7 in 7 Postmortem
6 Nov 20207 projects in 7 days was not an easy task, and in hindsight, the biggest challenge was perhaps navigating my own ideas and expectations. Left to my own devices, I probably could have very easily thought of ideas to work on, but the constraints of time, and the pressure to create something substantial left me perplexed. The first day started off well. I went for a walk in the morning with a friend, and through our discussions, a latent idea within me took shape. After breakfast, I started working on it, and by evening I had a functional prototype ready. From start to finish, I was in a flow, and I was looking forward to the next 6 days.
However, the next day I found myself in a bit of a crisis. This was the crisis that would end up defining the week, and in retrospect, pushed me to interrogate myself. The day started off well. I woke up on time, ate breakfast, and soon I was at my desk with a pen and a notebook. But I couldn’t think of anything. The day before had gone well, with an idea I strongly believed in, and a working prototype. Any idea I had, I would compare to yesterday, and shoot it down.
Then I really started thinking about the assignment, the nature of projects, my hobbies, and interesting lines of inquiry. I kept thinking about whether any project idea I thought of was only because I wanted to complete the assignment, or because I was actually interested in it. This led to an even scarier question–what was I interested in? What did I really want to do? What do I want? Paralysed with the lack of answers, I had to dig deep–with the aid of copious amounts of jasmine tea. I had a vague idea of what I was interested in, and perhaps wanted to do, but I’d never asked myself to dig deeper and question what was it exactly that I wanted. One of the reasons why I hadn’t asked myself this question was perhaps the fear of boxing myself into a corner or a specific line of work. I did not want to be shoehorned into any particular discipline, and I was fearful of doing so by defining my interests. This was the defining point of the week, and the conversations I had with myself would come to influence the projects I would work on in the coming days. By late evening I had drawn out large areas of interest, lines of inquiry, and skills I wanted to learn. This mapping helped me reassure myself that the project ideas I would subsequently think of, was driven by real interest, and not by a need to complete an assignment. I would often conflate the two, convincing myself of my supposed interest in an idea or a concept.
Through this activity of frantically scribbling down my interests and thoughts, I also started to write down the questions I want to ask. Just like anyone else, I have many questions I keep asking of the world, in a quest to either critique it, or understand it better. However, I’ve started to notice a corruption of these questions by current events and the evolution of my own thoughts. It took a while for me to remember and recapture the lines of inquiry I find to be interesting from the flux. It was important that I had this moment, as it allowed me to focus on the right questions and concepts. The rest of the week was a lot less anxiety inducing after this mini-intervention with myself. Although it was still challenging to approach each day, and finish a project on time, I was confident that the projects were genuinely something I wanted to do.
Looking back at the projects I worked on during the week, I see that many projects were a result of my anger and frustration with the status quo. 5 of 7 projects were driven by a desire to find new ways of doing things, or exploring new solutions. The other 2 projects were also driven by frustration, but this frustration was linked with a desire to learn new skills, or practice a craft, for which I don’t find enough time to do. Of the 5 projects driven by a desire to challenge current systems, I see a few broad themes. One of the themes is about reclaiming digital infrastructure. I’m concerned about the future of the internet, and digital technologies, especially in developing nations and communities with low digital literacy. A large part of the internet, digital services and platforms we interact with on a daily basis is controlled by a select few corporations, most of which are based in Silicon Valley. The design decisions made in these companies can be devastating, and they are complicit in not only influencing democratic elections, but also abetting genocides. I feel that there is a need to reclaim our spaces on the internet, and educate ourselves about digital technologies in order to understand what is happening in this space and to eventually create our own platforms. Although we are free to do so, and there is little to stop us, there is an explicit power equation in the development of digital technologies. A good example of this is the mass popularity of the Google Chrome browser (driven in large part by the default browser on Android smartphones), which gives Google the ability to influence the future of the internet.
With the ‘Computing as a Resource v1’ and ‘नया Chatroom’ projects, I attempt to explore the possibilities of creating digital products which can one day be used by communities to create their own digital infrastructure, and reduce their dependence on corporations in Silicon Valley. In both these projects, I felt that the provocation was exciting, but the execution of the projects was poor. Especially with ‘Computing as a Resource v1’, I only had a few hours left to execute this, having spent the entire day on self-intervention. The project felt symbolic rather than functional. But through the making of the temperature reading code, I realised that there is something exciting about creating my own data. Instead of relying on websites, or government data even, there is value in creating data about my immediate surroundings. Now more than ever, this data is particularly useful, and can potentially be used to influence the future of my surroundings.
The ‘नया Chatroom’ project explored the creation of alternate digital infrastructure, such as messaging platforms, which are primarily controlled by Facebook (in India-with Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, and Instagram). Although I couldn’t make what I envisioned at the start of the day, I was excited about the idea, and the possibilities this could open up in different forms. While making the chatroom, I was thinking about local area network infrastructure, and what a ‘local internet’ would look like.
Another theme that stood out to me, was that of culture and representation. The ‘Museum of Stolen Artifacts’ project was an attempt at creating a piece which would draw attention to the inequalities in representation of cultural artifacts, some of which can be attributed to legacy colonialism. Before starting this project, I knew very little about museums and the ownership of cultural artifacts, but through the process of creating the project, I developed strong opinions about the ownership of cultural artifacts. The systems and laws which help former colonists hold on to their loot, and use their plundered wealth to obtain cultural artifacts from other countries, are archaic and need to be reworked. A museum in the U.K., having ownership of artifacts obtained from India during the british colonial rule, and preventing anyone from accessing those artifacts is in my opinion completely wrong, and reinforces the power equations of the past. The ‘Digital Dioramas’ project is another stab at the same, and this time exploring ways through which one can change the representation of culture online, and by extension, through digital media such as film, music, and interactive experiences. The internet provides us with a platform through which can change the visual culture and narrative of a culture.
I was fairly happy with the execution of these projects, and felt that the prototypes were functional enough to be effective in communicating the underlying message. However, I do feel that I need to sharpen my concepts before I start making something. Often I feel like I’m changing my own questions and parameters through the process of making.
Two of the seven projects can be classified as skill building exercises, or perhaps more accurately, rest days on which I took a small break in order to focus on something fun. For me, learning a new skill is just as frustrating as it is fun, and I’d be doing nothing else if I had a choice. ‘Toothpaste Driven Cars’ was a project in which I just wanted to focus on my fear of drawing, and the desire to practice something without the pressure of having to deliver, either to a client or any kind of expectations. I haven’t given myself the liberty or the time to do so, and as a result I find myself only practicing and designing when I need to deliver under pressure. However, I did feel that I was disappointed in myself at the end of the day, and I wasn’t happy with the quality of work. I appreciated the activity, but wasn’t happy with the output.
In contrast, the last day’s project, ‘Flight Simulator’ was a true dive into the unknown, and I was fully prepared to fail. I wanted to explore the medium of game engines through the lens of my favourite gaming genre, flight simulators, with no expectations of creating anything useful or playable. The journey was to be the learning for the day. Not having any expectations was refreshing and I found myself enjoying the challenge of trying to figure out a new software, and a new coding language.
This leads me to what I felt was the overarching challenge of the activity: my mental state. The projects, their success, and my experience of working on them was a result of my mental state. This might seem blindingly obvious, but everyday started with a debate with myself, trying to figure out the brief, the process, and my expectations. I was also thinking about others expectations. I knew I would be presenting the work, and so I was actively aware of the fact that I had to perform, not only for myself, but for an audience. But I deeply appreciated these internal debates in my brain, as it gave me the opportunity to refocus, and clear the fog that had accumulated. My approach toward work is slightly calmer than it was a week ago.