Appropriating Interaction Technologies

• Kyle McDonald and Lauren McCarthy
• NYU ITP Fall 2013
• Mondays 3:30-5:30, ITP rm 447
• Office hour Fridays 3:30-4:30, ITP adjunct lounge

###Important links

• github repo - Readme contains course information, repo also serves as a collection of scripts and tools for social hacking.
• google drive - Reading assignments and other docs.
• mailing list - For course announcements and longer form discussions, feedback, questions.
• #socialhacking - For submitting homework links, sharing shorter thoughts with public.

###Course description

This course explores the structures and systems of social interactions, identity, and self representation as mediated by technology. We will investigate ways that technology can be used to augment, subvert, alter, mediate, and ultimately deepen interaction in a lasting way.

How do the things we build and use limit and expand the way we understand and relate to each other? We'll explore this question by building new tools and creating new situations for breaking us out of existing patterns, and discussing contextual examples from media art, performance art, psychology and pop culture. Technologies explored will include computer vision (face/body/eye tracking with openFrameworks), data representation and glitch, browser extensions and plugins (in Chrome), computer security, mobile platforms, and social automation and APIs (Facebook, Twitter, Mechanical Turk).

Students will develop projects that alter or disrupt social space in an attempt to reveal existing patterns or truths about our experiences and technologies, and possibilities for richer interactions. Different tactics for intervention and performance will be explored, first through a set of short prompts or experiments, and then through a larger, more thorough intervention.

###Technical requirements

A conviction that creative people can derail society for the best, a deep love for code, and a willingness to explore uncomfortable situations. You should at least have taken Introduction to Computational Media or have similar experience with programming.

This four-point course will meet in the first twelve weeks of the semester.

###Syllabus

####Week 1 (9/9): Data representation and glitch

• Class overview

  • Policy regarding auditing: if you come you should be engaged, but we can’t create a situation where we are giving you time instead of students who are registered.
  • Policy regarding attendance: you can miss one class, anything else you fail.
  • Policy regarding work: we are going to be introducing a variety of techniques and tools, ranging in technical difficulty. our main requirement for work is that it is of high quality -- it need not be hypertechnical, but it does need to be very well thought out and well executed.

• Attendance and contracts.

• What spaces are social? What are rules? How do we test them? What happens when we don’t follow them? How do we misinterpret each other? Failures, communication breakdowns and arguments, ambiguity?

• Breaching experiments, sociology, Garfinkel, Goffman, and Milgram

  • Harold Garfinkel
  • Breaching experiments
  • Nathan for you STDs
  • Nathan for you 2 grams
  • Oversharer
  • Erving Goffman - sociologist studied face-to-face interaction, related to performance
  • The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
  • Interaction Ritual
  • Stanley Milgram bus experiments

• Glitch

  • Glitch is where a system breaks down and reveals something about itself in the process.
  • mojibake
    • extended ASCII
    • unicode
  • hex editing
    • realtime jpg glitch
    • “on compression” by Cory Arcangel
    • jpg header remix
    • 0xed hex editor
    • hexfiend hex editor
  • datamosh

• Documentation

  • Recording/collecting “objective”
    • Jill Magid
    • Katsu
  • Transcribing/describing “subjective/interpreted”
    • Sophie Calle
    • install view
    • photos
    • entering the Louvre
  • Deconstructing
    • Mark Lombardi on wikipedia
    • Mark Lombardi article
    • technical flowcharts

• Assignment due 9/16:

  • Read NYT: excuse me, may I have your seat?.
  • Read p11-16 from the glitch moment(um).
  • Post one tweet inspired by each reading, tagged with #socialhacking.
  • Create and document a social glitch involving technology, post it and tag it with #socialhacking.

####Weeks 2-3 (9/16, 9/23): social automation and APIs

• how do we share things with each other? how do we influence each other? how do we control each other? how do we push back?
• negotiating social rules for new technologies
• IFTTT, Facebook, Twitter, Mechanical Turk

####Weeks 4-5 (9/30, 10/7): browser extensions and plugins (in Chrome)

• who are you? how do you communicate/represent this? identity shaped by context

####Weeks 6-7 (10/21, 10/28): computer security

• what does it mean to be hacked? can you hack yourself?
• social engineering, phishing, cross-site scripting, trolling, authenticity

####Weeks 8-9 (11/4, 11/11): computer vision (face/body/eye tracking with openFrameworks)

• surveillance, privacy, warfare, video chat and mediated video-based interaction

####Weeks 10-12 (11/18, 11/25, 12/2): mobile platforms

• how do we find each other? how do we connect? how do we initially engage?
• how do we interact with each other in public social spaces? what are the patterns and rules and expectations? communication, conversation
• location awareness, social networking