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obscureader

Thesisby Jonas Althaus
May 2018
Design Academy Eindhoven
master course Social Design

Special thanks to Michael Kaethler
for being an incredebly committed andwitty partner of conversation throughout
the developemet of this Thesis,
questioning and encouraging my thoughts
in a very pleasant way.

abstract

Reaching out to your friend at the other end of
the world might soon be as easy and seamlessas to walk into another room of your house. With
the dawning merge of digital and physical realm,
the channels of communication which alreadytoday have become essential for staying in touchwith loved people will continuously grow, become
more complex and might eventually reach every
last corner of ones habitat. Because the interfacesof such omnipresent media-environments areinvisible, it gets difficult for users to maintainagency over their communication (Is somebody
watching? Where did this message decent from?),and to resist the pressure of exposure. As a result,the user becomes transparent, communicating
almost involuntarily through enigmatic, opaquechannels which eventually leads to a “neurototalitarianism”[1].
Is this science-fiction? Yes it is. But already today
the boundaries to our private selves and spaces
have become porous, raising the question how
to deal with a vast amount of virtual visitors. By
viewing our communication through the lens of
the public/private space, can we see whom wewould allow to enter and to what degree?
The following journal embarks into the future ofa post-ubiquitous[2] society, reviewing fictional
writings that act as key witnesses for the riseof an opaque counter-movement, of users who
manage to withdraw from self-exploitative andquantifiable communication, while staying in touchat a soothing distance. They take inspiration fromcyber-culture phenomena like avatar encountersand collaborative online novels, learning about thepotential of fluid identities and secrecy. And they
hack the invisible channels of communication inorder to re-situate them into their habitat.

1 Franco Berardi: Neuro Totalitarianism. 2014 by Semiotext(e)2 Mark Weiser on ubiqutous computing: “Its highest ideal is to make a computerso embedded, so fitting, so natural, that we use it without even thinking about it.”
Pervasive computing, also called ubiquitous computing, is the growing trend of
embedding computational capability (generally in the form of microprocessors) into
everyday objects to make them effectively communicate and perform useful tasks ina way that minimizes the end user’s need to interact with computers as computers.
Pervasive computing devices are network-connected and constantly available.
Quoted from: http://internetofthingsagenda.techtarget.com/definition/pervasivecomputing-ubiquitous-computing

4<<

>>5

00. Editorial

Three Versions of a prophetic writingfrom 1996:
original:
the rise and fall of the video-callversion 1:
the rise and fall of the video-homeversion 2:
the rise and fall of ubiquity-zone
01. Review of David Foster Wallace’s
The Rise and Fall of the Video-Call

02. From Video-Home to Ubiquity-Zone

03. Interview with Mr Wu Ming,
majordormo of the Opaque-Inn

04. Mr Fridge , Madeleine le Blanc’s
special relation to a mundane object

05. Why “Mr Fridge”
turned things upside down.
& design work by Jonas Althaus
Epilogue

Bibliography

6<<

[a]

>>7

00.
editorial----

Dear explorer of written language,
this special edition of OBSCUREADER is
committed to do a crisp review on oneof the most influential Science-Fiction
narrative of our times:
THE RISE AND FALL OF UBIQUITY ZONE,
posted by Alan027 in April 2035 onlitera-libra.hub – back when ourplatform for open-content literature
was still in its infancy.
And yes, yes, many things have alreadybeen said about this writing as it
once inspired a whole generation of
bloggers, designers and scientists bysketching out alternatives to invisible
communication pathways, alternatives
to permanent connectivity and the thepressure to expose oneself.
Many things have been said indeed, but
did it ever cross your well-read mind
that THE RISE AND FALL OF UBIQUITYZONE descended from an almost hoarynovel(see fig. a): INFINITE JEST[3],written over fifty years ago by auniversity teacher called David Foster
Wallace? We bet not.
Well, get a load of this - back in
1996, things like video-conversion
where still something to fantasize
about – and in Wallace’s case: to bewary of. Imagining a largely mediatedworld, Wallace describes a possible
rise and fall of this technology yet tocome, comparing it to “good old voiceonly telephoning”[4] in order to breaka lance for the implicitness in humaninteraction:

3 Corrie Baldauf's included a printed version of INFINITE JEST into her artistic
process, "flagging all the references to color in the text — more than 2,600 of them— as a sort of mechanism to help her concentrate on reading David Foster Wallace’s
infamous masterwork, a notoriously difficult literary achievement that has divided
readers on one side or the other, or in many cases, lost somewhere in the middle."
https://hyperallergic.com/178866/reading-david-foster-wallace-for-thecolors/
4 D. F.Wallace: Infinite Jest. Cited from: http://declineofscarcity.com/?page_id=2527

8<<

The user of an old telephone receiver, unseen and hidden
behind the few pinholes, could “fugue-doodle and makelittle genital adjustments”[5] while the person on theother end would still be convinced of getting undivided
attention.
The same was true the other way around as “you got tobelieve you were receiving somebody’s complete attention
without having to return it. […] It would be like being
able both to lie and to trust other people at the sametime.”[6] This created “a kind of highway-hypnotic semiattentive fuge”[7], that appears as a true blessing when
Wallace compares it to video-calls, evoking the opposite
of intimacy: stress, judgment and superficial selfpresentation. Exposed to the lens, a spotlight hits
the users, revealing their blameworthy side-habits,
and forcing them to “compose the same sort of earnest,slightly over interested listener’s expression they had tocompose for in-person exchanges.”[8]Reading this description of inconvenient proximity, it
becomes clear that David Foster Wallace’s story wasalmost prophetic in the way that it foresaw an epoch ofindustries’ awkward attempts to bring people closer, toconnect them by making distance disappear[9]. An epochthat has luckily come to its end as we can say now. But
how did we get to where we are today? Already in 2015
philosopher Byung-Chul Han had stated: “Given the pathos
for transparency that has laid hold of contemporarysociety, it seems necessary to gain practical familiarity
with the pathos of distance. Distance and shame refuse to
be integrated into the accelerate circulation of capital,
information, and communication.”[10] Simultaneously with theage of transparency, a tacit resistance rose, fueled bypeople’s need for a certain opacity.
A Person like this was Madeleine le Blanc. You will readup on how she developed a truly odd way to think about
her fridge – which revealed to her some major differences
between “ubiquitous” and “situated”[11] interfaces, andhow this would eventually influence not only the fridge
industry. Very gladly we can furthermore announce that wemanaged to get an interview with Wu Ming – majordomo of
the Opaque-Inn which is considered a key institution ofChina’s opacity movement. Our correspondent had to travelto this remote place in order to meet Mr Wu Ming who
refuses to give online interviews.

5 D. F.Wallace: Infinite Jest. Cited from: http://declineofscarcity.com/?page_id=2527
6 ibid.
7 ibid.
8 ibid.
9 By making channels of communication ubiquitous and rendering their interfaces invisible.
10 Byung-Chul Han: The Transparency Society. Berlin 2015
11 Paul Dorish: Where the Action Is. Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2001, p. 43

This journal will discuss Allan027’s e-novel once more bytracing back its inspirational foundations, leading througha history of fictional writings on implicit and explicit
communication media, art and technology. Hopefully byengaging with this array of several generation’s thoughts
we can fathom the precursors of communication culture as
we know it today: subtle, secret and opaque. Yet rich inexpression and variability. Fitting the topic, we decided to
do something rather awkward: this must be the first printed
issue of OBSCUREADER ever. So in case you are not reading
the normal digital version: enjoy flipping through thesepages, smell the sentences with your humble nose pressedagainst paper – or just roll this journal up if it bores
you, and indulge yourself in a good scratch.

Sincerely Yours,
Litera Libra and Friends

>>9

10<<

Excerpt of Infinite Jest,
David Foster Wallace, 1996

two
updates----------------on a writing
by D.F. Wallace
from 1997

Why - though in the early days of Interlace’s internetted
teleputers that operated off largely the same fiberdigital grid as the phone companies, the advent ofvideo telephoning (a.k.a. ‘videophony’) enjoyed aninterval of huge consumer popularity— callers thrilled at the idea of phone-interfacing bothaurally and facially(the little first-generation phonevideo cameras being too crude and narrowapertured
for anything much more than facial close-ups) on
first-generation teleputers that at that time were little
more than high-tech TV sets ... and but so why theabrupt consumer retreat back to good old voice-only
telephoning?

Good old aural telephone calls could be fielded without
makeup, toupee, surgical prostheses, etc. Even without
clothes, if that sort of thing rattled your saber.

But for the image-conscious, there was of course nosuch answer-as-you-are informality about visual-video
telephone calls,which consumers began to see wereless like having the good old phone ring than having
the doorbell ring and having to throw on clothes andattach prostheses and do hair- checks in the foyer
mirror before answering the door.

>>11

Excerpt of The Rise and Fall of theVideo-Home,
Luther Blissett, 2018

Excerpt of The Rise and Fall of
Ubiquity-Zone
by Alan027, 2025

Why - though it was already clear to see in theearly days of Interlace’s Interconnected Telewallsthat operated off largely the same face-tracking,voice recognition and motion-follow software as
the public surveillance companies ,why did theadvent of the virtually-interconnected-house (a.k.a.
“video-house”)enjoy an interval of huge consumer
popularity?

Why — though in the early days of Interlace’s
Interconnected Immersive City that operated off
largely the same synthetic neural network as thespace travel companies, the advent of the virtuallyinterlinked-habitat (a.k.a. ‘ubiquity zone’) enjoyed aninterval of huge resident popularity

Callers were thrilled at the idea of tele-interfacing
aurally, facially, and spatially the little first-generationof embedded, furniture integrated cameras being
too crude and narrow-apertured for anything much
more than recording from twelve different angles:
four room corners, top, face left, face right, torso
front and back, feet, legs and a juicy shot of yourbutt) on first-generation Telewalls that at that time
were little more than high-tech computers, scaled
up to wall size—why did consumers fall once again
for such a mousetrap, promising more meaningful
ways to interact while at the same time introducing
nothing more than an extended version of what
they had been chocking from all along: obscenity?

— streamers thrilled at the idea of teleinterfacing aurally, facially, spatially and sensorial(the little first-generation of embedded, pavementand tisssue-integrated sensors being too crude
and narrow-apertured for anything much morethan predicting your next five interests/actions,
teaming up residents with similar interests in orderto schedule meetings for the best RX – resident
experience) on first-generation Immersive City
that at that time was little more than a high-techcomputer, expanding any estimable size—why
and how did inhabitants gather new strength andcourage to spit out what they had been chocking
from all along: transparency?

Good old single-perspective video calls could befielded with some simple makeup, toupee, surgicalprostheses, etc. Even bottomless , if that sort ofthing rattled your saber.

Good old 360°immersive video calls could befielded with some simple considerations about
the scenography of your room, a cute Labrador
hologram next to you, some cellulite-erasing
videos filters etc. Even in a bathrobe , if that sort ofamateur-look was your trademark.

But for the image-conscious, there was of courseno excuse for any remaining trace of unstaged
informality about 360° immersive video telephone
calls, which consumers began to see were less likehaving the doorbell ring and to welcome one friend
to sit on the couch with you, but rather to open
the gates to a mob of strangers that would snoop
around in every corner of the house, forcing users
to consider the cinematic arrangement of every
panty in the drawer and do hair- checks in themulti-perspective mirror before answering the door.

But for the un-conscious, there was of course no
point for any remaining dissimulation about a live inthe ubiquity zone, which inhabitants began to see
was less like having a doorbell that would separate
between self- and external image, but rather likean ongoing cloud-conversation, a constant livefeed that did not distinguish between ones actions
and thoughts, a body-less, free floating existence
in a self-observing environment in which your bestfriend would not even care about your hairstyle - aslong as he was not selling curlers - because he wasa charming little bunch of code, programmed by thesame company that employed you: Interlace.

12<<

>>13

01.
The Rise and Fall of
the Video-Call----

You probably know the feel of a“phone-call”. Know about this momentof leaning into a brief silence whilepressing the receiver to you ear. Howin this short pause the smallest soundof exhalation may evoke an internal
image of the other person – notexactly visual but something else. It
is as if you play a part in creating
your partner’s presence.
Whereas for many of you the sort of“video call” David Foster Wallace is
describing may sound foolish. Getting
seated in front of a static screen
and having a camera pointed at yourface seems as makeshift as simply
undesirable – seriously, who wants
to be bothered with someone else’s“blemish-scan, manicure and creasecheck”[12]? And who wants to appear thatway?

In fact, this is also Wallace’s
point, assuming how “there wassomething terribly stressful aboutvisual telephone interfaces.”[13]For us who are used to much more
humble and moderate ways ofinteracting, this seems obvious,
but let’s remind ourselves that
this was a different time withdifferent standards. To illustrate
this, I embarked into some heavy
virtual excavation: covered under
decades of selfies and cat memes, I
found an 2012 image series BE HERE
NOW, reuniting scattered families
with the aid of video-callprojections.

12 D. F.Wallace: Infinite Jest. Cited from: http://declineofscarcity.com/?page_id=2527
13 ibid.

14<<

Does this give you an idea just how enthusiasticallypeople were exploring any of the new possibilities
technology was offering – from television to personal
computers to the internet with its manifold
applications? But the portraits, shot by artist John
Clang, also speak of a great urge to communicate:With haphazard familial diaspora and increasing
mobility worldwide, people started to “rely onsuch networks to build and maintain their social
contacts.”[14]People had their reasons, and it is pointless
to be wailing about how they publicly “nostrilexplored”[15]while calling. There is a moreinteresting alteration implied in Wallace’s story.
Let’s take a step back and only look at the userdevice interaction instead of the human to humancommunication:
The progression from telephone receivers to“Interlace’s internetted teleputers” signified achange in interfacing-culture first of all because
the device moved into a physical distance to theuser – you could even say that the screen wasless of an object but rather a gate, approaching
immateriality. Simultaneously the options to
influence this channel became fewer – not being able
to withhold information about your facial condition,
the tidiness of your room etc., and not being ableto (if only symbolically) move the ear piece at a
few inch distance when bored or irritated. The user,
once opaquely hidden, became more visible. In orderto make this contrast even more obvious may you
please remember a much older form of communication:
while writing a letter, a person could choose very
carefully which information to leak, using written
language as a handhold to regulate the stream. Where
are the handholds in a video-call inducing suchnuances? I am sure, you could name a few dozens –today one can enjoy the carefully designed boundaries
across which we interact – but back in Wallace’s
days there where just two options for this channel:
open or closed.

14 Amichai-Hamburger & Schneider : Loneliness and Internet Use, in: The Handbook of Solitude, 2014, p. 318
15 D. F.Wallace: Infinite Jest. Cited from: http://declineofscarcity.com/?page_id=2527

>>15

[b]
John Clang,
BEING TOGETHER 2010-2012
The fotoseries by
Singaporean Artist John
Clang shows familiy
members that are living
far from each other reunified through a lifestream video projection.
Through services likeskype, two places may
become one for a faintmoment.
http://johnclang.com
image courtesy of theartist16<<[d]Nicole Pérez,MISSBEHAVING ROBOTS2016
The three robots are part ofSwiss/Mexican designer Perez’s
graduation project(MA in Material Futuresat Central Saint Martins,
London). The project, raises
the question: Can bots replace
the need for intimate humanrelationships?
http://www.nicole-perez.com
image courtesy of the artist

However, coming back to human interaction, suchnuances – and I dare to believe that today weunderstand this better than most people at Wallace
time – such nuances are integral and utterly importantto our communication. Designer Nicole Pérez’s work forexample explored a rarely addressed aspect of intimate
relations: annoying pokes, pulls and involuntary
traces (like lipstick on bed sheets) - in this caseperformed by little robots. Of course this implies
a somewhat droll and still quite explicit form ofinteraction. But as it emphasizes very ordinary,seemingly incidental gestures, MISBEHAVING ROBOTS
still counts as an early attempt to evoke the presenceof a person without having to reveal it.
What is more, these robots clearly were objects, very
prominently situated in the here and now. If intended
or not, this fact lets them appear almost as a strong
call for materiality, knowing about the bodilessinterfaces of our younger past.
However, examples like this stayed isolated while
communication proceeded to become visually strong,quantifiable, and at times not very meaningful itseems: Media scientist around 2015 warned that amere success of drawing more connections between
people would not talk about whether such encounterswere emotionally valuable, and that in many cases“computer-mediated communication contributed to theincrease of mood-loneliness.”[16] This effect was called
The Internet Paradox, meaning that applications whichwere designed to bring users closer, where effectively
deepening the social isolation of individuals.[17] Why?
Looking back, it seems that users were “replacing thequality definition of friendship with some quantitydistorted definition”[18]. Many communication media
encouraged a mentality of proofs and quantity: theproof of attention, the quantity of likes[19] forexample. Not only was the notion of friendship at
stake, but also of trust and esteem – like towards
money during an inflation.

13 Hu 2009 in: Amichai-Hamburger & Schneider : Loneliness and Internet Use, in: The Handbook of Solitude, 2014, p.321
17 Amichai-Hamburger & Schneider : Loneliness and Internet Use, in: The Handbook of Solitude, 2014, p. 320
18 ibid. p. 401

st
19 “Likes” were a sort of currency on a popular social medai palttform called “Facebook” in the early 21 century

>>17

18<<

In Wallace story, the video-call technology isabolished, because people start to hide their persona
from this medium. First, users cast their “enhanced
facial image in a form-fitting polybutylene-resinmask”[20] (thus hiding their insufficient faces behindperfect attentive expressions) and later they go so
far as to fit a retouched picture of themselves overthe camera. What companies sell as fixes to ease the
awkwardness to show ones real face in the videocall, eventually brings the area of the videophone
to a sudden end: people loose interest in thesefrozen faces.
And at this point it becomes clear that Wallace text
was written in a time where it was hard to predict
what digital communication, what global connectivity
would mean. Video-calls turned out to be very useful.
Given the desire to be with other people – that evermore frequently where not present in person[21] –technologies like the video-call offered a tempting
advance to phone-calls and users willingly traded
this in for some side effects like exposure and theobligatorily performed “slightly over-interested
listener’s expression”.[22]THE RISE AND FALL OF THE VIDEO-CALL simply did not
go far enough to assume that communication culture
would more and more align with paradigms of quick
fixes, effectivity and profits. Explicitness is an easy
to digest good - a fact that encouraged millions ofpeople in the early 21st century to become one-manshow masters on video and image platforms, exposing
as much of their lives as possible in order to be
seen. Related to this, Wallace overlooks how alreadywith the rise of the video phone, users begin to
perform for their device and less for each other.
This may be seen as a bold claim, but will become
clearer in the review of younger key sources.
Despite all what Wallace could not foresee, he still
put a finger on a sore spot with his stressing of asoothing distance which was about to get lost withmore advanced technological bridging. Why did people
not react on such warnings?

20 Amichai-Hamburger & Schneider : Loneliness and Internet Use, in: The Handbook of Solitude, 2014, p.
21 ibid., p. 325
22 ibid., p. 325

We can only presume: did the lack of more tacit forms
of interaction paradoxically cause the wheel to spin
faster, bringing forth ever more explicit channels
and – as a sort of over compensation – causing aneven larger consumption of this slightly nauseatingproducts?
As a matter of fact, no “self- obliterating logic
in the microeconomics of consumer high-tech” caused
a return to good old voice-only calls, although it
survived until today, which proofs its qualities.
Yes, there were some sparks of a different approachto communication, like MISBEHAVING ROBOTS shows, but
actually around 2018 – the time when one of the first
updated versions of Wallace text, THE RISE ANE FALL OF
THE VIDEO-HOME appeared on the internet – transparency
was just tapping at the door.

>>19

20<<

>>21

02.
From Video-Home to Ubiquity-Zone----

From static Teleputers to Telewalls
to an Immersive city thanks to ouryottabyte-sized article hub, we canmeticulously trace back the changes
that occurred with each updated
version of David Foster Wallace’s
original writing. We are now reallygetting to the core conditions
which caused the awakening of an
opacity-counter-movement, concerninginterfacing within the domestic space:
While Wallace’s narrator was concerned
about Makeup, toupee and surgicalprostheses in order to answer a phone
call, Luther Blissett foresees how
the teleputer-screen would emerge
from it’s fixed location and immerse
into the whole surroundings of one’s
domestic space, thus extending thearea in need of cosmetic preparations
largely.
Again, with concern to our young
readers I have to admit that it sounds
almost unbelievable when telling youthat such self-intimidating practices
where really nothing special only
thirty years ago. Don’t believe me?
You’re welcome to listen to Lirikk(see fig. f), begging his followers
to accept his decision to take a few
months break from streaming 5-7h per
day on average.

22<<

I fucking hated this subreddit.
But now I get it.
(Also fuck you for making me write this 1000
word essay.)
Guys, I have been doing this shit for 5+ years. I
decided to not follow a typical route and take arisk on my future.
Isn’t that how life works? Isn’t that how
everything works, at least how society tells us?
Aren’t you taking a risk going to college andhoping it allows you to get your dream job?
Ask yourself this, how many of you are willingto drop your studies/work/main job now andinstead try playing video games, while notbeing a pro, just for the fuck of it, and seeing if
you can just.... do it for a living. [...]
I’m not some God figure. I’m a nerd, who is shy,
who happened to just decide to stream andsee what the fuck happens. Looking back, I
don’t know what the fuck I was thinking. Maybeit was my addiction, or love, for gaming. I justalways thought I had funny moments in video
games so why not just broadcast it and see
what happened? [...] To me, I feel as though
you watch for the entertainer not the game. I
get self conscious I guess, I don’t fucking know.
I never thought I was entertaining nor did I
even think to grow an audience this big. This isabsolutely insane to think about. How the fuck
did I even get here? Because, honestly, I don’tknow why people watch me.
But it’s fine.
[...]

[f]
Blogger Lirik,
post on reddit.com
10.01.2018
One of the Twitch’s biggest
streamers has announced heis taking a break from theplatform. Lirik, who has justunder two million followers on
the streaming platform, says
the temporary break is a resultof feeling “burnt out” with theplatform.
https://www.pcgamesn.com/twitch/
twitch-lirik-breakWhile Lirikk’s stage was limited to a “computer room”
as he called it, other users soon went further by
turning their whole apartment into a showcase toperform for a large amount of people. When designersof home accessories and furniture reacted to thistrend[23], experimenting with prop-like products(consisting of cheap foam-cores painted with popularcolors or material structures), they learned that
consumers where not only willing to buy these, butthat they even preferred slightly smaller versions
e.g. of couches that would fit better the camera
picture. Quite accurately described in THE RISE AND
FALL OF THE VIDEO HOME, these developments meant thatall sorts of former online content[24] began to leap
onto private moments at home, turning it into a spaceof self-exploitation rather than -expression (as it
had been seen during 20th and early 21th century).
Accordingly one’s apartment or house became more andmore associated with and optimized for this kind of‘friendship work’.
But now, before you railroad a whole generation as
exhibitionists/voyeurs, be aware that there was acultural shift taking place: in a time of growing
spatial distance to watch and being watched was simply
a new form of togetherness – although not necessarily
an intimate one as one side was potentially faking“privacy”, the other often seeing with half an eye.
Artist Lauren McCarthy explored such ways of favoredsurveillance in her work GET LAUREN, stressing thisissue as early as 2018. LAUREN was an intelligent
system, able to access and control several functions
in a connected home. It was designed to observe andtake care of a person within his or her domestic
space. What may come as some surprise: there was noprogram but a a real intelligence (RI) behind theswitches, the artist herself. According to McCarthy,
she wanted to perform “better than an AI” in “adapting
to your desires and anticipating your needs.”[25]By scrolling through the heavy-retro-look reflection
blog, one can still follow up on how people at firstfelt obligated to treat LAUREN as the human companion
that she was, but soon abandoned the attempt to“engage with a home assistant 24/7”[26], arriving at amore distant, cool interaction.

23 Otto von Bush interviewed in 2017: “Speaking of Australian terms, I can certainly see a vast number of start-up companies sellinghome accesoirs, blankets and bed linen. Instagramm and Pinterest have fueled the demand and the items are created to fit the medium.
It’s a self fulfilling prohecy.” In: Notes on Ghosts, Disputes and Killer Bodies. Design Academy Eindhoven 2017, p.54
24 Like Instagramm, Youtube and Tinder
25 https://get-lauren.com/
26 For example Iona, first person to use GET LAUREN in the netherlands: http://get-lauren.com/reflections/

>>23

24<<

[g]

Ioana:
always being there is a powerful tool
11 December 2017 @ 21:13

When I said yes to this performance, I imagined Lauren would come along for thetechnical set up in my home. Looking back, after experiencing LAUREN myself I
realised that would have been weird and silly. Seeing Lauren in person would havebroken the magic of LAUREN as a home assistant. Though she was with us for only
3 days I got used to her watching over us and felt at ease. Me, someone who neveruses Siri.
Waking up this morning I knew I had to turn on the lights myself and that made me
in a strange way miss LAUREN. I would have liked to experience more aspects of
LAUREN and interact with her more intensely but because of the language barrierand some technical issues we could not make that happen.
In the near future I can imagine people treating their home assistants as family
because the intimacy of always being there for someone is a powerful tool. By theway I find the word home assistant a very distant word, I think it does not define
the relation you can develop with an AI. This experience made me even moreaware of the complex situations we are going to encounter in the near futurewith our personal assistants that will probably know what we want, before we act
on our impulses. That sounds crazy but I couldn’t have imagined 10 years agothat someone in L.A would be able to control my lights in my living room in the
Netherlands. And it happened.

[h]

>>25

[g]

26<<

[g]

LAUREN,by Lauren Mc Carty
2018“LAUREN is a meditation on thesmart home, the tensions between
intimacy vs privacy, conveniencevs agency they present, andthe role of human labor in the
future of automation.”
http://lauren-mccarthy.com/
image courtesy of the artist[h]ibidemThe performance lasts several
days. It begins with an
installation of a series ofcustom designed networked smart
devices. The US based Artist
then remotely watches over the
person 24/7 and controls all
aspects of their home.
image courtesy of the artist

[i]

[i]

Participant of the Quantified-Self Fair inFrankfurt 2016
image courtesy of
http://quantifiedself.com/

This shift in manners of communication reflects wellwhat was going on at the domestic sphere at a larger
scale: a shift towards the post-pudic home.
After LAUREN’s popular example, ubiquitous
computation which started as an attempt to makehuman-computer interaction more natural eventuallybecame the displays and eyes of a huge communication
infrastructure:
In 2022 social network companies made the step outof the screen onto the physical walls – and here
we don’t speak about the lame attempts of smart
speakers launched a few years earlier. The new
crystalline interfaces connecting private space andmedia platforms where truly designed along the linesof Mark Weiser, considered the father of ubiquitous
technology[27]: “Its highest ideal is to make acomputer so embedded, so fitting, so natural, that we
use it without even thinking about it.”Not even thinking about it. Yes, it where most likely such
events that inspired the third and last (known) updateof Wallace’ writing: THE RISE AND FALL OF UBIQUITY-ZONE
by Alan027. Although today we can gladly tell that the
sheer Neuro-Totalitarianism[28] forecast in this story did
not become reality, its potential rise wasn’t made up outof thin air since in Alan027’s days a weave of networked
perception began to wrap every space, every place every
thing and every body on earth.[29]Just think back to the Quantified Self community for example:
A group of techno-euphorics that had started out tomassively self-monitor their bodies, making use of latest
biometric hardware and cloud-based analysis software inorder to achieve Self-knowledge through numbers.[30] Whatmight have seemed just like somebody’s quirky little hobby
appears in today’s light as a sad confession to efficiency:
Here, a not-insignificant percentage of the population had so
decisively internalized the values of the market for theirlabor that the act of resculpting themselves to better meetit’s needs felt like authentic self-expression.[31]And some members even dreamed of expanding their QuantifiedSelf to an Exoself, described as a sort of technologicallyenhanced Fourth-person perspective that facilitates theconveyance of humans into a new realm of extended self andeventually into different groups of joined selves, providing
a richer, more detailed, controllable, and personal

27 Already in 1995, researchers from the former University of Toronto had fielded a study series called “The Reactive Room – Making
the User Interface Disappear”. The result was a meeting room for “physical and virtual encounters”1, changing automatically to theneeds of users thanks to its embedded sensors, cameras and screens. The scientist’s aim was it to “exploit the fact that the people’s
activities happen in a context, which can be available to the software in order to disambiguate action.”
28 Franco Berardi: Neuro Totalitarianism. 2014 by Semiotext(e)29 Adam Greenfiekld: Radical Technologies, The Design of Everyday Life p.31
30 ibid., p.31
31 ibid., p.35

>>27

28<<

relationship with the world.[32]The idea of relating to the world in such excessive ways
must have seemed exciting for many people maybe some of you
where even part of the QS community and can verify my claimthat this group had the best intentions, maybe something
like a global empathy between all things, connectedby technology. But as we ask why this attempt failed
nonetheless, we are coming full circle with David Foster
Wallace’s observation: that connections must not be mistaken
as social bounds.
Wasn’t it exactly this brief silence while pressing a phonereceiver to the ear that allowed both listeners to reach out
to each other emotionally? By turning the organism itself
into an interface, by eradicating the gap between human mind
and external world, by weaving a multi-sensorial highway
between people, the QS community was approaching a total
communication.
Total communication is not audible, but it isn’t silent
either. It is ongoing and involuntaryeven unconscious. It
does not know pauses. It does not know clumsy body gesturesor pudency. And what is worse: as it reduces communication
to the exchange of information it abolishes formality, thestruggle to express, charisma most of what makes humancommunication significant.
Before talking about Alan027’s ideas on how to challengesuch a future, let’s wrap up the changes that occurred
across the three versions of rises and falls:
The transition from phone-calls to open, ubiquitouscommunication channels turns a formerly opaque user withtransparent devices into a transparent user with opaquedevices. This user transparency is due to more and moreuser-information which is revealed without consent. Whereas
the opacity of the device is caused by its increasing
complexity but to a large extent also due to its designthat aims to usher users into a comfortable experienceof consumption free from the struggle of its underlying
structures. With fewest sovereignty on the enigmaticchannels of communication however, users change from actors
to mere Terminals of multiple networks[33].
And what happened to the meaning of the domestic space? In
the video house scenario, this realm has become a venue ofthe world, but was still operating according to some rulesof private space. Rules that were shaped in Wallace’s time
when ones house was a safe haven for intimacy. The newhome was not simply a non-private one, but rather a housewith porous walls, unnerving due to it’s instability. The
ambivalence and confusion about the degree of discretion or
openness resulted in a feeling of unbearable proximity of
im-mediate exposure.
From this blurriness, Alan027 goes one step further into acomplete merge of realms, a hybrid space

32 Melanie Swan: The Quantified Self: Fundamental Disruption in Big Data Science and Biological Discovery, 201333 Jean Baudrillard: The Ecstasy of Communication, Paris 1987, p. 23

in which terms of public and private hold no significancebecause communication is everywhere, regardless of space:
We’re not lost in a labyrinth, but instead thrown out into
the open, watched, and manipulated, with no centers ofcommand in sight.[34]It is obvious but at the same time crucial how the designof interfaces reflects and supported the changes in thedomestic space: The Teleputer was situated at a specificlocation in the house, Tele-Walls were surrounding the user,
and finally the Immersive Cities as envisioned by Alan027
became omnipresent, unavoidable.
In opposition to such dawning one-sided exposure, Alan027
called for a review of human-technology-relation:
Interfaces, he argued, could serve users much better in avisible, emotive form. Although they could impossibly always
be in the focus of attention, they could still take on forms
which could enrich, inspire and challenge people in theirinteraction and bring them back into an active position.
Alan027’s idea was to render the bridges to digitality more
approachable instead of hiding them. Like this, he wasconvinced, users would find back to a level of engagement
equal to face-to-face interactions:“Humans are used to deal with each other socially what
if one could use this ability to interface with digital
guests?”, he stated.

Speculating about a renaissance of the medium in thisway, he also brought back into memory that there was alarge spectrum of qualities missing in the definition ofcommunication of his time, qualities that where essential
for negotiating one’s need for proximity.
Sitting next to each other in silence, for example. Merely
appreciating the others presence, a slight movement of theshoulders maybe, that could give indication about plenty ofthings easily where spoken words would only exhaust one’s
lungs without even getting close to what was meant.
Such qualities could not be reproduced by electronic screensor hidden sensors, a whole new generation of interfaces had
to be invented to meet these needs. Where and how theseambitions where further explored in order to eventually findpractical use will concern the next two pieces of literature
as we recap on two thrilling main incidents of a young
opacity movement.

34 Geert Lovink: Overcoming the Disillusioned Internet. In: Notes on Ghosts, Disputes and Killer Bodies.
Design Academy Eindhoven 2017, p.71>>29

>>3103.
An Interview with
Wu Ming---Majordomo of the Opaque Inn

To admit it right away: I failed to interview Mr
Wu Ming. Did I not try hard enough though, traveling
all the way from Beijing, riding two hours on the old
Jingzang Highway in southwest direction, taking exit
No. No.53, then still having to bump along for anothertwenty-two minutes through bamboo forest before
arriving at the old building, hardly distinguishable
from the plants in the background due to it’s
facade of – seriously, bamboo? To be fair I was a
bit disappointed to see this house in its brownish
plainness – had its architect Japanese Kengo Kuma, notonce been a big shot? I had excepted a bit more fromthe GREAT (BAMBOO) WALL[1], which since a few months
frequently hosted members of an “opacity-countermovement”, the reason for my visit.
Apparently inspired by the writings of David
Foster Wallace and his copycats, various people had
started to meet here, trying to reestablish some ofthis “semi-attentive fuge” [2] and other joys of tacitcommunication. There were rumors that they were evenwearing masks! – but if so, didn’t they get something
wrong? Wasn’t the whole point of “high-def-video
phonic-masks”[3] to wear them at home conquering the“vanity-problem” while streaming with other people[4]and not to bring them outside? Why did these geeks
come here anyway? To escape their houses, their cities
that where getting too buzzy in their opinion?
Mr Wu Ming, a sort of majordomo of this place, had
refused to talk to me over holo-call. Even the phonecall had been more than brief: “I’m afraid you’ll
have to leave the city if you want to know more”, hehad muttered, and cut the line. So here I was, justanother junior correspondent of dusty old Beijing ThisMonth[5], trying to make a living by chasing an old men
between bamboo bushes. An old man who did not make any
effort to talk even now. Instead, Wu Ming was guidingme through a narrow side-door of the building, down aflight of steps.
1 The Great (Bamboo) Wall, desiged by japanese architect Kengo Kuma
2 D. F.Wallace: Infinite Jest. Cited from: http://declineofscarcity.com/?page_id=2527
3 D. F.Wallace: Infinite Jest. Cited from: http://declineofscarcity.com/?page_id=2527
4 D. F.Wallace: Infinite Jest. Cited from: http://declineofscarcity.com/?page_id=2527
5 Beijing This Month (BTM) is a free monthly English language magazine, published in Beijing by the Beijing
Foreign Cultural Exchanges Centre in association with the Beijing City Government. Wikipedia

Arriving at the bottom, I saw where we were bound for:a tea-room, floating like an island in central position
on a black-granite water-basin. Carefully walking overthe stepping stones that lead across the water, I felt
like moving through a picture – as if the builder ofthis path had intended to introduce the room froma specific angle. The room was actually not a room.
With minimal efforts, hundreds of bamboo beams were
sketching walls into the emptiness around it. Sitting
down at the floor my gaze was wandering across the gaps
between beams, catching hints of threes until it cameto a rest at the large door-like opening. Like a frame
for staggered mountain ranges, fading out in endlessnuances of green and purple. This place seemed to be
in breathing correspondence with the surroundings andwas yet weirdly aloof. With the compositions of beams,
the architect was telling me a story - one of inside,outside and inbetween, of space and air, and bodies
moving in it. It was a weird thought how my experienceat this very moment must have been planned years ago.
Later, showed around by my mute host, I walked
though the house, through dim corridors, meandering
between paper cabinets filled with muffled voices. I
must admit that it was a funny thing, sensing thepresence of so many people without even seeing them –only sometimes a silhouette would appear, lured into
appearance by the absence of light, distorted andfaint. By the time I had almost stopped hoping, I was
eventually allowed to peek trough a slit of the door
panels, bursting with curiosity:
Behind it, I could see people. And what everfilthy scenario I had expected did not come through.
Yes, people were wearing masks. Beautiful were these
artifacts, some of them apparently original propsof Beijing Opera, some of them more contemporary,resembling animals or fantasy figures, or werecompletely abstract. A woman – or is it a woman? – waswearing a grotesque archaic costume that resembled awolf: gray fur around her shoulders, the holes foreyes and mouth minatory dark circles in the red mask.
In a quite engaged manner she was disputing with twoother disguised people sitting on pillows. There wassomething odd about their conversation but I could
not easily tell what it was. Then I understood. They
were reciting lines of what seemed to be a fairy
tale or theater piece? Throughout this formal speech
however, sparks of self fabricated, personal bits were
flaring up, weaving a strange interplay which seemed tohave no clear direction or ending. These people were
performing – for who? – for themselves, for nobody.
I looked around the cabinets. I was surrounded bya theater. With no audience but many little stages.
What David Foster Wallace had mucked about with – aweird fix, a remedy – had become a sincere matter for
people of the opacity-movement. And there appeared to
be a lot of joy in this.It reminded me of something I
had read a long time ago about “coffee-house speech”[6],that had taken place in 18th centuries cafés and pubsof larger European cities. Addicted with theater,
citizens of all social position had adapted “formsof address, turns of phrase and gestures”[7]from what
they had seen on stage, thus establishing a unifying
language.
Had we arrived at a point in history where
people, deprived of their most intimate realms at
home, had once more began to spread out to find newhavens to explore their selves? I looked inside thecabinet again and saw how people were re-arranging
their disguises, taking out other masks and artifacts
from drawers integrated in the floor. How releasing it
must feel, I thought, to change identities so fluently,
especially now in these times of the obsessive
individual self. What if after all the face of flesh
that one showed at home, the face that one showed atwork, the face that one showed to the networks – thisone forcefully spanned face – was the actual maskthat people had learned to wear? Regarding the guests,
swaying in their round dance of fluid selves, I could
not deny the impression that by disguising theirfacial traits they were stepping out of the shadow,
revealing themselves in a much different way.
6 Richard Sennett: Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Co-operation. Penguin Books 2012, p.31
7 Richard Sennett: Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Co-operation. Penguin Books 2012, p.32

How would it feel to be getting to know somebody
not considering their name, origin, job or life
history, but only by means of sharing a story, by how
someone acted a part?
Mr Wu Ming had dismissed me, with a politely
indifferent bow. I had, once again tried to get behindhis silence, addressing questions. But he had only
smiled indulgently and secluded himself into one of
the cabinets. Finding my way out of of the GREAT(BAMBOO) WALL was easy but as I reached the entrance
hall, I passed by a detail in the building that had
slipped my attention earlier: a Tokonoma[8], an alcove
containing several pieces of pottery, an ikebana flower
arrangement and a Kakemono[9] spelling the lines of ahaiku:
I like to wash,the dust of this world
In the droplets of dew. [10]I came closer to see the artifacts of thisshowcase and I could not resist to touch the coldsilken fabric of the Kakemono, the tea bowl which
was sprinkled with tiny drops of glazing, milky
shimmering in the faint light of the corridor.
This arrangement in its continuity was a messageof objects, raised in meaning by their ritualistic
composition. An interface of symbolic augmentation.
What would David Foster Wallace have to say to suchminimalist, tacit interaction? Maybe it would notmeet his idea of a practical communication device.
But maybe he would have liked it even more for it’s
extreme confidentiality that was still able to address
a lot of commitment to meaning. Before returning to mycar I went out into the damp night, cut a young branchof Bamboo and put it in between the ikebana flowers.
8 Tokonoma is a built-in recessed space in a Japanese style reception room, in which items for artistic appreciation
are displayed. Wikipedia
9 Kakemono is a Japanese scroll painting or calligraphy mounted usually with silk fabric edges on a flexible
backing, so that it can be rolled for storage. Wikipedia
10 Haiku by Matsuo Basho, the most famous poet of the Edo period in Japan. Wikipedia

Maybe next time I should rather try to communicate
with Mr Wu Ming in such forms, I though with a slight
resigning sight. Although, thinking about it, he had
told me quite a bit throughout the evening.
Anyhow I cannot sell this interview to anyone.
The editors of Beijing This Month will split withlaughter if I return with dew on bamboo leaves. So
I just uploaded it on litera-libra.hub, I’m sure you
guys know what to do with it.

>>3704.
Mr Fridge-----Madeleine le Blanc’s specail relation to a mundane object

Madeleine was staring at the fridge. Fiercely.
And this wasn’t at all due to the fact that there wasthnothing else to look at. On the contrary: from her 10
floor
apparent with frameless crystalline windows which even had adigital zoom function in case someone felt the sentimental
desire to bring closer a sunset – let alone somebody else’s
revealing panorama window – she could literally see whole
Paris. However, Madeleine was no looking out of the window.
She was starring at the fridge.
The fridge was so damn white and clean, it annoyed her.
The glazing of the door was shimmering, not glossy and notmat, something in between, maybe “satin-gloss” was the best
way to put it. Yes that was it: Satin - an indifferent,
professional sort of shimmer. It reminded her of a businessshirt. The fridge was just doing it’s job. Or was it?
It was true, that at this very moment that Madeleine wasstaring at the fridge, she was thinking of her husband
Antoine. It was a habit that had developed over months,
certainly encouraged by the frequent absence of her
workaholic artist partner. At this point, Antoine and the
fridge had merged in her head as if his soul wanderedbetween two bodies – one of flesh and bone, and one of glass
boards, cooling liquids and sensors.
Bemused, Madeline was scratching behind her ear – whenout of nowhere, a blazing triangle was popping up in frontof her. Apparently the pondering gesture had triggered it tocome to Madeleine’s aid. “Anthropomorphism”, the sonorous
voice of the domestic counselor declared, dramaticallypausing before continuing with a more explicit definition:“Anthropomorphism describes the tendency to imbue the realor imagined behavior of nonhuman agents with human-likecharacteristics, motivations or emotions.”[1]1 N. Epley, A. Wazty, J. T. Cacioppo: On Seeing Human: A Three‐Factor Theory of Anthropomorphism, 2010

Annoyed Madeleine tried to swiped away the triangle,
but she had to slide her hand multiple times through the
projection until this idiotic software registered her
attempt. Disgusting.
Anthropomorphism? But it was morethan that: Antoine was actually communicating through thisdevice, and she was talking back. It had started one day –her husband visiting an art fair in Pyongyang - when she hadfound a little package in front of her house door. The noteon the top said:“I checked my boards and found them almost empty. Thought
you might enjoy some food this evening. Love, Mr Fridge.”
It had contained some smoked Surimi Steak, bread andPinot Bleu. The fridge – equipped with everything a device
should provide these days: camera, temperature- and scentsensors as well as a WiFi-antenna – was remotely accessible,
allowing Antoine to “be there for her” in anotherappearance. Soon they had developed a game from this: thedelivery service getting permission to enter the house andsecretly letting products appear in the fridge, Madeleinearranging food carefully on the shelves and creating little
smell-compositions, the light inside twinkling slightly as
if it was just waking up when she was opening the door, shebaking a cake and putting it inside when Antoine could not
be there for his birthday.. many situations that had felt
good and very different from typing a message, or interacting
by putting on some AR[2]-retina-lenses and to meet each otherat some hybrid-space date like so many people did thesedays.
She had not told her friends about this. Maybe,
because it felt too intimate, or just because she was afraidof not being able to explain what it was that soothed her
about the the idea to meet Mr Fridge when she got home. It
had something to do with the fact that it belonged to “herworld” as she would call it. But then, what did not belong
to her world? Actually a lot of the things in her house:
the digi-bill was piling up, steadily but invisibly, all ofher friends or even brief encounters that could appear on
one of the screen-windows at any given moment, her healthinsurance speaking to her from her mirror one morning andsuggesting to use a different tooth paste.
2 Augmented Reality

A lot of technology these days were promoted tobe “seamlessly integrated into your wold”, and thus
becoming friends[3] but often this would come with a certain
nuisance (that had nothing to do with the taste of the
new toothpaste), as she felt intruded by them without apossibility to react.
It was not until now that she had understood the difference.
She looked at the dancing little letters on her backhand –Skinput[4], another interface that seemed awkwardly close toher – and read again what Antoine had doodled a few minutes
ago: “Good evening darling, I’m on my way. I can’t wait tosee you.” There was only one thing wrong about this message,
written on her skin: It was not meant to be sent to her.
Antoine was officially attending a lecture in Rome.
Instead of pulling on her index finger in order toactivate the reply function, Madeleine stood up from thecouch, whit a scornful gesture wiped down the SkinputMessage and walked over to the drawer where she kept thehousehold tools. She took out the Iron (wirelessly power
supplied) and turned around to the Fridge. Slowly turningup the temperature until it reached the maximum position(Cotton), she walked up to Mr Fridge, opened him and put thesteaming and spitting Iron on the highest shelf.
The plastic edge of the glass board melted, producing a
sharp stench. She grabbed a bottle of wine from the inside,slammed the door shut. And with a rather grim satisfaction
she spilled a dark red stream
over Mr Fridge.

3 The COE of Honda recently announced, that their future self-driving car would also be a “friend”,
equipped with an “emotion engine (…), using an array of cameras and other sensors throughout thecabin” as pathways to clients hearts. Surely it is not only the heart that Honda aims at, but also the pocketof clients.
4 Skinput: Appropriating the Body as an Input Surface.
“Appropriating the human body as an input device is appealing not only because we have roughly twosquare meters of external surface area, but also because much of it is easily accessible by our hands(e.g., arms, upper legs, torso).”
Quoted from: http://www.chrisharrison.net/index.php/Research/Skinput

40<<

[k]

My Mother the Fridge

Short movie, part of my trimester
project.

A woman modifies her smart fridge sothat instead of an AI, her mothermay be with her in her house.
This new relationship between
mother and daughter develops andundergoes some crisis as the caring
fridge begins to articulate truly
motherly concerns.
How emotive do we whish theinteraction to domestic systems tobecome? How much of our indepenence
are we willing to give up for this“good care”?

>>41

42<<

[k]

>>43

44<<

[k]

>>45

46<<

>>47

05.
Why “Mr Fridge” turned things upside down----

To which extend was the shortstory by Madeleine le Blanc’s
autobiographic? It remains
inscrutable for our editors,
as well as the whereabouts or
her husband Antoine. Certainly
however, Mme le Blanc’s writing
points right at the heart of what
prevented Alan027’s dystopian
scenario about the fully passiveuser to become reality, which also
explains the rousing excitement
about her writing at that time.
Despite, or maybe exactly becauseof the fact that industry had madeit amazingly easy to interact withmedia by making communicationinterfaces disappear more and more,certain people’s sentiment about alife in such hybrid-environments
began to shift from disaffection to
rage.

48<<

Because they felt both utterly dis-empowered andbenumbed by the unavoidable communication that camewith ubiquitous computing. Because they realized,
helped along by the exaggerated picture in THE RISE
AND FALL OF UBIQUITY ZONE, that an interface thatwas not situated in, but was the habitat, would costthem dearly as it would lead to unbearable proximity
to all sorts of incoming and outgoing streams. Ina blog discussion on litera-libra.hub an anonymous
user interpreted Mme le Blanc’s story accordingly:“What good is it if technology is all aroundus, ubiquitously taking care of the righttemperature of the room, the best route todrive or the best tooth paste, if it is stillbehind glass, an inaccessible concept: notengaging, not allowing for ones own routine, own
configuration? I’m sick of it! How refreshingwould it be to literally collar these services.
This is it, what makes Mr Fridge so special tome ...”
This remark disproves Wallace’s and Blissett’s
hypothesis about returning to an earlier form oftechnology for the sake of privacy because it speaksof the dawn of a novel user-activism which would
eventually transform both interfaces and forms ofcommunication. Oh for sure, I can imagine that mostof you already guessed what I am about to recount.
So let’s come straight to the point:
People took this story literal. Very literal. The
idea of exclusive, highly configurable phygitalcommunication interfaces hit the market like Cultured
Kobe Beef – thought not through the front door to
be fair. Naturally, big Industry had no interest in
re-organizing the channels to be more perceptible.
The demand was first only poorly accommodated bybroke maintenance-services, hackers and onlinetutorials. In theory the personal habitat – alreadyover saturated with sensor technology only needed a
few adjustments to be broadcasting to a dear person(instead of the cloud service).

However, people soon noticed that their ever-day
objects had little but no physical qualities tofiddle around with. Where were the door knobs? The
dangling chandeliers, the sighing floorboards? Where
the yearning woolen carpets, the cheeky tea-cups, thedeferential coat-trees?
All these things you might have seen in antiqueinterior blogs or in design museums had been slowly
disappearing over the years as projections and videofilters had gained more importance, rendering walls andobjects to austere, disregarded props.
It was up to designers to change this. A newformal language emerged from the idea to give
virtual visitors a physical appearance, one thatused materiality in order to characterize one’s
acquaintances. The first attempts looked still rather
clumsy: A translucent silky curtain which articulated
itself by moving slightly and getting concerned
wrinkles, (see fig. m) a set of lamps that whereconnected over distance so that users could sense
each others presence when passing by, a carpet thatsqueaked pitiful in its struggle to lift itself a
few inches of the floor. And, maybe the most advanced
model by that time: a teapot (see fig. l) with cameraand microphone which would silently attend peoples
breakfast – a humble proxy for some far distantfriend.
Ironically it was in fully automated supermarkets thatthe first-generation of these devices would appear in
shelves – unaware of their shop owners. How was thispossible? The business model of such supermarkets was
not to make money by selling products, at least notprimarily, but to train the company’s AI on packageand facial recognition[39]. One thing about in this setupthat wasn’t considered soon enough (and which became thereason why such shops are not around anymore today) was thatinstead of taking things, one could actually also bring

things and put them into the shelves. Things thatlooked like usual products to the eyes of a machine.
A different bar-code, a simple manipulation of thecheck out application – and a black market appearedin bright daylight. One where you could buy the brandnew series of hacked devices, disguised as mundane
toasters, radiators and curtains.

39 “The Seattle shop, known as Amazon Go, relies on cameras and sensors to track what shoppers remove from the shelves, and what
they put back. Cash registers and checkout lines become superfluous: customers are billed after leaving using a credit card on file.”
www.theguardian.com

>>49

50<<

This is considered the crucial strike of the opacity
movement: being able to launch products which entailed
a completely different approach to communication.
Obviously it was only a matter of time until thissystem was revealed, automated shops closed and big
companies took over the business model of the young
designers.
But what was more important was what happened topeople’s homes and to their mental spheres:
Equipped with tangible ends to their communication
channels, they were able to arrange them, and to takean almost forgotten active part in moderating whom to
speak to, in which appearance, and most of all: how.
Needless to say, the development of satisfying devices
did not happen over night, it was a rater tricky
thing. Enjoying quite some popularity among thegrowing members of the opaque counter-movement, theAttentive Teapot hype still did not last much longer
than a few months. Surely, the fact that one would
integrate the means of communication in an every day
ritual, picking up his friend in the morning, pouring
water in it, placing it in between jam and butter tosit down and having a chat with it (or to stay silent
if preferred), was quite a dramatic shift towards
re-contextualized interaction. And the fact that theperson on the other side would merely catch a glimpseof ones shoulders, belly and breadcrumbs was a relief
concerning the make-up issue described by Wallace.
But the initially exciting shift in perception of thisartifact was wearing off soon. Similar to the caseof Lauren McCarthy’s attempt to become a real-humandigital assistant ( see article #2, FROM VIDEO HOMETO UBIQUITY ZONE), users first treated the teapot withthe cautiousness one would grant another human, butquickly this awareness began to fade and the teapot
became one of many mundane things.
In that sense it was not more abiding than theweird cylinder shaped device you might have noticed
occupying dusty shelves of second-hand stores thesedays, next to rummage table with barely touchedattentive teapots. People in the 2020s used to referto this cylinder as “Alexa”, put it on their livingroom table and commanded it do perform some simple
tricks like: “Alexa, play some vapor-wave!” or “Alexa,
flip a coin!”.

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[l]

[l]

The Attentive Teapot
Part of my trimester project.
Teapot eqipped with camera andmicrophone.
This device allows one to join aremote breakfast and experinece
to be involved in this daily
ritual from the perspective of amundane object.

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[m]
Concerned Curtain

Textile and memory wire,part of my trimester project.
The known movement of acurtain is altered slightly
so that its expression appears
more human/creature like.

[m]Was the reason why people lost interest in her after
a short while a result of the uninspiring commandbased interaction? Or rather due to the fact thatpeople’s expectations to be encountering a somewhat
human intelligence where greatly disenchanted? Itleaps out on us these days that both teapot and Alexa
lacked unique ways of expression that would make them
appreciable as beings rather than as services.
There where other, more mature design-examples tofollow. Perhaps the installation IN CLOSE DISTANCE, adesign school graduation work by Jonas Althaus was oneof the first examples that got things rolling. This isa description I was able to find in our infinite databank:
“Several curtains, hovering through a spacethat they help to define at the same time
react and engage with visitors each in their
specific ways. Other than Tele-Walls that
Luther Blissett described in his dystopian
future vision, these spatial elements do notvideo-capture and broadcast every move of the
inhabitants, but rather seem to deliver an echoof another person, sensually approachable butwith a hint of remoteness descending from its
faceless mimics. These textile screens havetheir own aura – no need to borrow it from arecorded voice or a functional object: they
appear truly autonomous in the way that theyboth nurse and terrify visitors of IN CLOSEDISTANCE”
In the light of these past events, how do we read
Wallace’s idea about returning to voice-only calls?
I’m pretty sure you would agree that they could havenever worked because they did not consider peoples
desire to enjoy the fruits of both realms: public
and private – in hybrid condition or not. Wallace’s
vision was eventually quite cynical because he neverconsidered the possibility that people could findways to deal with the confusion that resulted from a
realignment of both realms, initiated by technologicalinvention. Well, they did, and there were quite
pleasant ones – but who am I telling this!

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And today? I am actually writing this, as I am in
bed. In a few minutes my table lamp will knock on mydoor to give me some light during the dim morning
hours. It is not only my table lamp but actually
my brother who lives in Munich. He knows about mynature of being most sharp in the earliest hours ofthe day, and will kindly keep me some company as I
finish this essay – silent but supportive.
I had to be very strict with my aunt who happens tobe my hoover these days. And I can tell you: sheloves me so much that she would clean around until
my floors were gone if I had not scheduled exact
meeting hours with her. And now she keeps someconfidentiality and stays out of the bedroom too,
god thanks! This is what we call “responsible agenteffect”: an impulsive reaction towards incoming andoutgoing streams as they are manifested as physicalobjects in our world.
By the way, this is exactly what Alan027 meant when
he said that “people could to learn how to arbitrate
between their intimacy and their exposure”. Today
we can – and we also feel the strong necessity to
do so: it would be impossible to survive one day if
I let all the social bots[40] pass through the front
door!

40 A social bot (also: socialbot or socbot) is a particular type of chatbot that is employed in social media networks to automaticallygenerate messages (e.g. tweets) or in general advocate certain ideas, support campaigns, and public relations either by acting as a“follower” or even as a fake account that gathers followers itself. In this respect, social bots can be said to have passed the Turing
test. Wikipedia

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[o]

[o]
preparations for IN A CLOSE DISTANCE
Part of my graduation project.
Visitors pull strings attachedto the curtains and thereby
move them, interfere withother visitors or change theirenvironments composition.

[o]

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[o]

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[n]
[n]

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[o]

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[n]

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[n]

[n]

preparations for IN A CLOSE DISTANCE
Part of my graduation project.
A room’s walls move and therebyreconfigure the space. They
circulate around the visitor, offer
certain perspectives or spacial
qualities, or lead her to a
distinc position.

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>>65

06.
epilogue----

Science Fiction has always been infruitful interplay with science –fruitful for both sides. And what
was once considered a niche[41]soon proved to do more thanfueling technological progress:
it allowed to explore inventions
just appearing on the horizon,
offered a perspective, a foundation
to estimate and discuss changes
before they actually took place.
This writing too, was build in a
fictional style, in order to develop
perspectives from a different angle
than the present one:
The magazine took a look at ourcurrent ways of interacting acrosselectronic media like telephones
and computers with the eyes of anarrator living 50 years from thistime. Using Wallace’s INFINITE-JEST
as a pillar, two updated versionsof the original excerpt dive into a
speculative future of communication- one in which interfaces havebecome progressively ungraspable
and turned into invisible
background processes, putting users
as well as the domestic space intoa crisis.

41 Exhibition Catalogue of: Into the Unknown, A Jouney though Science Fiction.
Barbican Centre, London 2017

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Despite it’s speculative tone, the text has beenrooted in existing works of artist like Lauren
McCarthy (struggling to perform as a virtualassistant), or in snapshots of current internet
culture like the case of Lirikk (a streamer who got
worn out from being watched). By thinking further thevision of ubiquitous computing and the Quantified Self
movement, the second chapter arrived at an extreme: aneuro-totalitarianism[42] in which users are no longer
in conscious control of their interactions.
The writing methodology allowed to discuss and compare
recent phenomena with those of a possible futures –which could hardly be achieved in a scholarly paper.
The perspective of the OBSCUREADER is free to thinkbeyond overly cited and arguably temporary conditions
like the dominance of Facebook or Instagram, todraw a more holistic image of our communication
culture and to point at problems that may result
from long-term trends. For example: in the light ofour current struggle to deal with an overload of
digital information, the idea of ubiquitously casualcomputing, of technology “blended into the smart
background of all the things around us “[43], appears
compelling. But only if one is willing to reduce
communication to its content-fixated 21st century
definition: data. Concerning this, the lens of a future
journalist helped to imagine a change in paradigms
by rethinking the hidden, im-mediate approach. Two
inserted texts (GREAT BAMBOO WALL and MR FRIDGE)
explored the plentiful facets of communication apartfrom context-stripped information: physical presence
and spatial relations, appearances and masks, tacitand implicit messages that engage people in thecreation of meaning instead of overwhelming them withpush-notifications.

42 Franco Berardi: Neuro Totalitarianism. 2014 by Semiotext(e)43 “The biggest thing that we are going to see the next 20-30 years is that the technology will become invisible. No longer we will relyon screens to be able to interact with the internet.” - John Barrett, Head of Academic Studies at CIT, TEDxBergenSuch ideas eventually refer back to the underlying
starting point of this magazine: the soothing
qualities that Wallace had unveiled in his reflection
on phone-calls.
Sketching out this renaissance of the medium also
provided a ground to introduce my design work:
bringing virtual guest into appearance within
the social landscape of the home. Exploring theperspective of a tea pot as a humble listener, or
the many gestures and different characters a curtain
can embody. Referring to an object as a partner ofcommunication put many things into question: thecontrol over a medium, the balance within a dialogue,
the need for distance and proximity etc., but most of
all it opened new doors to consider how and to which
degree people will want to interlace their habitatwith technology in the future.
So, will we want to live with autonomous sensitive
curtains? This is not the most urgent question
deriving from my work – although it is definitely worth
a thought. My graduation project is an abstractionof a life with smart home systems and digital
guests, both materialized as animate curtains. This
faint experience of a possible future may provoke
renunciatory, sceptical, or euphoric reactions invisitors. The truly pressing issue behind this setup
however is directed at designers: Screens as well as
ubiquitous interfaces will not suffice in the long run- we need to find more meaningful ways of navigating
the bridges between physical and digital spheres. My
proposal here is to anchor immaterial influences inobjects that allow for emotional involvement. This
involvement could empower users to consciously reject
or embrace certain streams, question the use ofothers, and to negotiate personal needs for opennessand discretion.
As well as my writing is fictional, also my design
project remains in a rather hypothetical stage fornow. My interactive installation will be a first stepfor these idea to leap into reality. Many questions
remain – but they can only be explored in testing
the potential of such interventions. Instead ofmocking the whole idea of an interconnected home withdystopian creations, I embarked into implying a novel
domestic landscape which provides actual encounters,
inspiring interactions and challenging cohabitation
with distant others. Accordingly, my writing andmy design work share the same goal: to induce
perspectives for the design of boundaries across which
we will communicate in the future – boundaries thatappear in shape of approachable, emotive entities.

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bibliography------ Amichai-Hamburger & Schneider : Loneliness and Internet Use, in:
The Handbook of Solitude, 2014-- Jean Baudrillard: The Ecstasy of Communication, Paris 1987-- Franco Berardi: Neuro Totalitarianism. 2014 by Semiotext(e)-- Byung-Chul Han: The Transparency Society. Berlin 2015-- JR Cooperstock et al. : The Reactive Room – Making the User
Interface Disappear. University of Toronto 1995-- Design Academy Eindhoven: Notes on Ghosts,
Disputes and Killer Bodies. 2017-- Paul Dorish: Where the Action Is. Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology 2001-- N. Epley, A. Wazty, J. T. Cacioppo: On Seeing Human: A ThreeFactor Theory of Anthropomorphism, 2010-- Adam Greenfiekld: Radical Technologies, The Design of Everyday
Life. 2015-- Lirikk, streamer, post on reddit: 10.01.2018https://www.reddit.com/user/Lirikk-- Lauren McCarthy: LAUREN Reflections, by the artist andparticipants : http://get-lauren.com/reflections/-- Richard Sennett: Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of
Co-operation. Penguin Books 2012-- Melanie Swan: The Quantified Self: Fundamental Disruption in Big
Data Science and Biological Discovery, online article published
18. June 2013, https://doi.org/10.1089/big.2012.0002-- David F. Wallace: Infinite Jest, 1996 . Cited from:http://declineofscarcity.com/?page_id=2527>>69