scatterbrained process. Although there are a set of arrows to follow, I like how all-over-the-place this diagram looks from afar. Something about it gives me the freedom to bounce and loosely follow these steps if that feels right to me. Right now I think I'm in the prototype/research phase after having come up with my question.

This week was fairly clarifying! I ended up talking to a lot of folks to help me get to a point of understanding my goals for thesis, including Liza. Some takeaways: I believe I've figure out my question (at least for now). After a couple of iterations I've settled on: How can hacking the internet dismantle its underlying capitalist systems by specifically attacking the commodification of people?  There are a few components that might be swapped out of this question if I find they don't quite fit in the future, one being the use of "hacking", which I'd like to do a little more research on, and also "the internet", which I might still swap out for another technology. Many of my past projects have revolved around the internet, so I'm fairly certain I want to continue to focus on it, but I do want to settle on a piece of tech soon. To think about the commodification of people more closely I've done a lot of reading and research but also want to collect my own data by interviewing family and friends about how they interact with their personal technology (phone, computer, etc) to see if I can find any sticking points. I plan to conduct a few interview this week and ask the following questions:

Interview Draft

Can you describe a time when you were frustrated with a piece of technology, interface or program because it was:

Too invasive

Didn't offer you enough choice

Recognize your intentions

Inhibited your ability to express yourself fully

Inhibited the way you wanted to communicate with someone

Made you feel used

Made you feel out of control

Would you describe your emotions during these incidents?

Could you give me specific examples?

I also got some feedback about this interview process and my friend Jon suggested I try to ask people first about their everyday phone, computer, etc usage to see if anything comes up without prompting first.

Audience

Secondly, I started to think a lot about my audience as I'm a bit stuck on that. I talked to Liza quite a bit about this and I think I want my audience to be folks who make technology. Initially, I wasn't sure if I wanted to talk to folks who just used their technology, but I think it's become increasingly clear that it's important for me to start at the source, so to speak. I think my project will end up being something digital, but I'm still a bit lost on what form I'd like it to take and exactly how I'd like it to be received… That's definitely a goal for this week! I've also identified some organizations/ schools that I think I want to be in touch with as recommendation from Liza:

School for Poetic Computation

BUFU

Tech learning collective

It seems like my best bet would be to be partner with an organization like this in order to get my project to the right people (?) I don't quite feel like I have all of the material that I need to contact them, but I have their contact information for when I have a more finalized concept statement.

These organizations may be my target audience, but also my community of practice, which I still a knot I’d like to further untangle. Lastly, I’d like to reach out to folks like:

Adrienne Shaw

Katherine Sender

Zack Blas

Safiya Noble

Their works seems to be popping up all over my research, and also some of them happen to be folks I’ve been familiar with through past research.

Goals for the week

As for the goals I've planned to hit this week, I successfully narrowed down my question quite a bit, but I haven't found all of the precedents that I'd like just yet. Given that my next deadline is in 4 days from now and involves finalizing my concept statement, I need to start to think pretty deeply about this question. For now, I've been really inspired by the research that I've come across and it's definitely helped me figure out what I am and am not interested in.

Action items for the week ahead:

Make a comparison chart using my Typing Tantrum as an example

Set up Interview Questionnaire

Research "hacking"/ radicalizing tech

Identify core precedents

Finalize concept statement (Sept. 19th)

[elee-thesis]

How can Typing express a Tantrum ?

This week I focused on the question "How can taken-for-granted technologies express queerness?", a question posed in the article I read last week by Adrienne Shaw and Katherine Sender. The question wasn't exactly addressed quite as literally as I'd like it to be, so I chose to focus on that as my main question for the week. This week I created two lists, one representing taken-for-granted technologies, and other elements of "queerness", or what I think might encompass queerness in the context of technology. I've included the list below:

I then wrote a script that essentially matched elements of tech with those of queerness at random, and generated new questions.

The three questions that it generated are the following: 1) How can Typing express a Tantrum  ? 2) How can Close Buttons express Promiscuity  ? 3) How can Computer Windows express Silliness  ? "How can Typing express a Tantrum?" Felt like a good place to start to simply see what came from trying to modify typing to represent such a human expression. I first started thinking about technology associated with typing in order to see if I could tap into anything that might be an entry point for creating a tantrum.

Below I've listed out a few typing-based technologies:

• QWERTY keyboard        ○ Meant to make typing faster by grouping frequently used letters closer to the sides of the keyboards (where the hands sit) • "Texting" acronyms        ○ Meant to speedily communicate commonly used multi-word phrases • Autocomplete        ○ Meant to "predict" what a user might want to type next • Autocorrect        ○ Meant to correct a misspelling by guessing the closest word to the misspelling • Speech to Text       ○ Meant to comprehend spoken words and translate them into written text My main question became: how might we envision these productivity, efficiency-based technologies expressing the actions and feelings associated with a tantrum? First I decided to think about the physical symptoms of a tantrums and their cause.

Wikipedia classifies a tantrum as an "emotional outburst" typically "characterized by stubbornness, crying, screaming, violence, defiance, angry ranting, a resistance to attempts at pacification". A tantrum, I could say might consists of the following:

• Unpredictability • Increase in speed/ out of control-ness • Resistance to pacification • Erratic-ness • Nonsense/ incomprehensible-ness • Destruction (?)

Now, what might the above typing-technologies look like with these properties applied?

• QWERTY keyboard       ○ A shifting of keys, moving away from fingers.       ○ Sudden replacement of keys with other letters       ○ Keys springing off the keyboard       ○ Taking on the opposite speed of the user's hands (keys moving even faster away if the users attempt to calmly type) • "Texting" acronyms       ○ An erratic transformation of any string of words into an acronym       ○ Acronyms appearing more like code for a phrase rather than corresponding to the first letter of every word in that phrase • Autocomplete       ○ Nonsense prediction, predicting words that don't make sense in the context       ○ Nonsense prediction, predicting words that aren't real words, but rather strings of characters       ○ A prediction of negative words       ○ A rapid cycling of words • Autocorrect      ○ Automatically correcting any and all words to nonsense words      ○ Choosing words at random to "correct"      ○ Correcting words to misspellings • Speech to Text      ○ Blatant mistranslation      ○ Negative, threatening translation      ○ Nonsense translation      ○ Translating speech back into more speech, but perhaps someone else's voice, saying something else

After thinking more about my prototype, I eventually decided to abandon focusing on a specific piece of technology associated with typing! Instead I found it more productive to try and think about typing in the context of the internet, via a text box or form, something that I think the majority of computer-users have some degree of familiarity with. To me, this felt like a good basis to explore typing from.

Below is a video of the results!

I decided to try and create a text box that essentially responds to how you interact with it. While you type, the box begins to shake, the size of the font changes, and words and phrases such as "UGH!" or "I'm BORED" are typed at random, interjecting the user's typing. At it's most furious, the background changes colors rapidly, the box shakes uncontrollably, and the content of the text both is illegible. This felt like I was able to capture a tantrum, and others seem to think it also felt that way, and that the experience provoked a pretty intense reaction of frustration and anger.

Takeaways

The takeaways are still not totally apparent to me just yet. While the experience was jarring and not something I had experienced before, I'm not quite sure what to make of it. How might experiencing this on a day to day basis change the way I reacted with the internet? Would there be a way to calm down the text I had generated? After doing a bit more research on tantrums, it sounds like they stem from an inability to cope with the situation, resulting in a meltdown instead. Interestingly, a site called parents.com suggests that parents try and give their children their full attention and be mindful of their need to be an autonomous person, with needs and desires. "Look for opportunities to point out his good behaviors, even the small ones. The more favorable attention he gets for a desired behavior, the more likely he is to do it again." Who knows if I should be taking parenting advice from a site called parents.com, but alas, I chose to think more deeply about tantrum prevention according to their tips. How might I praise the text I type for doing a good job of appearing on the page? What might that look like? Ultimately I think this research sent me down the rabbit hole, and I don't quite know what to make of it. Something about it does feel fruitful, I think I need a little more time to fully piece it together.

The big question that comes to mind: should I be creating technology that mirrors human behavior?

I don't have an answer to that, and think this week I should probably do some research on this subject.  

After struggling to interpret my work above, I wanted to do another deep dive on why exactly I'm choosing to focus on this question. I've dumped my brain out about this below:

I want to see if actively destroying the system that most technology is based on might change the way we engage with it. In "[In Situ] Art Body Medicine" Zack Blas writes about queer technology as necessity to counter a society increasingly defined by technology. He asks "Or, is there a subcultural technology that offers empowering, subversive structures and processes to all bodies, producing a freedom that exists as fact—a freedom that is foreign to no one?" How might creating queer technology, specifically that subverts or resists these power paradigms, carve out a space for all kinds of oppressed people to find safety and freedom in their existence? When thinking about destabilizing or disempowering, my first question revolves around how I might create in order to take power away. After reading another interview with Zack Blas, it became clear that technology is rendered "powerless" when it is no longer useful. Blas also writes "I think Queer Technologies wants to work in the interstices of useful and useless, or to find new uses through the useless. Importantly, this is not about deconstruction, it is about use, about doing something, experimenting with new ways of doing and making things happen." The system that I refer to above casts out "useless" as un-useable. In this week's thesis adventure, I plan to focus on the "useless" first. How might I strip certain features of usefulness? This week feels more about the experimentation, meaning, what might com from this? I think the weeks prior will hopefully be able making sense of the useless and how I might "find new uses through the useless".

Secondary Research

In order to think more about human-like technology I think I definitely need to do more research on that. I also want to do more research specifically on "useless" tech, to see what others have done and have to say about it. I plan to check out the internet mostly, but I plan to also contact any designers or artists who might be able to help. Lastly, I've been thinking a bit about "Chindogu" meaning strange/curious tool or device, a practice created by Kenji Kawakami of making useless or mostly useless tools. While I don't know a ton about it, I think it might be interesting to research to see how it might benefit/ the overlap with the queer tech I'm trying to design.

I plan to document this research in a section in my online notebook entitled "research", and also bookmark the articles, text, and literature I find on either Zotero or Are.na. I hope this week can be research-filled, but I'm also wary of getting too deep into research.

The Letter

Thinking about who my research might impact still remains a difficult question. While my question might seem pretty academic in nature, I'm wary of it becoming that, as I'm not someone who really ever felt truly comfortable in academia. So, I don't think the audience is folks in academia, but I'm hoping it'll be accessible to perhaps, young people. Truthfully, I'm struggling to come up with 5 different people that my design is for, but I think young people feels right. I know personally growing up I really heavily relied on spaces like Tumblr that allowed me to express myself and discover who I was and in some ways, continue to be at the time. Of course, Tumblr became more commercial, ended up limiting people with new rules, and users started to drop off, not feeling like it was quite *their* space any longer. I hope at the very least the tech that I end up building can create a system that isn't incentivized by the need to grow larger and create more efficient, productive blog systems.

-----------------------------------------

To those that feel trapped by their technology, but compelled to use it nonetheless,

I certainly feel this way. I grew up totally enamored by the idea of technology, hoping that I could one day feel powerful using it. Perhaps you felt this too, and today, you feel the ways that this vision has never quite manifested. Yes, technology is "more powerful than ever" but it's never really helped empower you. Instead, you feel that it's using you in the name of success for faceless entities. You have a hard time putting down your phone after scrolling for hours, the systems you use don't quite recognize the person that you are, or perhaps they aggressively try to categorize you into a neat box. Perhaps if you're like me, you feel let down. 

I'm interested in breaking down this system, and while I recognize that it's a giant task, I  plan to start small. What might a world of personal technology look like that doesn't rely on us, for example? How might we redefine what's "useful" on an individual level, veering away from productivity, efficiency, speed. What would it look like to interact with something that like you, is socially anxious, is gentle when you're feeling particularly vulnerable, or unreasonable when it hasn't had its need met? I'm not quite sure how to answer these questions just yet, but I'm curious to see what might come of it.

Write to me to tell you about your story! I'm so curious…

Love, 

Elena

Final Thoughts

Though I've peppered my week's reflection throughout this blog post, I wanted to close out this post with a brief summary. I believe I've gotten closer to the *why* but I still don’t totally understand the *how* or even the *what*, and feel a bit thrown off by it. I understand that the thesis process can sometimes become increasingly confusing as you get more detailed, but I'm definitely having a hard time. My goals for this week are to continue to research, and perhaps think more deeply about my project in the context of how other people have thought about this subject. I plan to do more secondary research and hope that that informs a new project for me to create by next weekend.

[elee-thesis]

Week 2 - One Step Back

Typically, I love brainstorming activities. Although I sometimes struggle to come up with ideas, I find it easy to give myself over to the ~*process*~ and try to make connections quickly without thinking too deeply about it. I realized during the brainstorming activity in class that rather than focusing on my thesis questions, I accidentally started to move far beyond the scope of my initial question. Instead my brainstorming turned into a dumping-out-my-brain-onto-the-table activity unintentionally. This led me to coming up with categories that initially felt far away from my more specific, initial brainstorming question regarding pleasure and joy in our everyday technologies more specifically. While this initially left me feeling frustrated and with a fair amount of confusion, I decided to home in on a few questions: 

- How did the larger picture represented through my brainstorming encapsulate my initial question? 

- Why did I find focusing on my initial question less exciting? Or more generally, why did I move away from it?

- How might I move forward? 

To categorize the broad strokes of this particular exercise, it mostly brought up intimacy, safety, searching, love, and spirituality. As time ticked down in our brainstorming session I became overwhelmed realizing I couldn’t quite categorize the results of the exercise within the framework of my original question. Though this felt like a challenge at the time, I decided to let the two exercises sit with me and percolate. In the meantime I turned to my other favorite brainstorming activity: research. 

Through research I found a great article by Adrienne Shaw and Katherine Sender entitled “Queer technologies: affordances, affect, ambivalence”. My MS2 project last year thought a lot about technology through the lens of queerness, and part of my final product was motivated by the drive to “queer” technology, and render it less effective in a capitalistic sense, but more “effective” in a human sense. Two questions the two authors posed are: 

- How can taken-for-granted technologies express queerness? 

- How can hacking and resistance of heteronormative technologies offer alternative forms of engagement and experience?

 It dawned on me that these two questions hit the mark when it came to what my MS2 project was attempting to do, and also encapsulates the overarching theme of my thesis questions. Originally focusing on this idea of joy over the addiction-triggered pleasure in our everyday technologies is, ultimately, an attempt to queer these technologies. The pleasure component is largely engineered into design interfaces to increase face-time users have with the app, platform, etc. This tends to be in service of gaining capital, rather than, or at least over, serving the service’s user base. Queerness in this context instead takes a critical look at design features that go unquestioned. Ultimately I’d love to have my thesis focus on a particular technology or technologies, and dismantle and rework core design principles that we take for granted. While I think the questions above may generally encapsulate my design questions for the semester, I’d like to combine and tailor them to fit exactly what I’m interested in pursuing. 

Though this feels like a step back in some ways, and I know we were told that specificity is a greater than generality, I think it’s really important for me personally to identify what it is that is driving these questions. In order to move forward, in this case, I need to take a step back.

Below is my venn diagram or what I’m calling a “venn-map” with my more general question in mind:

I decided to focus on three domains: Queerness, Internet, and Intimacy/Connectedness. I’m not totally sure about “Intimacy/Connectedness” as my third domain but, because it appeared so strongly in my initial brainstorm, I thought it might make sense to include it for this particular map. I found this format especially challenging, as I wish I had a way of processing the positive and negative elements of each domain and how they might interact in a clearer manner. Right now, there’s no distinction between the two which makes the map a bit hard to read. This exercise was helpful in some way, though! I think it really helped me think deeply about aspects of my domains that I hadn’t quite connected the dots with yet. In future brainstorming exercises I think it’ll be useful to dive into this map and pick out specifics of each domain at random to create “what-if” scenarios. I also think that having this information out there percolating now will yield some good. 

Having these three “puzzle-pieces” that I can mix and match has actually brought me an immense sense of relief. I no longer feel quite as trapped within my thesis topic, confused about where to go next, but rather, like I can easily explore within the confines that I have now set up for myself. I’m really happy with the progress I made this week, and I hope that I can continue to face the frustrations and challenges that arise during thesis by taking a breather, and maybe taking a step back, as difficult as it might feel. 

GOALS FOR WEEK 2 

My goal for this week is to confirm “the internet” as my technology or dig into other taken-for-granted technologies or elements of technology. Luckily I found a massive archive from the article referenced above and I feel confident that looking and reading through that will help give me an idea of what interests me. I also plan to come up with a series of questions that think about queering various technology within the framework of intimacy/connectedness. Ultimately I think the technology that I choose will inform the third domain and what I plan to focus on queering within that specific technology. So, if I complete my first task, hopefully I can make a list of aspects of the tech that I find ripe for hacking , radicalizing, etc!

[elee-thesis]

Thesis 1 - First Prototypes

A little about me: Hi, my name’s Elena! I worked in video games for 4 years, but became a little disillusioned by the game world and am here to explore outside of that world (both through non-traditional games and beyond games). I really enjoy creative coding and would love to continue to make work of that nature.

The questions I explored in my first thesis brainstorming are the following:

1. How do we redirect the trajectory of our personal technological devices from sparking pleasure (e.g. through the creation and instantaneous fulfillment of desire) to the creation/ cultivation of joy?

Reading both Addiction by Design by Natasha Dow Schüll a couple of years ago, and more recently, “Joy”, an essay by Zadie Smith this Summer, I’ve started to think about the slippery path of pleasure fulfillment in our personal devices. Joy, Smith writes, is a more nuanced pleasure, and one that is often preceded by a struggle or hardship of some kind. Is it possible to veer away from pleasure-fueled addiction and towards a path that takes into account our past, present, and future instead? What would a fundamental design shift in our user experiences look like?

2. Can we create technology to help facilitate a “reset” on the negative patterns of behavior we have deeply ingrained in ourselves as individuals and as a society?

Sparked by reading How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan this summer, I began to think more deeply about the ability to temporarily expand the plasticity of one’s brain, and the benefits that that might have on humankind. In his book, Pollan discusses the ways that LSD allows its users to easily move beyond the constraints of their sober mind. He goes on to describe this as being equal parts scientific, since it is stimulated by a chemical, and spiritual, a word the users regularly use to describe their experience. Is there a way that we can integrate technology into our lives that has a similar effect?

PROTOTYPE 1

I decided to start with the low-hanging fruit and make a simple alteration to my phone to try and eliminate (or reduce) the feeling of pleasure and anxiety stimulated through notifications. Namely, I wanted to see how overwriting the notifications from fleeting alerts about email, instagram, etc to reminders of deeply joyful memories might affect me. I wanted to attempt to provoke joy through my personal devices in a very literal manner in order to attempt to understand what joy means in this context.

I removed all notifications on my phone, including texts, phone calls, etc and created a new email account that would be the only app notifying me. I then wrote a bunch of draft emails detailing joyful memories from my past, and wrote a script through gmail to email me these drafts throughout the day at random intervals.

I didn’t find my 1st prototype that compelling, and I realized that instead I might be less interested in the difference between pleasure and joy, and more interested in the reevaluation of the way people engage with their technology and the capitalist markers for a successful experience (efficiency, speed, etc). My second idea for a prototype was simply to mess with these markers and see what kind of result they might yield.

I landed on an idea of cutting out the human middleman when it comes to browsing the internet. What if humans relinquished control of their browsing experience and instead were at the mercy of a completely randomized browsing experience? How might that change the way we feel when we pick up our phone mindlessly, or sit at the computer with no real intention? On the other hand, how might this change the way we come to the internet with a purpose? Below is a story board I drew detailing out what it might look like. The user would start with a search term they type themselves, but the links they click on and the trajectory of their search would be determined at random.