the good news bot
(2021)Obejct Design
Speculative Design
Critical Design
Evolving
from passive, data-collecting machines, environmental sensors now form
‘intelligent’ systems. Sensing has spread from its origins in Science and
Technology Studies, to citizen science projects and into our homes. Through
participatory science, environmental sensors can be used to democratise data
collection and allow for agency and action within sensed systems. They create
‘crowd-sourced’ data sets that become invaluable to scientists and local
government. But what does this mean in the home? These sensors work quietly in
the background keeping the modern home running efficiently, they breathe life
into the supposed benign brick and mortar that houses them. The good news bot
explores the use of environmental sensors in the home as a form of personal
governance and resistance to the volatile and changing climate of the Anthropocene.
The bot aims to intervene in the perpetually bleak news cycles that demand our attention yet do little to motivate our behaviour, whenever it hears a negative headline, it will counter with a positive one. The good news bot does not claim to solve the complex issue of the media’s crisis reporting tactics or understand the deep psychological chain of events that affects our actionable behaviour. Rather it hacks and intervenes in a known and damaging cycle of fear-mongering and divisive news.
*video coming soon*
The bot aims to intervene in the perpetually bleak news cycles that demand our attention yet do little to motivate our behaviour, whenever it hears a negative headline, it will counter with a positive one. The good news bot does not claim to solve the complex issue of the media’s crisis reporting tactics or understand the deep psychological chain of events that affects our actionable behaviour. Rather it hacks and intervenes in a known and damaging cycle of fear-mongering and divisive news.
*video coming soon*
