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Provocation
In our quest for knowledge, search whose politics are defining at the top? And who feels like an outsider?
The speculative conceptual project aims to questions hegemonic linear ways of seeking information on the internet as we know it today.
I am proposing a new decentralized, plural play through a re-imagined search engine. The search engine becomes a means to materialize Actor-Network Theory, Decoloniality and Pluriversal theories. It offers a moment of reflection and dialogue on the state of the internet as a pool of knowledge today.
Mentors: Anthony Dunne, Fiona Raby & Janet Roitman,
My Aunties and Hindu Gods.
Duration: Aug 2020 - Dec 2020
Methods: Anthropology+ SpeculativeDesign, Concept work, Visual design, Critical reflector, Human-Machine Interaction, UX design, Data Visulization.
Concept Work Materialisation, How do we conceptualize?
Speculate different realities and materialize them?
Reimagining "search"
Traditional search engine hierarchical
what If the answers kept changing time based?
Linear UX promotes visual hierarchy
3D Icosahedron is offering plural perspectives
Fictional Narrative to set the context
'To increase participation on the internet India has received a mandate by the Government of India in partnership with Google to make it mandatory for people to participate and sign up with the internet to build a new model that serves and generates data.
Run by revenue and building a strong nationalist agenda hence run by a nation which can be surveilled and kept an eye on its citizens through the company.
As a way to break up with this movement people have refused to participate in the global worldwide web and have gone offline to start a regional peer-to-peer network called online regional web belts. As these local underground peer-to-peer networks are emerging so is the local culture and its platforms.'
"Within infinite myths lies an eternal truth.
Who sees it all? Varuna has but a thousand eyes.
Indra, a hundred and I, only two."
If the internet is the only source of searching information whose knowledge is being listed on the top?
Who decides that? Who influences that? Who is the non-participant and feels left behind?
What if the information was as dynamic and non-hierarchical as this search how would the world change?
The process work is the project often than the outcome itself.
Technology I use day to day does not represent my participation, thereby distancing my ability to relate with it on a more human level.
I use this device daily, intimately, religiously, but how much does it represent my identity? And who owns my identity? Does it provide me with the knowledge I seek in an egalitarian way?
Arnstein's Ladder of Citizen Participation
Where, when and how are our identities, and our views of the world, represented in this oligarchically controlled world wide web?
Discourse
'Wow you've almost made it seem obvious like of course, it has to be this simple yet the conceptualization and materialization took its own journey, what you have demonstrated is yes, the plural way is possible and here is how it can be imagined in an alternate reality online'
'This goes back to Decolonization you were beginning the project with, if it's about bringing different worldviews together the process is more decolonial and the outcome itself and that is powerful'
'Shouldn't design be this the ability to ask right questions or even further create conditions for the right questions to emerge and reflexivity to emerge '
A sincere bow to the course instructors Anthony Dunne, Fionna Raby and Janet Roitman and the wonderful interdisciplinary space for learning and experimentation created by classmates, each week was a blessing to share and learn from everyone.
'I wish i could use such a search'
What if the internet was a more inclusive space truly representing plural views?
How would a decolonized distributed internet look like?
Imagine when every question you ask has 20 different answers, prompts that change based on time?
Material, Immaterial, cosmic, rational, irrational.
How confusing or clear would your plural search be then?
What if the way you search was truly plural? shifting on facets, time, material.
Causal Layered Analysis of futuring by Sohail Inayat Ullah
What if I flip the traditional view of how a machine understands my world?
Typically, Sohail Inayat Ullah's causal layered analysis is a technique used in strategic planning and futurology to effectively shape the future. Moving from the real to the imagined. the future or from Data to Myths - But but flipping the approach, to start identifying why do people relate to myths and legends more but technology relies more on data points hence revealing the gap in worldview driving me away to relate with technology as my peer.
Experimenting with CLA by flipping the approach
Experiment 1 : How much does the machine know me?
I asked Siri if she could pray for me?
I asked Siri if she believed in me?
I asked Siri about her thoughts on my religion?
Experiment 2: Can I teach a machine a little about myself?
Will teaching a machine to recognize and learn my personal values make it understand me better?
To test this I tried teaching A machine to recognize my different rituals during the process of meditation.
Experiment 3: How do my aunts and grandma equate religion and tech?
If the machine can recognize but not relate how will the connection be established? To understand more about this I facilitated a small session with the aunties that influenced my religious upbringing to understand their relationship with technology and on norms of how the technology they use frequently understands them and communicates with them.
'When I am with god I feel at peace, God's presence, tranquillity, happiness and with technology, I dont associate these things tech feels alien to me but trying to keep up with it in the fear of getting cancelled.'
'जेव्हा मी ईश्वराबरोबर असतो तेव्हा मला शांती प्राप्त होते, देवाची उपस्थिती, शांतता, आनंद आणि तंत्रज्ञानासह मी या गोष्टींना जोडत नाही तंत्रज्ञान मला परके वाटेल परंतु रद्द होण्याच्या भीतीने मी त्या पाळण्याचा प्रयत्न करीत आहे.'
