Text: Heather Wiltse
Contemporary digital things are more like fluid assemblages than stable objects. They are
composed of a variety of components and connections, including
resources provided by various platforms and other kinds of
infrastructure. They change over time and in response to activities
and other inputs they are configured to register. And in doing this
they collect data that they feed back into the networks of which
they are a part, and to other actors that extract different kinds
of value from those networks and data generated by end users'
use.
This course challenged students in the Interaction Design MFA
programme at Umeå Institute of Design to work with fluid
assemblages: to assemble responsive things from a variety of
components, to build on top of existing platforms, and to care for
multiple users and types of use. While these types of things are
often developed through progressive optimization in relation to
certain metrics (and there can certainly be a place for that), this
course asked students to bring their sharpest design skills and
sensibilities to bear - especially a concern for meaningful wholes,
and care for human experience and integrity.
This course series took place within the frame of the 'Interaction
Concept' course in the second year of the IxD MFA programme, in
connection to the research project "Design
Philosophy for Things That Change" funded by the Marianne
and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation.
For a detailed description of the course and the student projects,
visit the Fluid
Assemblages website on Medium
STUDENT PROJECTS
Mine by Paolo Camerin - A tangible interface to help you gain control and
reflect on your personal data
The Aesthetics of Misinformation by Zena
Corda - An exploration in developing new forms of
Aesthetics of Misinformation to provoke negotiation and
reflection
Design Translators by Joan Farré -
Real-time privacy inspectors that embody qualities of the internet
cookies, such as memory and presence, and express them in a
visceral way
Data Night Show by Katharina Brunner -
Bringing design-led research on algorithmic bias to life from an
intersectional feminist standpoint
The Wise City by Inna Zrajaeva - A
speculation on entanglements of non-humans and humans in an urban
space
Cube by Manu Revi - Caring through the
'language' of the voice companions to mediate privacy
concerns
Rituals of Trust by Sandra Lundberg
- Exploring rhythmic expressions in computational things and
their meanings
Mi. by Christina Bauer - A personal data
archive embodied in physical and digital space
Billy by Se Hyoun Eom
- Giving form to actions in the digital
space
Loop by Ashutosh Biltaria - Exploring the frameworks that enable users to achieve
social media minimalism
