By Opening this Publication
(2019)MA group project
Publication pack
Pamphlet, A6
Stickers
This project is a comment on the iniquitous conditions attached to our digital engagement. We all tend to click ‘agree’ but barely read the conditions because we continue to feel we have little choice anyway.
The publication pack.
The focus of the project’s physical presence is the pamphlet1 entitled By Opening this Publication you are Agreeing to... which challenges the reader to break the seal of the transparent pack that contains it.
The pamphlet’s text appropriates the language that exists in the grey area between implied and informed consent. It adapts extracts of Facebook and Google’s own terms & conditions, with the catch-all disclaimer We reserve all rights not expressly granted to you given its own special page.
This is because if it were de-jargoned it would probably say something like ‘We reserve the right to deny or refute anything else with you that we haven’t already covered here, and which might come up later’.
The pack, which contains the pamphlet and stickers, formed the physical material of P Group’s2 output; gathered together and exhibited with other groups’ work in the MA Work-in-Progress publication, which took the form of an A5 box.
The pack also provides the means to connect to the group’s corresponding digital material on a local pirate box. On this we recorded conversations about shared themes in our recent dissertation work and how they had culminated in this publication.
The pamphlet’s text appropriates the language that exists in the grey area between implied and informed consent. It adapts extracts of Facebook and Google’s own terms & conditions, with the catch-all disclaimer We reserve all rights not expressly granted to you given its own special page.
This is because if it were de-jargoned it would probably say something like ‘We reserve the right to deny or refute anything else with you that we haven’t already covered here, and which might come up later’.
The pack, which contains the pamphlet and stickers, formed the physical material of P Group’s2 output; gathered together and exhibited with other groups’ work in the MA Work-in-Progress publication, which took the form of an A5 box.
The pack also provides the means to connect to the group’s corresponding digital material on a local pirate box. On this we recorded conversations about shared themes in our recent dissertation work and how they had culminated in this publication.
1The writing and design of the pamphlet were my principal contributions to the group project.
2 Fellow P Groupers were Hannah Kelly, Karthik Sowbaghyanathan, Likando Kumoyo and Jiyong Ahn.
2 Fellow P Groupers were Hannah Kelly, Karthik Sowbaghyanathan, Likando Kumoyo and Jiyong Ahn.