Roopa’s Talk + Twitter and Teargas
The main point that I extracted from Roopa’s talk was that the assumptions we make about technology can be very unreliable. Her example of her QR code exhibit failing to work in the way she expected was the primary example of this.
In her work Artificial Abundance, Roopa examines the challenges of quantifying human experiences through artificial and technological means. This mirrors ideas from Tufecki’s writing, especially the idea that technology is not an equal playing ground.
Roopa and Tufecki both reject technological determinism, being against the notion that the future of tech is laid out on an inevitable path in a certain direction. Roopa opened her talk with a discussion of punk music and how she is influenced by its inherent DIY culture.
Since I’m doing this post a bit late, I don’t remember every point that Roopa discussed, but I definitely enjoyed how she ended her talk with a few concrete points of advice for current Lowres students. What especially resonated with me was her advice to not be afraid of what we don’t know. I’m already usually pretty adventurous and eager to learn new things, but after her talk, I felt open to broadening my creative horizons even more.
