Basak’s Thesis

I am really interested in the concept of perceptions and how we perceive everything around us. In my mini-thesis, I tried to take a look at it from the human-space perspective and in my thesis I want to work on this more in a technology and human relation perspective. I know it sounds really broad but I will try to explain in more detail.

I went to Whitney biennial last week and had the chance to see some installations and documentaries. I got fascinated by Kerry Tribe’s work which was touching upon perception and subjectivity and memory. I also just got her book called North is West/South is East where she was asking strangers in LA airport to draw pieces of memories related to events, environments that were significant to those strangers. By doing that she was laying out the real LA and the imagined-perceived LA and so interestingly she was doing that in an airport that is perceived as just a non-place that takes you from one place to another! This was very inspiring for me to work on perceptions and how technology is affecting them. The way we utilize and sense the technology and then how this persuasive technology is messing up with our mental cognitive maps that shape our perceptions. How we move away from rituals like having family dinner around a table and how we value our memories and our data is being changed so fast!

Open sources, cloud computing, sharing, sharing and sharing. Today Anezka said something like “digital slavery” and I loved it since these two words were describing what I am feeling and willing to work on. So what is happening to our subjectivity and our perceptions in this technologically motivated metropolitan world. In my thesis, I want to get my hands dirty by building physical objects that can attract attention on the loss of subjectivity by showing how the way we perceive space, time and objects has changed!

In my mini-thesis I chose a web-oriented medium however I enjoy building things and I do believe that to point out this alteration on the way we live our lives should be through a contemporary communication between us and the objects not between us and a screen.

At this point what I am thinking is using the body and physical objects to display these messages related to technology and its affects on our space and time perceptions. That’s why I am planning to read tangible interface research and the objects semantics. Since the message is how the technology is affecting the way we value things and I am using objects to tell this, I should be able to figure out what objects can signify this message more intuitively.

I am still thinking in a broad sense but next semester I am taking social psychology from social research department which can help me out to make a framework for my research and can show me some resources to read on the social affects of technology on our subjectivity as an individual and as a society.