Graduation project 2024,
Bachelor of Communication & Multimedia Design,
Avans University of Applied Sciences.
Critical Design,
Interactive Installation,
made by Joyce Korll.
In the modern digital world we live in today, digital platforms have become indispensable and are evolving at a rapid pace. In the creative sector, we can no longer escape their influence, as these platforms play a prominent role in the creative process and the distribution of art and media. Digital platforms offer creators the opportunity to showcase their work to a global audience. However, these platforms are dominated by algorithms that track your online activities, analyze your preferences, and determine what content you see based on that data. These algorithms are more dominant than ever, bringing both advantages and disadvantages for the visibility and diversity of creative content.
Designers showcase their work on digital platforms to gain global visibility and financial recognition. As a result of the algorithms on these platforms, designers feel pressured to adapt their work to both the algorithm and the audience, causing authenticity and creativity to diminish. This phenomenon is known as ‘networked culture’. It forces designers to choose how they want to position themselves on digital platforms: should they cater to the algorithms or remain true to their creative integrity? This opens up an important discussion about how they can find a balance between commercial success and artistic freedom.
This research examined the system known as networked culture. A specific focus on how designers showcase their work on digital platforms within this system. Throughout the research process, a critical perspective was taken on networked culture and how designing for an algorithm can lead to a creativity deficit. The research question that underpins this study is formulated as follows:
"You have to keep changing, because you are a creative person and you want to create things that excite you, regardless of whether they work well or not."
Niek Dekker
Freelance Designer at MSCHF
Networked culture can limit the creative output of designers, causing authenticity and creativity to be lost. While they seek to showcase their work to a global audience for visibility and financial recognition, they often find themselves conforming to the demands of algorithms that favor certain types of content. This results in a cycle of predictable and similar content, both created and consumed by users, which will ultimately lead to a creativity deficit. Creativity is essential, and uniformity should not become the norm.
Creators on digital platforms are increasingly focused on producing content that generates the most profit, and this trend is accelerating as we become more dependent on these platforms. As designers, we strive to balance maintaining the integrity of our work with the need to make a living from it. The goal of this research and design is to encourage designers to engage more creatively with digital platforms within the context of networked culture.
Take a Seat is a critical design that critiques the current system, networked culture. The installation consists of three phases: activation, confrontation, and awareness. This installation allows participants to experience what it's like for a designer to position themselves on digital platforms and the consequences of doing so. It explores both designing for algorithms to generate engagement, leading to similar content and creativity deficit, versus creating unique designs that deviate from the norm but align more with our creative values despite less engagement.
Phase 1 - Activation
The audience is encouraged to actively participate in the installation, with complete freedom to design a chair using the provided components. However, throughout the creative process, they are unconsciously influenced by highly rated standard examples.
Phase 2 - Confrontation
The audience's design is evaluated by a machine learning system, which determines if it follows a standard, uniform pattern or stands out as a creative design outside the algorithm's norms.
Phase 3 - Awareness
The outcome, shown by the level of engagement the design generates, indicates if it would be picked up by the algorithm. Participants receive this feedback to raise awareness of networked culture.
