Videos of Things

Abstract

In this paper we present Videos of Things: videos that portray the mediated, lived world of computational artifacts informed by postphenomenology. In a postphenomenological understanding, things and us are interdependent in that they mutually shape each other. And as a whole, technology or designed things mediate the relations between our world and us. This can be a challenge for designers. Through the making of design videos, we explored narrative strategies for creating stories featuring technological mediation. These include humanness, patterns in time, and non-human ensembles. We reflect on how the videos at different stages of the design process have helped to a) speculate on technological mediated relationships, b) synthesize and reflect on qualitative data on technological mediation and c) anticipate technological mediation. The paper contributes different narrative strategies for design videos and the role these videos can play within a design process aimed at elaborating the mediated qualities of technologies.

Experiential Qualities of Whispering with Voice Assistants

“…Design fiction has previously been used to explore the design and sociotechnical imagining of voice assistants [50,45]. We build on these uses of short films to represent design fictions with a particular focus on how stories and narratives can open reflections about the technology-mediated relation between the short film's protagonists: the human and the voice technology [36].…”

“…Short films have previously been used to speculate on technological mediations between human and things [36], and as part of advocacy and challenging social norms for voice interaction [45,50]. We build on these approaches with a particular focus on crafting a plot where the protagonist's values and emotions evolve throughout the film in correspondence with intensified interactions with the voice assistant.…”

The vegan shift in the Australian animal movement

“…In 2010, Animals Australia carried out a “bobby calf campaign” publicising information that male calves of no use to the dairy industry are routinely slaughtered shortly after birth. Until the campaign, most members of the public were completely oblivious to this fact (Oogjes, 2010, interview). Animals Australia ran advertisements in major newspapers all around the country exposing this “secret” of the dairy industry.…”

“…Those taking this position are labelled by Francione (1996, p. 36) as “new welfarists”, differentiating them from “old welfarists” like the RSPCA, who view animal welfare as both the current practice and the end goal. This shows that the concepts of animal rights and welfare cannot necessarily be viewed as binary distinctions but are more accurately perceived as a continuum, reflecting both philosophical and tactical differences within the movement (O'sullivan, 2006, p. 3, Oogjes, 2010, interview).…”

Our Friends Electric

“…More broadly, our approach of using product design to depict fictional futures aligns with a range of design-led research including speculative design [14], experience prototypes [6], research products [40], provotypes [5] and design fiction [35]. There is also a growing body of research that highlights the usefulness of video for speculating on human and non-human relationships from differing perspectives, for example by showing ways of giving a machine's view on the world [41] or exploring new forms of power dynamic between humans and machines [32].…”