We use technology every day, but what do we really understand of it? As our technology has become more sophisticated, the ability to open, understand, alter, or even repair it has move into fewer and fewer hands. Blackboxed into our objects lies a legacy of social struggle and fights for changes in the agency we have or do not have over the things that hold sway in lives and the shape of our society. 

In our embrace of the new and novel we have forgotten much, but when it comes to the adoption of technology, what is important for us to remember? 

 Over time the degree of agency consumers have over their products has shifted. Objects are made to be inaccessible. White Box is a series of coasters depicting the silhouettes of objects which represent key shifts in user agency.The coasters act as conversation starters to prompt a conversation about these issues in a social space.

From the legal battle to impose safety codes on Steamboat Boilers, the accountability of companies’ such a Boeing for the impacts of their products on the lives of consumers, the prolific effects of mass production on the quality of our goods, black boxing of technology dating back to software firewalls in the 80s, cycles of fashion influenced by Planned obsolescence dating back to the 1920s, to the right to repair the objects we own, there are many turning points in the amount and type of agency users have. These issues are interconnected and often overlap in this complex issue.

Group project with Maya Uhryniuk and Alex Bott.