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03. Get Over Your Cringe

What do you want a better internet to look like?

This piece started in response to our team chat. As a group we explored what questions we wanted to ask. I created a deck of 52 cards with questions inspired by these conversations.

The cards linked to a private Telegram group intended to evoke further discussion online. Although mostly quiet, at birth it was a bit unhinged. People changed the profile picture and name of the group. Started throwing in random images and talking nonsense. Again, more esoteric flavours with a dose of anarchy.

I've given away 74 of these question cards, and used them to have about 200 conversations across the UK, with folks of different ages, cultural backgrounds, and locations. My body is thankful that these interactions did not become my social media content. Being able to look people in the eyes as they spoke, my soul learnt so much.

For starters: Many people actually care about this stuff. And sometimes personal stories can get triggered by a choice of words. And also many people were anti-tech. My biased eyes experienced this as associating all tech with capitalist tech.

Since then, several of these questions have been performed in BSL and are getting ready for an interactive installation. Watch this space.

Get Over Your Cringe installation view
Close-up of Get Over Your Cringe cards and installation objects
Get Over Your Cringe documentation
Blinkie loy // get over your cringe