User:Cristinac/Methodology

-Introduction, critique of information

Over the course of the second trimester I've been interested in the flow of information starting from sign display up to cognitive processing. Reading becomes a software application in itself, that takes the platform on which the information travels as an input. As such, there is a sort of materiality that is ascribed to the action which has caused many a debate: if we read on a tablet, from a newspaper, from a book or from my phone, this all will alter our experience. However, with the accelerating intake of data, this action is becoming more and more similar to viewing: looking for key interest points on a page and jumping from one signal to another instead of a slow and methodical procession of each word.

In 'Critique of Information', the social theorist Scott Lash is stressing that in the global information order there is a generalized outsourcing, including the outsourcing of the unconscious. We now rely on databases instead of memory just as much as we have replaced the inner dialogue with ourselves with an externalized browse over bite sized decontextualised pieces of media wisdom. Reflexivity is no longer With that in mind, I worked on a project consisting of recreating the entire content of a book with CAPTCHAS. By using CAPTCHAS, which have a history of being computational hieroglyphs that can only be deciphered by humans, I tried to slow down the meaning making process by making the reader ponder upon each word. I was interested in how you could organize someone's attention. By manipulating the reading interface, you're forcing the user to adopt a mathematical attitude: they have to go through each line to understand the whole, as opposed to literary reading where the user can take the liberty to read words selectively. -Demystification One of the main goals throughout my work last trimester was the attempt to make the reader aware of the strategies that are at work through the disturbance of the interface. There are a lot of choices that are delegated to programmers and designers, for good reason, but I would also like readers to have more agency and reactionary power.

-Diffusion of information

In the third trimester I've been looking at how information is disseminated onto specific networks and how the container of such a source is being shaped by choice architecture. For example having a history option on your browser means you can retrace your steps at any time; what you were searching for three months ago is still stored in this external memory that you can return to at any given point. Having the option of multiple tabbing encourages you to distribute your attention to multiple sources. Similarly, having the option to save bookmarks takes away the anxiety

-Unruly interface, noise, choice architecture

Usually the design of a user interface involves smoothing out and reducing the noise that is seen as a hindrance. This sometimes results in configurations of a product's surface and not a reflection of its intrinsic way of functioning. I am interested to see what a noise-friendly architecture would look like and to what extent it would encourage intervention.

-Future

In the future, one idea is to make a browser extension that gives you feedback on your performance: if you spend enough time on a website you get positive reinforcement, like “well done!” and perhaps points too, which allows you to compare your performance with your friends'. It would be about regulating your own attention. It has a sort of pathetically humorous aspect to it, I'm not sure if that's good or bad.

Quantifying your running, thinking or reading habits and recording your achievements on a platform is a rather strange reward system in which you perform for algorithmic praise. The Foucauldian notion of an improved self has been around for a while, not exclusively in self-help books that promise to teach you how to be successful and productive. But now the same concepts are wrapped in a different skin that provides instant feedback, instant reaction. I’m interested to see how these techniques shape more reflexive processes.

-Conclusion

For the next few months, I would like to focus on more on the dissemination processes that allow information to travel.