Responsive Mobile Environments

A reflection on the invisible and otherworldly qualities in everyday technologies

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Investigation 2 - Creative Exercise

Building Gnosis

tl;dr:Examine a ritual, practice, belief or superstition by experiencing it for yourself. (e.g. have a Tarot reading, pay attention to your horoscopes for day, etc.). Document your experiences; pay close attention to and critically reflect on the systems and structures that support belief. Alternative: Research and create a system map or diagram for an alternative belief or practice. Time Limit: 2 hours

Brief and Goals

In this module, we’ll explore the relationship between material artefacts, embodied rituals and practices, and ubiquitous computing.

Superstitions, alternative belief systems and practice of divination, including horoscopes, crystal balls, and fortune-telling, are culturally familiar but often poorly understood. Yet, these ambiguous practices suited to “open-ended interpretation and orientation” around systems and processes. Grounded in prediction, they also offer rich mechanisms for performance, dialog, and speculation on possible futures. As part of our investigations, we’ll draw on some of these rituals and practices. As we’re going to think about these systems and how they might present opportunities for alternative devices, getting to know the systems will be exceptionally helpful.

Gnosis means knowledge of spirtual mysteries. This is what you’ll build in this exercise (hence the title!). It invites you to gain a first hand experience with one of these rituals or practices and to try to uncover and understand the workings and systems behind it.

Brief: Examine a ritual, practice, belief or superstition by experiencing it for yourself. (e.g. have a Tarot reading, pay attention to your horoscopes for day, etc.). Document your experiences; pay close attention to and critically reflect on the systems and structures that support belief.

You might, for example,

  • Book a tarot reading, dream interpretation, or past live reading,
  • Read your horoscopes for a few days,
  • Download an app for numerology or horology (there are many)

Alternative: If you find this too personal an exercise, you’re uncomfortable with trying divination or ther practices, or you’d prefer not to share your experiences, you are welcome to complete an alternative warmup: Research and create a system map or diagram for an alternative belief or practice.

Constraints and Considerations

  • This is a warmup exercise and you should spend around 1-2 hours on this exercise, max!
  • We’re still in COVID land. This project is to be completed remotely / safely and social distanced!
  • Try to avoid skepticism during the encounter, but definitely critically reflect on the experience afterwards.
  • The ritual or practice you choose is up to you — but you might chat with others in the class to coordinate/compare similar experiences!

Learning Objectives

As part of this exercise you will be asked to:

  • Develop your awareness of embodied rituals and practices for belief
  • Explore the systems and processes that govern experiences with alternative beliefs, superstitions, rituals, and practices.
  • Examine how these rituals and practices might offer a resource for the design of smart and connected devices

Deliverables

You are asked to deliver three things for this warm up exercise:

  1. Ritual: Document your experience with a ritual, practice or alternative belief system.
  2. Narrative: A short description of the manner in which you approached the project. Describe the experience you had, as well as, your response to the experience
  3. Reflection: A reflection on experience and the systems of believe you encountered. Discuss how this might inform our investigations in this module.

The narrative and reflection should be approx 150-200 words (max.)

Share your outcomes as a post on the #projects channel of on Slack.

Resources and starting points