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MSc Interaction Design / 120 ECT / Thesis Project K3 / Malmö University / Sweden
Date of Examination / 03 June / 2020 Supervisor / Susan Kozel
Examiner / Clint Heyer
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Abstract
This thesis explores the dimensions of an emerging vulnerable design space in the context of COVID-19 pandemic through a design process that rethinks designer's presence and power in a context of remote exploration and embraces diary as a method and prototype to integrate interdisciplinary research in exploring different temporalities to record the past, to deal with the present and to speculate about what can happen afterwards.
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Design
through
vulnerability
Designing presence in a time of pandemic
1.Introduction
1.1 MOTIVATION AND RELEVANCE FOR SOCIETY
1.2 POSITIONING WITHIN IXD 1.3 AN EMERGING VULNERABLE DESIGN SPACE
1.4 RESEARCH FOCUS
2.Theoretical ground
2.1. PRESENCE
2.1.1 Concept & definition 2.1.2 Virtual presence 2.1.3 Presence in a pandemic context 2.2. PERFORMATIVITY & PERFORMANCE
2.2.1 Concept & definition 2.2.2 On social networks 2.2.3 Performance in trouble times
2.3. VULNERABILITY
2.3.1 Concept & definition 2.3.2 The vulnerability of the people
2.3.3 The vulnerability of the researcher
2.4. DIARY
2.4.1 Concept & method
2.4.2 Diary as a presence in vulnerable times
3. Methodology
3.1. GENERAL APPROACH3.2. NETNOGRAPHY & VIRTUAL METHODS
3.2.1 Designer as a “witness” or a “voyeur”
3.2.2 Designer involved as a participant
3.2.3 Designer as vulnerable as everyone else 3.3. UNSTRUCTURED INTERVIEWS 3.3.1 Questioning the people-designer hierarchy 3.3.2 Creating an intimate relationship 3.4. DIARY METHODS
3.4.1 A support with different temporalities
3.4.2 Questioning the people-designer hierarchy
3.5. SPECULATIVE APPROACH 3.5.1 Speculative part of the diary
3.5.2 Informal discussions
4. Design process
4.1. NETNOGRAPHY & VIRTUAL METHODS
4.1.1 Observing vulnerability 4.1.2 Mingle with vulnerability 4.1.3 Designer as vulnerable as everyone else
4.2. DIARY METHODS
4.2.1 Diary V1: Diary format 4.2.2 Diary V2: Designer as a confidant
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4.3. SPECULATIVE APPROACH 4.3.1 Speculative part of the diary
4.3.2 “Archaeology of the Future”
5. Prototype
5.1. DIARY AS AN ARCHIVE (past) 5.2. DIARY AS A THERAPEUTIC TOOL (present) 5.3. DIARY AS A SPECULATIVE MEDIUM (future)
6. Evaluation &
discussion
6.1. DIFFERENT TEMPORALITIES 6.2. ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS 6.3. PROTOTYPE DEVELOPMENT7. Conclusion
8. Acknowledgements
9. Bibliography
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1.Introduction
1.1 MOTIVATION AND RELEVANCE FOR SOCIETY
Since January 2020 the COVID-19 epidemic has spread across the globe. Several countries including China, Italy, Spain, Belgium and France adopted quarantine measures to stop the spread of the virus. Containment means isolating yourself in your own home and avoiding all interactions with the outside environment. As 20th-century authors praised solitude, the French newspapers Le Monde (Leila Slimani, 2020) and France Culture offer a celebrity's story of confinement every day, giving a romanticized vision of quarantine and isolation. Here, their vision is a homebody (the elitist solitude) or even spiritual (the solitude of the wise or the religious). Other forms of testimonials are gradually emerging, with diaries taking the form of Instagram stories, Facebook
publication, Youtube video, etc. They reveal a more realistic, sensitive and vulnerable facet of daily life in quarantine.
In a moment of deep fear and uncertainty, people are cut off from all human contact or at least are forced to limit their interactions with the outside world and consequently find themselves in a state of vulnerability. From hugs to handshakes to other social rituals, all are now tinged with danger (Yong, 2020). All levels of the population are affected: the elderly, who are already excluded from a large part of public life, are being asked to distance themselves even further, which aggravates their loneliness, students find themselves isolated in the city in cramped 9 m2
apartments, families struggle to keep their children occupied, some find themselves forced into technical unemployment, others into teleworking, and some have jobs that are necessary to make our daily lives operational are vulnerable without sufficient protection against the virus (medical staff, cashiers, garbage collectors, policemen, firemen, etc.).
However, over a long period of time social isolation and loneliness can also cause
psychological and physiological disorders. These disorders are not only linked to the pandemic, of course, but the latter allows us to bring to light an ailment that is widely present in our society. The habitat can be seen as a prison for the isolated person. Here a context of vulnerability emerges. Solitude and isolation do not necessarily mean the total absence of social interaction: real interactions disappear, but virtual interactions punctuate the day (Social networks, online messaging, sms...). They constitute a presence and populate the domestic space. People isolated at home seek to interact with the outside world in ways other than through social networks or video games. Video games such as Minecraft or Animal Crossing are ways of virtually reproducing daily moments or events: going for a walk with friends, visiting a museum, organising a graduation ceremony as a group of schoolchildren did in Japan or even demonstrations (several organised by the "yellow vests" or by Hong Kong
demonstrators).
In order to cope with this period of vulnerability, people use many strategies through different media to stay in touch with the outside world: watching a movie with friends remotely through screen sharing, sharing a meal via Skype with one's family, attending an artist's live on Instagram, etc. (Joe Pinsker, 2020). These circumstances encouraged the creation of a strong
community spirit, as shown by the viral videos of Italians singing in chorus on their balconies, the initiatives to support the medical
profession, the creative or artistic initiatives to support artists and the cultural sector, which is also suffering the effects of this pandemic. In this context, social isolation is not the only factor of vulnerability. Here, regardless of whether one is alone, living in a shared flat or with one's family, everyone is confronted with the stress of the unknown, or worrying about one's relatives or about what the world will become after this pandemic.
1.2 POSITIONING WITHIN IXD
This thesis explores interdisciplinary research in the humanities, social psychology,
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anthropology and literature and arts and how these particular circumstances push the designers to rethink and adapt their practices and research methods in order to remain connected to their work field. This also concerns the presence of the designers, and what form their interventions take with the distance. This thesis also questions how practitioners within the research and IXD field can continue their investigations and work in a time of crisis, in a (more) vulnerable time. Within Interaction Design, the issue of vulnerability can be seen as an ambivalent problem: vulnerability as a matter of research, because people suffer and as an element that is suffered, because researcher-designers expose themselves to vulnerability.
In this case, I will question both of these concerns: vulnerability as a matter of research and as something suffered. Firstly, by
interacting for two months with people locked down in France while I myself am affected by the vulnerability inherent in the current situation. In order to explore the subject of vulnerability in the relationship that designer-researchers have with the people who are their subject of study, I will seek to use and develop diary methods within Interaction Design. This creative approach can be seen as a design process that involves exploratory methods. Interaction design has appropriated this method from the humanities and social sciences by questioning its
modalities, its form, its purpose and the role it can play in the relationship with the people being studied. The diary method has often been used in interaction design research projects, such as Affective Diary, a digital diary based on the participants' written and embodied memory (Anna Ståh, 2009), or as a support for group reflection (Jette Hyldegård, 2006), as part of cultural probes, or as part of a qualitative analysis.
Firstly, my work consists in defining this vulnerable design space and to understand how this vulnerability is currently revealed, how it shapes the digital common space (social networks among others), and how the
"shared" diary becomes a manoeuvre to keep track of this period of vulnerability.
Secondly, my work will attempt to develop an exploratory approach to questioning my presence as a designer (my presence as such, the form of my contribution, etc.) and my role (my relationship with the people the inherent hierarchy that results from this method, etc.) in the diary method, as people explore their vulnerability.
Third, the diary approaches the status of a design prototype as an archive and as a speculative medium for shaping the imaginary, as well as the effects at the individual (the therapeutic and reflective aspect) and collective (the diary as an archive and as a speculative medium for shaping the imaginary) levels of the diary.
In this thesis, three contributions to design are outlined: first, the framing and exploration of an entirely new design space (anchored and created by this pandemic); the development of a method that takes into account the vulnerability of people and the designer; and the design of a prototype as a multi-temporal archaeological support, archive (past), therapeutic tool (present), speculative support (future).
1.3 AN (EMERGING) VULNERABLE DESIGN SPACE
Vulnerability is obviously not new in design research. Other designers and researchers have already explored this topic: in particular in User Experience Design (UX), urban design, or social design. Vulnerability in HCI has been defined by Vines et al (2016) as pertaining to particular categories: « This has included working with groups as diverse as homeless mothers [5], people living with dementia [6], children with special needs [4] and paroles and parole officers [11] among many others.” (p 3232). Other instances of designing for vulnerability applies the category to software and systems (Abomhara, 2016). This thesis contests the assumption that design can be interrupted during a crisis until it is over, and
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that it will resume once things are back to "normal". It is intended to be read as a crisis manual for designers so that they become aware of their vulnerability and keep on designing. Likewise, it provides a design space that encourages people to design for and with vulnerability. Vulnerable designers design for vulnerable people.
María Puig de la Bellacasa highlights the existence of a space of knowledge aware through mutual vulnerability (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017, p82). According to her, thinking of a certain proximity in relations of “intervulnerability” is the element that encourages awareness of the consequences of knowledge creation. Puig de la Bellacasa invokes Donna Haraway's formulation from The Companion Species Manifesto in order to highlight the fact that the people studied and observed by designer-researchers are there not only to think but also to "live with" (Haraway 2003, p5).
Reading the moments of dissent as examples of careful reflection underlines the difficulties of taking care of the relationships involved in creative knowledge: Maria Puig De la
Bellacasa points out that "Yet, worrying about the effects of our thinking - even in worlds we prefer not to approve of - can also make us more vulnerable. Recognising vulnerability as an ethical stance could be the inevitable price of commitment and involvement - if care displaces relational networks, even in creating People who care for people are inevitably displaced too" (2017, p 83). This vulnerable research space questions whether a certain closeness in the relationships of
intervulnerability, between
designer-researchers and people, would encourage awareness of the consequences of knowledge creation (p 82).
1.4 RESEARCH FOCUS
This thesis will attempt to explore the
dimensions of an emerging vulnerable design space through a design process that adopt a diary as a method to better address and deal
with crisis periods such as COVID-19 pandemic.
Research Questions
I) How does the designer deal with a context of vulnerability, such as a pandemic situation, where both designer and people designed for/with are vulnerable?
Sub Research Questions
II) How can the designer's presence and power be rethought in a context of remote exchange and exploration in a less intrusive and hierarchical form?
III) How can the diary method and prototype be both a research support for
designer-researchers and a design
contribution that combines past present and future for people : a reflection practice, therapeutic tool, and archival trace for people?
2.Theoretical ground
2.1. PRESENCE
2.1.1 Concept & definition By definition the presence is “the fact that someone or something is in a place” and is therefore intimately linked to a
spatiotemporal context
(dictionary.cambridge.org, n.d.). Presence is generally regarded as the state that opposes absence. It is through this tension that the dynamism of reality takes root: one is present, here and now, or one is not.
From the perspective of phenomenology, presence is used to designate the embracing unity in which the relationship between human and the world operates in its integral unity (Heidegger, 1962). Presence is both presence of the world for humans and presence of humans in the world of which they are a part. It is a reciprocal and unitary connection that cannot be dissociated. Presence is the central element in the relationship between human beings and the world. What we understand by "presence" is obviously of an eminently temporal nature which, however, is not limited to the purely
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present. The world is present in every moment of our existence through each of the situations in which we find ourselves from one moment to the next. The world as such is, therefore, the complex articulation of this presence through time and space. From a psychological point of view, the concept of presence is related to the notion of memory (Fox, Bailenson, & Binney, 2009; Nichols, Haldane, & Wilson, 2000). Recollection can be understood as a partial representation of the past through memory that brings and forms the temporal window from the present to the past. Memory is the presence of the past. It is the presence of the past in the very presence of what is present, but which is constituent of it.
Thus, presence is a polysemic concept that is redefined for each field of study (philosophy, psychology, sociology, etc.). It is also
common to refer to presence in the religious sciences, telecommunications or the
performing arts (Auslander, 2012).
Furthermore, presence is now a prized area of research with the virtual devices that have the power to make the absent present. The many research projects related to this subject tend to explore new forms of presence and at the same time make the notion of presence increasingly blurred.
2.1.2 Virtual presence Indeed, the use of communication technologies has made this common definition even less clear. This problematic already manifests itself in the etymology of the word telecommunication, referring to the idea of remote communication. These technologies are actually the means for distant, and therefore absent, participants to act, to interact in a common space with people who are not physically present with them. They embody forms of presence that are distinct from "being here and now". The forms are in the plural, because it is clear that the absent person whose text message one reads to wish a happy birthday and the person who wishes it by videoconference are not "present" in the same way. Tara McPherson refers to the example of the cursor as a visual
representation of our presence on the computer interface. In our exploration of the web, we act in the form of a cursor, a tangible sign of presence implying movement. The web structures a sense of causality modelled on that of life, a life in which we navigate and move, often structuring the feeling that our own desire drives movement. "The web is a presence but an unstable presence: it is in process, in motion" (Tara McPherson, 2002, pp 461-462).
What about how our virtual presence is perceived by others? Instagram and Messenger users show weak signs of presence. Indeed, they are constrained by only two options: appear/green dot - disappear. Moving dots on Facebook
indicating that we are typing on our keyboard are strong signs of presence because they are signs of activity. The contact can know not only that their friend is online, but also what they are doing. During the pandemic online games were very successful. Whether it is Minecraft, Animal Crossing or LinkLink all these games have in common to allow the player to be present in a fictional
environment. The presence is embodied by a character that can be customized beforehand. This presence constitutes a virtual alter ego that allows you to interact with this virtual world and other players. The game becomes a bit like a theatre play where players in
quarantine play what they cannot do anymore in their daily life: go to public places, hang out with friends or meet complete strangers
2.1.3 Presence in a pandemic context
The real world and the virtual world are then two different worlds, but not separated, and even less opposed. The digital space is real and is part of the continuity of our world. In the same way that the digital space is an extension of the physical space, our digital activities are in the continuity of our other activities. Indeed, in this "culture of
simulation" (Sherry Turkle, 1995, p72), users are "increasingly comfortable with
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reality" (p72). We are accustomed to communicating, informing, entertaining, working and consuming in digital spaces. Questioning presence also means challenging the notion of space of interaction. Indeed, the social distancing recommendations and/or restrictions introduced to limit the spread of the virus have considerably restricted the spaces for interaction. Referring to Edward Hall's concept of proxemic [✺figure 1], the current interactions are more situated in the public space and the social space. The science fiction author Alain Damasio writes a letter for the radio programme France Inter (Damasio, 2020) about the presence of his loved ones during confinement, a presence that is made through the screen of his telephone.
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How could the concept of proxemic be transposed to virtual interactions? This period of pandemic brings our digital interactions to their peak and draws new ways of occupying these spaces [✺figure 2].
Psychotherapist Susie Orbach describes the presence of this vulnerability that she can now only read through a screen, but which nevertheless seems so close to her:
“Seven weeks in, the disjuncture has passed. I, like all of us, am accommodating to multiple corporeal realities: bodies alone, bodies distant, bodies in the park to be avoided, bodies of disobedient youths hanging out in groups, bodies in lines outside shops, bodies and voices flattened on screens and above all, bodies of dead health workers and carers. Black bodies, brown bodies. Working-class bodies. Bodies not normally praised, now being celebrated.” (Orbach, 2020).
During this period, the screen becomes a window to a multiplicity of other realities, other vulnerable people. It becomes a presence to interact with a relative far away that we can no longer visit, with a person who is a victim of the COVID-19 virus, and it allows us to keep track of this period (photo, video, text, etc.). Isolation can be temporary or long-lasting, voluntary or involuntary, painful or invigorating. It is finally appreciated in relation to others. I am isolated because I am with no one, which also reveals the
importance of others whom I did not suspect when they were by my side, like Robinson on his deserted beach:
"I now know that each human carries within him and as if above him a fragile and complex scaffolding of habits, responses, reflexes, mechanisms, concerns, dreams and
implications that has formed and continues to be transformed by the perpetual touching of fellow human beings. Deprived of sap, this delicate efflorescence withers and
disintegrates. Others, the centrepiece of my universe..." (Tournier and Denny, 1997).
Finally in this period, one is looking for the manifestation of the presence of the other,
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whether he or she is a relative, a neighbour or a complete stranger.
1.2. PERFORMATIVITY & PERFORMANCE
1.2.1 Concept & definition Performativity describes the fact that a linguistic sign (statement, sentence, verb, etc.) is performative, in other words, language not only describes the world but can also function as a form of social action. The use of one of these signs then brings a reality to life. For the first time, the concept of performative language was described by the philosopher John L. Austin. He argued that there was a difference between consensual language, which describes the world, and performative language, which does something in the world, which is inscribed in the world (Austin, 1959). In the 1990s, Judith Butler developed the concept of performativity to describe the way in which gender is constructed (Butler, 2006). Ritual specialists have also used the concept of performative action and performativity in a very productive way, by examining how rituals function performatively to have effects on the world.
As Richard Schechner points out: "just as there are no theoretical limits to
performativity [...]. Even
non-performance-sitting in a chair, crossing the street, sleeping-can be made into a performance by framing these ordinary actions as performance" (Schechner, 2002, p142). Thus, the concept of performativity can be applied not only to any action but also to any discipline that does not usually fall into the performance spectrum: architecture, literature, law, painting, social sciences, archaeology, etc. This means that
performativity is the result of the recognition of the performative potential of an action, event or object. Based on this postulate, performativity is not an end in itself, a definitive and concrete reality, but rather a process taking place within an event (p 30). It can even be considered as the construction of a reality as a performance and as
reconstruction, either through the intellectual recognition of the stages of this construction. According to the logic of the archive,
performance is what does not remain
(Rebecca Schneider. 2011) and therefore can be perceived as a process of disappearance, of an ephemerality (here there are no vestiges). Archives are inherent to Western culture.
Our understanding of the world and our history, is made through vestiges that we accumulate, material traces that we leave and cherish. Rebecca Schneider points out that memory is not destined to be lodged eternally in a body, and therefore that "oral narration, live recitation, repeated gestures and ritual staging" are not practices of narrating or writing history (ibid). Therefore, the logic of archives takes precedence over the
performance of scripts (storytelling, theatre, dance, novels, etc.). Schneider invites us to think in opposition to this logic of the archive: performance should not be considered as what disappears, but as the act of remaining and a means of reappearing (although it is not a metaphysics of presence).
Wendy Chun evokes how new technologies encourage us to consider memory as storage: as a full presence that cannot be erased. This notion of full presence derives from a
bureaucratic metaphor: "filing cabinets in the basement". By reconceptualizing human memory in this way, immortality takes precedence over storage: thus, information would be like the undead (Wendy Chun. 2013).
1.2.2 Performance on social networks
For Schechner, if every reality, every object, every event or every action can be seen as a performance, then there is performativity in everything. He, in turn, adapts this use of the term performative to stage actions as well as to everyday actions, extending the concept to the whole field of reality. Performativity is everywhere, he says, "in daily behavior, in the professions, on the internet and media, in the arts, and in language". So how does
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performance show itself on social networks? Especially in the current context where social networks are the only window to the outside world, how do people use these virtual spaces as a stage for performance? During the pandemic, ephemeral formats are privileged. Numerous live performances (concerts, interviews, shows, plays, etc.) are emerging on various platforms. Obviously it is always possible to immortalize this moment by taking a screen or recording the content as we would do if we took a video of a concert in a festival. Overall, Schneider's study of performance outlines a tension with regard to the ephemeral nature of performance and the traces it can leave. This tension draws a parallel between the notion of disappearance and that of ritual. Ritual intervenes here as an injunction to us to (re)find ourselves in repetition. This notion of ritual appears in our use of social networks or, more broadly, of digital technology: checking our notifications regularly, publishing a story every day on Instagram, following a live performance every day at the same time on Twitch, etc. People find in repetition a reassuring presence.
In these troubled times, the introduction of new rituals provides new landmarks. “The internet allows us to maintain a sense of normalcy and support one another and come together,” (Tanya Basu and Karen Hao. Why does it suddenly feel like 1999 on the internet? 2020)
1.2.3 Performance in trouble times The theories of trauma and repetition
demonstrate that it is not the presence that appears in the performance, but precisely the missed encounter. Although its remains are immaterial, the performance does not disappear: the set of acts and spectral meanings which haunt material in constant collective interaction, in constellations (Performing remains. Rebecca Schneider. 2011).
Even if the performance does not leave material traces, it leaves vestiges: in particular through the transmission of oral traditions, rituals, songs, dance, etc., it leaves
its legacy. Today, social networks participate in various forms in the structuring of these vestiges. All the content produced during this pandemic period is a testimony that does not reside in materiality. Digital content can persist but can also disappear at any time. Finally the performance would be a means of negotiating disappearance. What if the pandemic framework calls for more
consideration of performance as a vestige? A vestige that would echo this period of trouble and fully embrace this climate of vulnerability.
1.3. VULNERABILITY
1.3.1 Concept & definition The term vulnerability has its roots in Latin and derives from the noun vulnu, "the wound", verb vulnerare, "to wound", and vulnerabilis, which means "who can be wounded" and "who wounds". According to Hélène Thomas, vulnerability brings together two notions: the rift on the one hand (the sensitive, fragile zone through which the injury will occur) and the wound on the other (which will materializes the injury). Vulnerability thus
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refers to "a potential to be injured" emotionally (Soulet, 2005, pp 49-59).
In the 1970s, the term was used by experts on natural disasters. It spread in the medical literature, mainly paediatric, psychiatric and geriatric, with the aim of identifying and distinguishing pathologies, to expand in the 1990s with its current use, that is to say, a sensitivity "that exposes to...". During the 19th-20th centuries, vulnerability was seen as a manageable issue to be addressed; hence the building of social protection, the development of medicine, etc., and the development of the social protection system. Towards the end of the twentieth century, a feeling of multifaceted crises (wars, natural and ecological disasters, unemployment, pandemics, etc.) and consequently of partial powerlessness led to a new approach to vulnerability: ambivalence between increased awareness of risks and the impossibility of controlling them all. During the COVID-19 pandemic, people are more vulnerable than ever: uncertainty of the situation, loss of control of the situation, isolation, distance from family and friends, concerns about the future, etc.
We have seen previously that in order to deal with this, strategies and joint initiatives are being put in place. Vulnerability is at the heart of shame and fear and our problem with self-esteem, but it is also the source of joy and creativity, of a sense of belonging (Brene Brown, 2010). As some social networking initiatives have shown, vulnerability is a driving force in the creation of groups and communities and invites mutual help.
1.3.3 The vulnerability of the people
The circumstances, uncertainties and measures taken to contain the virus contribute to everyone's vulnerability and isolation.
The researcher in sociology Elodie Boublil defines vulnerability as relational in the sense that human relationships and bonds are in themselves "vulnerable and precarious"
(Elodie Boublil, 2018, p183). The
interpersonal understanding and how we coexist are an expression of the vulnerability and the subjectivity. Thus, vulnerability is inherent in our interactions. I perceive the vulnerability of the other by and through my own vulnerability. "Vulnerability structures the subject's experience of the world. As such, it is a "susceptibility" to be hurt rather than a real failure or fragility. It can be seen as an ability to be sensitive to someone's
expressive unity, to be sensitive to differences and creations." (p184).
1.3.3 The vulnerability of the researcher
While many scientific works are increasingly focusing on the issue of vulnerability, in this case, the pandemic situation influences and impacts our research as a researcher and/or designer. Whether one wants to or not, vulnerability is therefore present in the research work in progress. Researchers and designers are constantly exposed to
vulnerability, be it through netnography, interviews, field observation, etc. As a designer-researcher, our way of dealing with it could be to numb vulnerability, and not take into account our own sensitivity when faced with such a period of crisis. But we cannot selectively numb our emotions. When we numb painful emotions, we also numb joy, gratitude, happiness (2010).
In both practice and research it is necessary to accept vulnerability and to give it room and not silence it at all costs. After several studies on vulnerability, the researcher Brene Brown points out that “we live in a vulnerable world”.
Judith Butler also emphasizes the importance of the ethical nature of vulnerability. She supports her reasoning with the work of Levinas: "we are, all of us, in some sense responsible for that which persecutes us". It does not mean that we provoke our
persecution, but rather that this "persecution" would be an ethical requirement imposed on us against our will. This is beyond the scope of our will and depends on our sensitivity, receptivity and responsiveness.
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“There is no other way to understand the ethical reality; ethical obligation not only depends upon our vulnerability to the claims of others but also establishes us as creatures who are fundamentally defined by that ethical relation”(Precarious Life and the Ethics of Cohabitation. Judith Butler, p14).
We are, in a sense, vulnerable to demands that "we cannot anticipate and for which there is no adequate preparation" (ibid). Doubt and uncertainty being intrinsic to research, therefore being a researcher means being vulnerable.
1.4. DIARY
1.4.1 Concept & method
This section is a bridge between theory and method. In the diary methods, there is both vulnerability, presence and performativity. Diary methods come from the fields of psychology and anthropology. In the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI), diary methods represent a method used to analyze user needs for user-centered design. It is a research method that collects qualitative information by asking participants to record their daily life in a diary. This may take the form of a diary or logbook about the activity or experience being studied over a period of time. Diaries can be used to study temporal phenomena, events, fluctuating phenomena such as moods or behaviours, and to track daily events over time.
This is a research tool, which of course differs from a real study in the field, but which nevertheless offers a considerable amount of contextual information gathered at a distance. With the emergence of mobile phones,
participants can keep a diary with photos, videos and text using a variety of online and offline media (applications, chat, email, social networking, cloud, word processor, etc.). Researchers, archivists and citizens are using various common platforms (mainly social networks) to keep track of how we have lived and changed during this strange period in history marked by the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Instagram and Twitter, the #theisolationjournals tag allows for
contributions ranging from simple photos to dance performance videos, handwritten diary pages, original music and art, blog posts, and more.
Transposed into the digital world, by
participating in the activities of a website, we expand our being in this space, which
consequently becomes ours by adding our personal touch. We are also defined by our Facebook profile or our Instagram account because we shape them with our publications and our sharing. It's the same thing in a diary. The diary is like an extension of us at different point t in time. It functions as a space to archive fragments of memories. In the context of diary studies, however, it is meant to be read and shared with the researcher. Media Studies scholar Wendy Chun explains that rather than producing possible actions and statements, archives are a constantly rewritten storage system driven by the ephemeral. The archive as memory is the reminiscence of the past that is part of the world's current presence (Chun, 2013, p32). From a psychological point of view, it is the function of memory that comes into play here. By recalling their memories, participants will consciously or unconsciously omit certain elements and synthesize their thoughts and feelings. It is a representation of the past in the present or in the literal sense of the term "representation". More explicitly, the aim is to bring back to consciousness an element (action, interaction, feeling, reflection, etc.) that is absent or present but hidden.
Indeed, it is a co-presence of the past in the presence of what is present. There is no present without the presence of the past. Whether by keeping a logbook, doing stories on Instagram or doing archival work, these examples of initiatives demonstrate that people are aware that this particular era will be historically significant. It is therefore appropriate to capture this vulnerable period through writing, photos, videos or live recordings.“Archiving has never been about saving everything, it’s about trying to save a
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representation,” said Mark Graham, the director of the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive (Basu & Ohlheiser. 2020). What if these diaries posted on the Internet or kept privately were like a means of recording a representation of our vulnerability during this period?
1.4.2 Diary as a presence in vulnerable times
In addition to changing our behaviour, the pandemic is also changing the way we interact with our personal social media archives, with the tracks we leave on these virtual spaces. In order to cope with this period of vulnerability, people take "nostalgic trips" in their own online history, seeking comfort in looking back at how it was before.
Sharing their diaries with a researcher may lead participants to respond in a way that makes them appear more socially desirable, or to avoid showing their vulnerability. This is the social desirability bias. Thus, like Edward Hall's proxemics model [✺figure 1] or the more binary model proposed by social networks (private/public), the diary shared with the researcher can be configured in the same way. Lone Koefoed Hansen and Susan Kozel suggest the notion of “ a domain of public dreaming, located at the conjunction of the private, public and secret within human existence” (Hansen and Kozel, 2007, 220). The private aspect "implies that we can share the details [...] with a few close friends, and it contains tones of trust and vulnerability". While the secret refers to a "deeper level of the body and psyche, a secret realm", which sometimes the person him/herself is not fully aware of. It is a realm the designer should not enter. But then how does the author of the diary delimit what is private and what is secret? How does he choose to show or hide what might be vulnerable? In this experiment the sleeve serves as a performative medium for the participants. Researchers choose the analogy of the switch to represent the effect of the secret that suspends the performative mode of the sleeve. This paper questions us not only on how participants intervene in a performative process, but also on the
importance of qualifying and keeping
information in a state of a secret. The designer should not be omniscient and should engage the participants in a setting where they can choose what information they want to show or not.
Diary studies can also be used with other research techniques in a mixed-method approach. In this research, I would first observe behaviours and the use of social networks, conduct interviews, or experiment with certain platforms to collect data and examine people's experiences in daily life during the pandemic period.
3. Methodology
3.1. GENERAL APPROACH
All the methodologies used in this paper tend to be inclusive, unbiased and more
representative in terms of the age, gender and social situation of the people being studied. Furthermore, the context of the COVID-19 pandemic preventing the possibility of direct interaction with the field of investigation forces the use of remote methods and mainly digital means. Each of these methods also questions the power and presence of the designer, and consequently the hierarchical relationship between the people studied and the designer inherent to these various remote observation approaches. The isolation or social distancing measures aimed at
containing the spread of COVID-19 imply that researchers and designers must substitute their investigations in the field only with remote means, particularly online. Online research has existed for many years and has not waited for crisis periods to emerge: from netnography to skype interviews from the diary, the field of possibilities of online investigation tools is vast (Lupton, D. 2020). The methodological approach of this research does not aim to transform the fieldwork, but rather to question and gauge how these exclusively online methods accommodate the vulnerability of the people being studied and the designer-researcher.
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3.2. NETNOGRAPHY & VIRTUAL METHODS
3.2.1 Designer as a “witness” or a “voyeur”
As a first step of the research, I will initiate a phase of netnography through the observation of experiences and interactions on social networks: Twitter and Instagram. This ethnographic online method of research and observation includes a specific set of research practices: from the collection, analysis, research ethics and representation of data through the digital traces of public
conversations recorded by social networks. Traditional techniques for observing people in the field are here adapted to the study of interactions and experiences that are manifested through digital communications (Kozinets. 1998. p. 366).
Based on the four types of netnography created by Robert Kozinet, I will orient the methodology towards the approach of a humanistic netnography. This method uses social media data to attempt to answer social research questions (1998. p. 377).
This method not only considers the vulnerability described through the
behaviours and interactions studied, it also raises awareness of the vulnerability of the data left on these virtual spaces. Here, I emphasize that by taking the postulate of a humanistic approach to netnography that does not focus on data collection,
designer-researchers make an activist choice that positions them as defenders of the protection of the data of the people studied (2019. p377). I follow the GDPR guidelines recommended by MaU (Malmö University) by asking for the consent of the persons studied before collecting or using their data and storing the data in a safe space. Furthermore, I guarantee the anonymity of the persons studied (name, age, gender, etc.).
This method will also question and take a critical look at the status of the
designer-researcher as a witness and voyeur of vulnerability.
3.2.2 Designer involved as a participant
Thereafter it will be a matter of querying the designers' relationship to vulnerability when they are no longer passive observers but are themselves committed as subjects of study at the same time as conducting the study. Here, I will combine the previous method with an auto-netnographic approach. Adapted from auto-ethnography, it implies that the
researcher takes account of the data through their own identity, their own experience through personal and autobiographical elements (1998. p. 377). However, auto-ethnography also brings a critical dimension to its understanding of the designer-researcher's own position. By testing different online communication media (Discord, LinkLink, Minecraft, Wordfeud, Whatsapp group, etc.) with friends and relatives, but also with complete strangers met online, the intention will be to experience a less asymmetrical and hierarchical
relationship between the designer-researcher and the people studied, and to demonstrate that the designer is as vulnerable as anyone else.
Carolyn Ellis develops an approach to auto-ethnography that allows to better embrace vulnerability. She supports an ethnography that includes: “researchers’ vulnerable selves, emotions, bodies, and spirits; produces evocative stories that create the effect of reality; celebrates concrete experience and intimate detail; examines how human experience is endowed with meaning; is concerned with moral, ethical, and political consequences; encourages compassion and empathy; helps us know how to live and cope; features multiple voices and repositions readers and “subjects” as coparticipants in dialogue; seeks a fusion between social science and literature in which, as Gregory Bateson says, “you are partly blown by the winds of reality and partly an artist creating a composite out of the inner and outer events”; and connects the practices of social science with the living of life. In short, her goal is to extend ethnography to include the heart, the
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autobiographical, and the artistic text”(Carolyn Ellis, 1999, p 669).
Designer-researchers are therefore no longer spectators of vulnerability, but experience it in their interaction with their subjects of study. Designers are part of their subjects of study. In order to build a knowledge space, I would map digital interactions according to
proxemics relationships but also according to the designer's position in relation to the people being studied and therefore the vulnerability level the designer has with them. These knowledge supports will make it possible to concretize and show this
vulnerable design space and these different levels of reading. 3.3. UNSTRUCTURED INTERVIEWS 3.3.1 Questioning the people-designer hierarchy For many years, the interviews were
conducted by telephone or video call. Here, it will not be a question of rethinking new interview methods according to pandemic restriction, but rather of seeing how these different online means of communication influence the questions of hierarchies between designer-researchers and people in the process. How do these means welcome vulnerability?
These unstructured interviews, otherwise called informal discussions, will therefore be conducted in several forms: interview with a single person (Telegram, Messenger, Minecraft) and focus group (Discord, Zoom, WhatsApp group, LikeLike). Of interested here is the form of the designer's presence during synchronous and asynchronous interviews, but also according to the type of interaction (audio and video, audio message, text, through a virtual avatar).
3.3.2 Creating an intimate relationship
These informal discussions are also an
opportunity to create the first contact with the people being studied and thus to create a relationship of trust. The use of less conventional media, such as chat or video
games, will initially help to shake up the asymmetrical relationship that can sometimes exist between the designer-researcher and the people being studied. The hypothesis behind this approach is that designers, by choosing to position themselves as subjects of study and to take into account their vulnerability, show a less intimidating
speaker, also a vulnerable being and not only a designer-researcher who observes and studies people. This relationship of trust must also be built on transparency and in a space of exchange that takes into consideration the vulnerability that people let the designer see and the vulnerability that they keep secret.
3.4. DIARY METHODS
3.4.1 A support with different temporalities
After addressing the theoretical aspect of the diary, I will now turn to its methodological and formal aspects. The diary is generally
presented in a rather free format. The people studied can create it from scratch or
customize it starting from a template and based on the instructions left by the designer-researcher. People enrich it with various media such as a photograph and text, but it can also take other forms, such as audio messages and hyperlinks. These media will then be used as invitations and guidelines to provoke reflection and discussion in the context of the thesis. They act as mediators between the people studied and the designer. In the case of an online shared diary, it is also advisable to choose the means of
communication by chat, drive or e-mail. These means of sending can themselves become media for the diary.
The diary, therefore, has several
temporalities: during the writing process, as a medium for exchange with the designer researcher and finally as a digitally archived record. Laura Harvey explores a therapeutic and reflexive approach to diary as a space for reflection for the people studied before the interview and as a means of eliciting conversations with their partners, their friends. She is not interested in the content of
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the diary: the diary is never shared with the researcher and is a private space for people to record their experiences of intimate moments in their daily lives (Laura Harvey, 2011. p 677-678).
3.4.2 Questioning the designer presence
This approach questions the presence of the designer-researcher through a medium that can reveal a content of the intimate or even private order (2011. p 677-678). I wonder about the role of diaries as a form of confession of vulnerability (visible by the designer-researcher) and as a private space for the expression of vulnerability (only visible by the person keeping the diary). The diary method involves "the vulnerability of revealing oneself, of not being able to take back what one has written or having any control over how readers interpret it" (Carolyn Ellis, 1999, p 672). The sensitive aspect of revealing personal vulnerability to someone must therefore be considered. The very principle of revealing it makes vulnerable. The fear of being criticized or judged is inescapable (1999, p 673). There are also ethical issues inherent in sharing personal information about family, friends, feelings or reflections.
3.5. SPECULATIVE APPROACH 3.3.1 Speculative part of the diary
The speculative aspect of the diary is another element of the diary that will catch my attention. Indeed, if the people studied share their present (activity, emotions, thoughts, etc.) and keep trace of the past, they also share their reflections on the future, speculate on possible scenarios or model enviable imaginings. Here the aim is not to initiate a speculative method through the diary but rather an approach, an invitation to speculate. Every two days during its podcast "Lettre d'intérieur" (Letter from home) the French radio France Inter invites an artist, author, singer, philosopher or even a researcher to write an open letter questioning the situation and the future. These letters speculate and imagine an optimistic, dystopian, doubtful future. Also these letters, these reflections are addressed to various correspondents: the
person you will be in 5 years, a friend, the child you will never have, your phone screen, etc. How do we engage the people being studied in this speculative and reflective process through the diary?
For Jamer Hunt, designers speculate about people's needs, both material and immaterial, rather than probe through real engagement with the people they study (Hunt, J. 2011, pp3). The ethnographic approaches to participatory design projects challenge the intervention of people in the speculative process and emphasize that true speculative research takes shape during the interactive process between people and the designers (2011, pp4). This reinforces the idea of focusing on the temporality of the present, or at least on how people speculate at that particular moment.
Bruno Latour at the end of his article Imaginer les gestes-barrières contre le retour à la production d’avant-crise (Imagining barrier gestures against the return to pre-crisis production) offers his readers a grid of questions to feed their personal reflections and to speculate on post-crisis scenarios: “As it is always good to link an argument to practical exercises, let's suggest that readers try to answer this little inventory. It will be all the more useful if it is based on a personal experience directly lived. It is not just a matter of expressing an opinion that comes to mind, but of describing a situation and
perhaps extending it with a small survey. Only afterwards, if you give yourself the means to combine the answers to compose the landscape created by the superimposition of descriptions, will you end up with an
embodied and concrete political expression - but not before.
Warning: this is not a questionnaire; it is not a survey. It is an aid to self-description*. It is about making a list of the activities that you feel deprived by the current crisis and that give you the feeling that your basic conditions of subsistence are being undermined. For each activity, can you indicate whether you would like them to
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resume the same (as before), better, or not at all. Answer the following questions:
Question 1: Which of the activities now suspended you would like to see not resumed?
Question 2: Describe (a) why this activity seems harmful/ superfluous/ dangerous/ inconsistent to you; (b) how would its
disappearance/suspension/substitution make other activities that you favour easier/ more consistent? (Make a separate paragraph for each of the answers listed in question 1.) Question 3: What measures do you recommend to ensure that
workers/employees/agents/contractors who will no longer be able to continue in the activities you are removing are facilitated in their transition to other activities?
Question 4: Which of the now suspended activities would you like to develop/resume or which ones should be invented as
replacements?
Question 5: Describe (a) why this activity seems positive to you; (b) how it makes other activities that you favour easier/harmonious/ consistent; and (c) helps to combat those that you consider unfavourable? (Make a separate paragraph for each of the answers listed in question 4.)
Question 6: What measures do you recommend to help
workers/employees/agents/entrepreneurs to acquire the capacities/ means/
income/instruments to take over/develop/create this activity?
(Then find a way to compare your description with those of other participants. Compiling and then superimposing the answers should gradually draw a landscape composed of lines of conflict, alliances, controversies and oppositions).” (Latour, 2020)
In these times of crisis could the diary be an invitation to speculate Or be a support to imagine the vulnerability of tomorrow's world? 3.3.2 Informal discussions The speculation should not only be in the designer's hands, but should take place in the exchange and in the relationship of
intervulnerability that operates between the designer and the people. Following Hunt's belief that it is in the interactions between designers and people that speculative research takes place, I will explore the diary as a medium for exchange and speculation. Why would it be necessary to imagine other possible worlds through the prism of vulnerability? According to María Puig de la Bellacasa, to speculate ethically means to invoke a critical approach that embraces doubt and awareness while appreciating the vulnerability of any position on the "as good as possible" (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017, p7). This is why research with the vulnerability of what it means to think critically and
speculatively is woven into the diary experiments.
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4.Design process
2.1. NETNOGRAPHY/VIRTUAL METHODS 2.1.1 Observing vulnerability Experimentation concept:Observing how people interact and use social networks during the pandemic period and by extension in quarantine. It will also be a question of observing how vulnerability is read on social networks, how people show it and talk about it.
Duration: 1 week
Social media: Twitter, Instagram Interactions:
In this case, I am only an observer and therefore I do not interact with the people I observe.
Noticing observations and insights: Here I will summarise and highlight the most important discoveries and insights from the investigations, the follow up interviews and the diaries.
Social networks as a window to people's intimacy. In this phase of social network
observation I noticed how these media replaced the interactions we had before the pandemic. People show more of their daily life, their intimacy (their family life, their meals, online birthday parties, etc.). Lives on instagram profuse and are the opportunity to share a moment of life live and allow others to participate (by reacting with emoji or
commenting).
Social networks as an emotional trigger. On
Twitter viral videos [✺figure 3 & 7] are shared and touch and emotionally embrace the viewer because of the vulnerability it shows. Be it sorrow [✺figure 3], anger (for instance in reaction to videos showing police violence during lockdown) or sense of community [✺figure 4,5 & 6].
Social networks as a mirror of
vulnerabilities. Social networks also appear
as a means to recognize oneself through moments of shared life, testimonies, feelings. During this period, live Instagram is seen as a means of weaving solidarity, discussing concerns, debating the post-pandemic period and being more present [✺figure 10].
Social networks like public diaries. People
share their daily life in different forms: publications, stories, text, video, photos, etc. During this period, social networks become logbooks and diaries allowing to document the daily life of people during this period [✺figure 13] and to feel less alone with their vulnerabilities [✺figure 14].
The designer-researcher just an " observer " of the vulnerability? During this week of
observation, I witnessed these multiple vulnerabilities. I also became aware that I could not simply remain a passive observer in order to fully accept that I was also part of this vulnerable mass. Although I was merely an observer, I felt close to the people I was observing, sensitive to their testimony and some of them echoing my own difficulties in the face of this pandemic situation. But at the same time this position of the observer gave me the impression of being a voyeur and spying on people in their intimacy. I did not create a relationship with them and my position as a voyeur made them vulnerable because without them knowing it I entered their intimacy.
The designer's position as a voyeur poses an ethical problem and raises questions about the power of the observer. Thus, it
encourages alternative ways of exploring vulnerability, such as rethinking the relationship between the designer and people.
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2.1.2 Mingle with vulnerability
Experimentation concept: Testing of
several communication media to conduct informal discussions about the pandemic and the lockdown.
People & media:
Wordfeud game application> 2 people Discord (audio & text chat)> 8 people (17-47
years old)
Messenger (audio & video) & Netflix Party>
3 people (22-25 years old)
Minecraft> 1 person (11 years old) LikeLike online game> 4 people Duration: 1 week
Noticing observations and insights:
Dissolve the hierarchy between the interviewee and the designer-researcher.
Starting from the premise that in this crisis situation the designer-researcher is also one of the vulnerable people, so I chose to mingle with them in particular through online games. On the Wordfeud application [✺figure 15 & 16], which is an online Scrabble application, the games were punctuated by our
conversations. The questions go both ways, there is not really the interviewee but just two people unfamiliar with each other discussing a period that concerns and affects everyone.
Creating a space of trust. At the beginning of
each discussion I present my thesis topic in order to be clear and transparent about my intentions [✺figure 22]. The fact that I share about my feelings and my daily life during this period invites the people to also entrust themselves.
"I don't feel like I'm being interviewed, I even find it nice and I feel a bit like traveling with you to Sweden."
A player on Wordfeud
On LikeLike, the fact that players use a nickname, an avatar [✺figure 20] and that their character is ephemeral (the character
disappears when the player leaves the game) gives a certification of anonymity. Thus, I don't know the name, the age or even the gender of my interlocutors, I only have their nationality (French, Swiss and German) as information.
"I think I'd never tell you this if we spoke in real life or on the phone."
The player Proust on LikeLike.
Rethinking the designer's presence.
The group discussion was by audio only. I was just one voice among others. Sometimes it was hard to know who was speaking if I wasn't looking at the screen. When the conversation was getting stuck, I would initiate discussion topics by sending photos or video via the online chat [✺figure 19] . I participated in the discussion while facilitating the exchange. The choice to use Minecraft was first made to chat online with a child, via a medium they are familiar with. As with Discord, the exchange was done via audio as well as via our avatars and the game
environment. Sometimes the conversation gets scattered because my interlocutor builds the living room to welcome me.
"It's kind of like when I play with my mates, except we talk more and build less."
A virtual space that builds on our real-life habits. These virtual spaces are like
metaphors of real life spaces: Discord becomes like the living room for
conversations, Netflix Party a cinema session [✺figure 18]. In LinkLink the environment modelled on a residential house invites players to embody everyday gestures [✺figure 21 & 23].
"I come here because I miss meeting strangers like I used to in the subway, in public places, making eye contact, talking about the weather."
The player Milesthefox89 on LikeLike
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2.1.3 Designer as vulnerable as everyone else
As a result of this phase of netnography and unstructured interviews, I came to the conclusion that the best way to explore and observe vulnerability as a searcher-designer is to accept one's vulnerability, and to stop controlling and predicting it. Finally, I am vulnerable as everyone else. "Vulnerability is neither comfortable nor excruciating but necessary." (Brown, B. 2012). For designing with vulnerability I must be affected and active in the process. In addition, my relationship with my interlocutors is less hierarchic because we are together and face the same period of trouble. Despite the physical distance that there is with my interlocutors, I felt close in this process of observation.
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2.2. DIARY METHODS
2.2.1 Diary V1: diary format
Experimentation concept: People use a
diary as a means of retracing and reflecting on their daily life, their feelings during the period of lockdown
People: 11 people from France / 10-68
years old / 5 men & 6 women
1 retiree, 2 nurses, 1 student, 1 doctoral student, 1 secondary school student, 1 high school student, 3 teleworking employees, 1 freelancer
4/11 people is living in confinement alone; the others are with their families or in a shared apartment.
Duration: 10 days
Instructions: Participants were sent a set
of instructions and a diary template over Whats App and via email [Appendix 2].
Noticing observations and insights:
Diary to document this period.
In order to document their daily life in
quarantine people mainly use text and written narration. These texts are often illustrated by a photo, a video seen during the day, a link to an article or a playlist. The feelings of the day are also translated by sensitive and creative media: such as illustration [✺figure 28], or music. Audio messages [✺figure 27] also provide a way to document the mood and the emotional aspect of the day. Two people only designed their diary with audio recordings: the first person captured his guitar improvisations and also his daily background sounds
(neighbours celebrating Pesach with traditional songs, kitchen noises, etc.), the second person told orally about her day.
Documenting these days in this period of pandemic also involves documenting the vulnerability of the daily life [✺figure 25 & 26] and thus the diary reveals itself to be a medium for the expression of emotions.
Diary as an intimate and/or private space.
This feeling of being emotionally immersed in the daily lives of diarists led me to recognize that some information is private, public and therefore vulnerable. One person actually chose not to share their diary and keep it private.
"Obviously I'm not writing down all of my feelings because I know you'll read what I've written, I don't want to overwhelm you."
"I write down everything I experience and feel in my computer notes and then I filter it out when I send it to you, but usually I put it all in the email."
The designer's presence.
This experiment also questions the presence of the designer through the form of the diary and the nature of my contribution. By designing a common, free and modifiable template, I invited the diary authors to subvert the instructions, to appropriate this medium and to design their own diary shape [✺figure 29].
Feedbacks & outcomes:
7/11 of people prefer that the creator correspond with them every day and not just once a week to report on the progress of the diary.
8/11 of people ask me how I am, and are concerned about me [✺figure 31 & 32]. In this time of trouble, people are aware of each other's vulnerability, or at least are attentive to each other. My interlocutors here remind me to consider myself as a vulnerable human being before being a designer-researcher in this process.
"But you also keep a diary? Why don't you share it?"