Alternate Futures Spring 2016

Alternate Futures is a graduate course that explores the radical and subversive ways marginalized communities are using technology to create self-determined futures. The course is offered in the MFA Design and Technology program at Parsons The New School. Please check out the Spring 2016 student profiles below!

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Soomi Lee

Humans Vs Aliens: Inequality in Medical Research:

Final Presentation

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ESODECK final project Alternate Futures - Lorraine Nazaire (breanna Wright

How might I create a tarot deck & conduct readings designed to navigate through the digital, surveilled world of marginalized people?

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Mask: Disguises and Global African Art at The Brooklyn Museum

-Mala Kumar

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Swiping for Access - Permission Granted Concept Project on Technological Immigration

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Ivy League economist ethnically profiled, interrogated for doing math on American Airlines flight

Move over, Clock Boy. Another swarthy-looking nerd is alarming the authorities.

WELP.

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this is my final project

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The Blur Band:

Wes Henrie

In today’s world the ever increasing shadow of big brother looms over us.  More and more our privacy rights are disappearing as the Government takes more and more leeway in collecting private data in the name of public safety.  Citizens are already coming to grips with the fact that all our online data is there for the taking if the Government so chooses, but this level of stalker-like tracking is also moving to the real world.

The ability of the Government to track your movements as you navigate life is becoming more and more all-reaching.  Surveillance cameras whether private or government owned form an extensive spiderweb of coverage in most modern cities.  If you are walking down the street, chances are you are on camera.  The government has access to these private cameras as well, letting them take a peak wherever and whenever they want around most metropolitan areas.

These camera’s themselves don’t make for such a scary specter just by themselves as who has the time to watch all of them right?  Wrong!  With the burgeoning field of facial and body recognition, technology is quickly making such seeking and tracking abilities easily automated with a click of the button.  Soon all the government will need is a clear picture of your face and with their facial recognition software they can quickly pinpoint wherever you are the moment you pop up on a surveillance feed.

Is there any privacy left in the world and how can we keep hold to it?  With the Blur Band of course!  The Blur Band is a small headband users wear that when activated release very low levels of IR and visible light in a downward direction.  These emissions while unnoticeable to the wearer, cause havoc on facial recognition software and surveillance cameras.  While everyone else will see your face perfectly fine in person, on camera your face will be completely blurred out, allowing you to freely move about the city without worrying who’s looking over your shoulder.  Could it be a corrupt cop or a rogue hacker after your identity and trying to learn you habits?  Fight them off with the blur band today!

In recognizing the threat this poses to fascist overlords, we here at the blur band have taken steps to make sure this technology stays out there.  Our software is all open source and the schematics for making the device are freely available.  Don’t stand idly by while your privacy rights are slowly eroded away.  Take back your private time with the blur band today!

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Cyberstatecraft Archetypes & Resources

How can one look at cyber infrastructure as a medium of polity?

Presentation Link:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/10msGPr5wlo0ZCv5MLMG5ct7dRA1RTui2STbLDc12D8Q/edit#slide=id.p

Project Link:

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/0B_3yErnOYbx0YkhoZUcycllYcVU

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Readings for 04/06

Drexciya, The Quest (1997) Album’s Liner Notes.

Kodwo Eshun, “Further Considerations of Afrofuturism,” CR: The New Centennial Review, Volume 3, Issue 2, pp. 287-302 (Summer 2003)

Ruth Mayer, “Africa As an Alien Future": The Middle Passage, Afrofuturism, and Postcolonial Waterworlds,” Postcolonial Studies: An Anthology (2015)

Nettrice Gaskins, “Black Secret Technology: Beyonce’s Formation” Musings of a Renegade Futurist, (2015).

due: Wed April 6th

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The New School

Presentation: https://drive.google.com/a/newschool.edu/file/d/0B2xeFvV_azURX0RCZ1lPaDJEa2M/view?usp=sharing

Paper: https://drive.google.com/a/newschool.edu/file/d/0B2xeFvV_azURNERWUzRhTUNDZlU/view?usp=sharing

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Seduce vs Harass

A prototype for a mass multiplayer game inspired by street harassment. 

This game seeks to show the miscommunication and subjective nature of street harassment, and how certain groups are disproportionately targeted. 

Each player is loaded into an open map with an image of their match that they must find/pursue. The goal of the game is to find your match in the shortest amount of time. But even if the other player matches in shape and color with your image, they might not have you as their match. As soon as you find your match that are also matched with you, you restart with another randomly generated character and new match. 

The player’s view: They are the red square, and are trying to find a blue circle

What the player can’t see: all the blue circles in this map are looking for other shapes and do not want to be pursued by the red square.

Each time players that are not matched with each other touch, both players are slowed down. Unbeknownst to players, a disproportionate amount of players are matched with circle shaped players. In gameplay, players would feel the stark difference in freedom of movement playing as certain shapes. 

 As individuals, we all have our own contexts and how we view street harassment. Some individuals view any form of sexual objectification as harassment while others could see it as flattery (depending on the context of situation, people involved, location, etc). But when a group of people are disproportionately targeted [because of The Patriarchy and its societal pressures that teach boys to be pursuers and objectifiers], the targeted group as a whole feel that pressure and their freedom to be in public spaces at any time become limited.  

Google Slides Presentation

Download and play prototype 

note: this prototype is a 1 player game to show gameplay and concept. Imagine this game as part of a much larger map and each shape is another live player. If there are no matched players on the map, press ‘R’ to Restart. 

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Mass Incarceration and how it Limits Marginalized groups Accessing and Thriving in Society

Paper: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByhsFmktAL0cX09TMnlxTU1rWjA/view?usp=sharing

Presentation: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByhsFmktAL0cZlFMakZwYk9UamM/view?usp=sharing

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The Baby in The Well, A Critical Response

Link to my paper

Link to my presentation

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Security, Surveillance, Privacy Willfully Given

Why We choose to give it up and the cost of our faith 

Link to Document

https://docs.google.com/a/newschool.edu/document/d/1QhkEcz-MvUQWAl7jq9ZJ56JMz0RyywRFA8MoOpdtitM/edit?usp=sharing

Presentation Slides

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1xtxcH2p0ZEz8ruP9mvehAN_ny05l6Mwckx1xvLsVcqQ/edit?usp=sharing

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3D Printing and New Domains in Museum Activism

Link to presentation.

-Mala

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Our human experience concierge has a finger on the pulse of the most pressing issues facing humanity today to curate the most topical destinations.

As our midterm, Ava and I went into business together to create Walk A Mile, Inc.

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The info is stored in a P2P distributed system

No disclosure if you do not have a valid key

Mandatory Details: - Name - Place of Birth - Timestamp of Birth  

- Photo updated annually (Regular specs)

Custom backgrounds to express your identity

Flaws: - Social Engineering - Physical Theft

Report theft: - New ID is unlocked with biometric scan - Eg: Iris scan generates a very specific key that enables you to reset the key - To reset it, you'll need a copy of original key.