Reflection
Reflection
Hello, I’m Salil. I studied exhibition design, but since then I’ve wandered off into technology, social impact, and digital spaces. I’m still wandering around, but hoping to find what I want to do soon. I used to work at a wonderful studio called Quicksand, in Delhi and Goa. In the few years I spent there, I worked on a wide range of projects, from digital heritage, human centered design, social impact, entrepreneurship, sexual and reproductive health, digital art, and even producing large scale festivals! At one point I realised that I did like working with new technology, but understood that I had a limited understanding of what it really means to work with any kind of technology. It was easy to be enamored with the exciting possibilities, but not so much when thinking about what it really meant to use it. After speaking with a few friends and peers, I stumbled upon the MFA DT programme and somehow got admission. I’m sure it’s an administrative error, but we’ll gloss over that. I remember speaking with Richard The during the interview for the admission, and telling him why I’d like to study at The New School. I described a feeling of wanting to learn more about how to use technology for social good, especially in the Indian context. A few years ago, I worked on a project which was looked at delivering instructions to the users of an abortion pill, in rural Bihar. After months of user research, we realised that the best solution was to use an IVR and SMS based system. I enjoyed working on this project, given the context and the challenges that came with it. I also realised that I had perhaps stopped learning, or that my learning mindset was not as developed as it should have been. I needed to learn how to learn again. Perhaps a small game describes me best. Post MortemThe first year of the MFA DT programme has been fairly hectic. I’ve explored a wide variety of topics and mediums, with some projects more noteworthy than others.
Learning the basics of code alongside more complicated questions around computers in Critical Computation was a lot of fun, and I got to understand the ‘digital fabric’ of the web as I’d like to say. The fast paced project sprints forced me to get creative within the constraints of time, and learn new skills. Some of the skills learnt in this class later came in handy when creating the Calendar of Conflict for the Design for This Century class. The Calendar of Conflict is a data driven outlook on the news in India. Although flawed in many aspects, the visualisation shows just how often conflict is mentioned in print news, as opposed to the fictional picture of India painted by state-sponsored TV media. The methodology isn’t perfect, but it does give a broader perspective on the news we read everyday. The project was subsequently showcased at NYC Open Data Week, which validated the value in seeing news from a different perspective.
My fascination with TV news media in India appeared in a class which explored the politics of aesthetics, wherein I explored how sharing of doctored screenshots of TV news media could be used to subvert the narrative (or rather, propaganda). This is of course, highly unethical, and although I never did end up sharing the doctored screenshots on social media, it did expose a petulant side of myself that I didn’t acknowledge before.
Major Studio 1 encouraged me to embrace this petulancy–so much so that my final presentation was titled, ‘Journey of Petulancy’. I realised that it was to get upset about something–and use that energy to drive my work forward. MS1 is also where I started to drift toward the speculative realm, a theme which continued well into the second semester. MS1 started off with the intent to reclaim the power of technology from the powerful few who define it. This initially manifested itself in the form of a few small projects, such as the Museum of Stolen Artifacts, Digital Dioramas, and Down the Rabbit Hole. Each of these projects looked at how technology could be used to subvert a narrative. Thereafter, my focus narrowed down to questioning the concept of ‘healthy technology’, and specifically looking at what this term means for different users. I created speculative products which would fit the description of ‘healthy technology’ for 3 different users. What does healthy technology look like for an introvert who doesn’t feel in control of their digital life? What does it look like for an RWA Committee Head looking to become self reliant in monitoring their community. Perhaps the most exciting of all, what does it look like for a social media troll in search of technology that helps them do what they do best. It was interesting to work on designing objects which were in a way, an oxymoron. Healthy technology for social media trolls? In retrospect, it brings to light the decisions one would make when keeping the user’s best interests in mind, which in this case would be social media trolls. Here’s a breakdown of the objects I ended up creating.
For the second semester, I decided to take as many classes as I possibly could. Like the previous semester, I wanted to bring in some of the synergy between courses to augment my thinking and process. A class on Dark Data helped me get a better understanding of the nitty gritties of the GDPR, which then came in handy when in my contribution to the Dark Data zine, which was about India’s soon to be operational National Social Registry. Wading through the legalese of court documents, policies, and bills helped me better understand the murky depths of how our data can be used for a wide range of purposes. It also helped improve my legal vocabulary and read between the lines, which is always a useful skill to have. Apart from Major Studio 2, I took the Designed Realities Simulated Life classes, and serendipitously, these three classes had plenty of overlaps.
Designed Realities, taken by Fiona Raby and Anthony Dunne, was great class, and helped me hone my speculative design skills. My prompt for the semester was, “What does water think?” A simple question, but there’s lots to think about. This was a class I looked forward to every week, simply because I felt like I had to get outside of my comfort zone. I had to work hard week in, week out, to have something I could present in class, especially to an audience of other students who were excessively talented. I’m quite competitive, and nothing drives me forward more than being in a group of people who are far better than me in every way. It is incredibly satisfying to walk away at the end of the semester with a large quantity of work which I’m mostly happy with. The project culminated in the creation of a publication which describes a world in which water is given far more importance. The publications only show 10% of the work from the class. The other 90% of the work was ultimately rejected, but was critical in helping me create that 10%. To quote Edison, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” This motto rang true, not only for my work in Designed Realities, but also for Major Studio 2.
Major Studio 2 started off with a simple question: What does local, contextual, and sustainable machine intelligence look like? This led me to research TinyML, and various instances of machine learning being used for social good, or to empower communities who previously did not have access to such technology. Beyond that, I couldn’t find many more precedents, so naturally I looked to the future–a future in which local, contextual, and sustainable machine intelligence is a reality. Through a 5-in-5 sprint, I visualised this future through various forms; a timeline, objects, a manifesto, questioning the intelligence of rocks, and creating a basic form of intelligence. Through the process of making, I started questioning the very definition of intelligence, and what we, as humans consider intelligent beings to be. I wanted to view the world through a different lens, a non-human one, and so my research question changed to: “What does a planet-centred machine intelligence look like?”
As I did my research, and worked on unraveling this question, created speculative artefacts to help me work through this process. The first of which was a patent application (what else?) for a World Wide Flora Network Intelligence System (WWFNIS). The patent outlines some of the possibilities of an intelligence system which wasn’t a human centered one. The WWFNIS uses a NeuralLink (a speculative device) which taps into the root networks of plants and trees in order to communicate with them. What would an internet of trees look like? Would the increase in communication between floral entities around the world lead to faster evolution? Would it lead to a decrease in diseases and viruses if information is shared at a far greater rate?
Instead of trying to answer the initial research question, this project would be far more effective if it asks more questions. Could I, through this project, get the viewer to wonder what the world would look like through a non-human lens? Can I get them to think of the possibilities if this scenario were to become reality?
Parallely, I was actively developing an Artificial Life system in the Simulated Life class. What better way to understand intelligence than to actually create one? An Artificial Life system (ALife system) is an artificial ecosystem which attempts to replicate a natural ecosystem (along with its complexities), with multiple entities which interact with each other. I wanted to create an ALife system which used alternate metrics of survival. I wanted to see if there’s any difference between a species’s chances of survival if it chose to share resources, or respected the environment. It was a complicated undertaking, and took a fairly long time to set up a system which achieved homeostasis. The process of creating the ALife system was fascinating as I grappled with the intricacies of decision making for the agents I was creating. How do the agents decide what to do? For example, if they’re low on food, but see a predator nearby, do they take a chance on grabbing the food, or simply run away? If an agent waits to eat plants till they’re mature and have replicated other plants, does it help create a sustainable food source which could potentially help the entire species survive for longer? Which characteristics are more desirable in an agent? Does that change when the context changes? Intelligence, as it’s very essence, is to make a decision. Exploring the idea of non-human intelligence from a top and bottom perspective was certainly very interesting. It may not have contributed much to work in MS2, but I definitely learnt a lot from the process.
One of the biggest challenges with any sort of speculative design work is the communication aspect of it. This is something that I grappled with during the last sprint of the Designing Realities class, as well as MS2. I had all these ideas, concepts, and artefacts, but no clear way to present them unless I was present making sense of it. None of what I had created was capable of making sense by itself. This is of course nothing new. A quick glance at most speculative design work will reaffirm this. A lot of it doesn’t make sense, and some of it is just plain ridiculous. I didn’t figure out a solution to this for either class, but I did take an attempt at trying to create something which wouldn’t require me to provide context.
For Designed Realities, I compiled my work within a familiar format–spreads of a home interior and furnishings magazine. Although the content of the spreads is from an alternate reality, the format creates a familiar environment which makes it slightly easier to understand the content. I tried a variety of other formats–notebooks of an inventor, resplendent with scribbles, drawings and the rantings of a lunatic; a shop window full of strange objects; visual poetry–yet none seemed to work as well as ‘House to Home’, the fictional magazine I created to showcase how objects which work water fit in a home.
For MS2, I ended up creating a version of myself, which would explain my thoughts. I embodied my project within a conversation with myself. Titled Daydreaming, it’s an interactive text piece which takes the viewer through my thought process and introduces various speculative artefacts. So far the feedback has been fairly positive, which is reassuring, but I still feel that the format for speculative work has yet to be figured out.
There’s been a few things which have stood out to me over the course of two semesters. This is a very shallow snapshot, given that I haven’t had any time whatsoever to reflect (the bizarre timing of the submission of this piece is to blame–I honestly don’t see much value in my writing at this point. The semester concluded mere hours ago.) here, so please keep this in mind. One, is that it’s okay to be angry, it’s okay to take energy from being upset with something. I honestly do not know what I want to do after this, and perhaps there’s a clue in what drives me to work and produce what I do. Second, is that there’s value in seeing things from a different perspective, preferable from a perspective that you don’t often think about. Third, I need to have more confidence in how I view the world. There is value in how I see things, no matter how strange or crass it might be. I need to have more confidence.
I’m here to challenge myself, and so I need to push myself everyday, no matter what. I haven’t been doing enough of that, and it shows in the quality of my work in the second semester.
Accepting that I don’t have answers to everything, and that sometimes, the only correct answer is –’I don’t know.’
I do wish to learn more, and I intend to keep learning, keep making, keep doing whatever I can to understand more of what I don’t know. I’m taking a class on economics this summer. I would like to have taken more classes, but credit limits have severely handicapped my ambitions. Nevertheless, there’s enough to learn from. I will also be applying for projects/grants/proposals through the summer, and will be working on an air-pollution related project for which I’ve received funding from Khoj for.
As for what I’d like to work on for next semester? I don’t know. But from the projects I’ve worked on this semester, I see speculative design being an integral part of my practice. I’m also interested in the future of computing and non-human intelligence.
I’m still yet to process everything that has happened so far, and the submission of this writing is fairly untimely, given that I haven’t had more than a few hours of reflecting on the semester. I’m sure there will be more that will occur to me, but I’m certain that the writing in this state is incomplete and will need more time and energy to get something which is actually meaningful, and not just a shallow look back at the academic year. I hope to update this piece–not necessarily for you, the intended reader, but rather for myself. I’ve only recently found value in reflecting on my work, and I hope to continue doing so.