Thirteenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices

Abstract

The smartphone is a revolutionary documentary tool - an extension of our bodies and an ever-present means for creation that can serve as a vehicle for understanding. While already widely used as a video camera, there are additional ways of creating via the interface and apps embedded in the phone itself, providing alternate methods for critical making, documentation, and archiving. In this research, the author presents her film, Echolocation, an experimental piece that is created primarily with tools on the smartphone. Using screen record and various tools, the author places herself and her family in a fictional, online universe by superimposing themselves into Google’s Street View. Navigating layered browsers, chatbots, social media commentary, pop-up ads, and the sounds of digital life - audio cues from text messages, Siri, and RoboCalls - the work captures the speed and absurdity of modern life, as well as a mother’s online navigation of a technological world that is layered with societal, cultural and ethical implications, including privilege, corporate power, posthumanism, accessibility, inclusion, and privacy. With the overlay of the physical and the online and the resulting mix of fact and fiction, the film reflects a mirror of our time, and questions technology’s influence on the fabric of our lives. For the author, it also serves to further her pedagogical methods and approach to design by connecting making with meaning. These experiments serve as research for student projects that allow for observation and reflection of design and technology, with consideration for the past, present, and future.