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Develop a Case Study on ‘What’s spooky about technology today?’

tl;dr: Building on the ideas in the intro lecture, uncover another example of an unexplainable encounters with technology: a moment that is hard to explain and creates an unsettling effect. This could include unintended effects, glitches, hacks, hoaxes, manipulations or even intentional designs that subvert understanding. Report your discovery.

Learning Objectives

In addition to the standard case study objectives, here we specifically hope to:

• To become familiar with the world of intelligent, tangible, and ubiquitous computing by uncovering examples that have shared value to the class (work by researchers, artists and practioners; articles in popular press that get us thinking; creative interventions, etc.)
• To identify reference projects in the space of unsettling technology and complex systems that are relevant to your own investigation;
• To develop a receiptivity to critical production, critical design and critical making; and
• To learn how others in the field approach questions of spooky/explainable technology through production of computational objects.

Selecting the work(s)

Brief: Building on the ideas in the intro lecture, uncover another example of an unexplainable encounters with technology: a moment that is hard to explain and creates an unsettling effect. Report your discovery.

You’re asked to develop a case study of an example work that relate to what you learned in the introduction lecture. Your case study can take a few different approaches:

• A discussion of an experience, phenomenon or concern reported in the news or popular press (e.g. Wired, a reddit forum, etc.);
• Find an example of a creative technology, tool, or system that you believe should in the Spooky Technology book;
• A single reference project (be it a creative work, technical invention, etc) that is either intentionally or unintentionally unsettling ; 
• An urban legend, myth or superstition that surrounds a technology; 
• etc.

Regardless, it should be an case study you find personally interesting, appealing, etc and should review work you haven’t encountered before.

What to write up:

Follow the guidelines for posting a case study to Slack. Include in your post about 150-200 words in which you discuss:

• It should have a by-line that provides the title, original source (url, etc.), credit the creators/authors, include the year
• Offer an image (or two) to illustrate the example
• Find a quote to draw us in
• Describe what the example is and why it matters
  • Describe why you selected this case study (what is particularly interesting, inspirational, innovative, unsettling, unusual, etc. about it)
  • Describe why the case is relevant to the course (i.e. why should as a group we pay attention to it)
  • Describe what you might do in response to it (i.e. what should be be on the look out for, what opportunities might it suggest for creative experimentation, etc.) 
• Ideally, conclude by offering a few recommended links and resources to explore the ideas further.

The post should contain supporting materials (video, audio, data, code, documents that will help illustrate represent the selected case study to your peers. You should provide at minimum one main image at the top of the project and you should import from online sources (YouTube, Vimeo, etc.).

Hint: Use the cases and examples offered in the Spooky Tech book as a template.

Example formats for a case study are provided in the main case study information