IoT for The World-Without-Us

Alien Frameworks:

Interpretation
Language, Remixing, Contemplation, Mimic, Speech, Sound, Copy-cat, Observance, Collection, Filtering, Lists, Ontology, Collections, Connections, Inward, Learning, Knowledge Gathering.

Signaling
Notifications, Alert, Outward, Attempting, Movement, Visual, Attention.

Community
Hive, Swarm, Networking, Sharing.

I’ve been thinking about ideas that could encompass some vignettes based around the idea of “aliens”. For CFC Prototyping, I am plotting to subvert a google home assistant to be a bot not for us, but perhaps for “the planet” (aka the world-without-us). Which is an idea brought on from Thacker’s book.

The idea of a home assistant, that is not serving us, but perhaps serving itself, or serving its collective, is, I feel an interesting thing to explore. I am not sure if it is going to acknowledge its viewers yet or not. I had considered that it would notice, and perhaps try and absorb some language into its own data stream thereby treating you as just something in the environment at large vs the focus. But again, not sure.

Anyways, thinking about how to build the bot-assistant led me to think about these three headings which will I think will help me anchor this project more. It may also lead me to start flagging things in my independent study for future use.

Aliens

I think I might be going down the path of the inhuman when thinking about thesis stuff. I know I’m very interested in things like oracles, and rituals. But I’m also into things that aren’t for people. Where people are the observer, or where their interaction is not always welcome. I found some of Alan Rath’s work the other day and its so weird. I love the idea of these heavy machines moving around feathers. But the affect is almost like birds or squids signaling one another.