Materializing Technologies

Surfacing Focal Things and Practices with Design

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Abstract

Today, the world is populated with what we colloquially refer to as “black boxes.” These are technologies that perform sophisticated operations but obfuscate these complex operations, providing us with little context to what they do, how they work, and the role they play in our lives. In simple terms, this thesis addresses the following broadly framed questions: what parts of these black boxes should be made legible to the layperson? And regarding these parts: how can design be harnessed to reframe them as legible?