Be Ok With Complexity

The piece of design work shown here is one of a number of possible covers for a small text I have been working on. The text is for a university course I deliver. Focussed on the philosophy of technology.

The cover design is me practicing. As a student of graphic design. And here I am recreating / copying / repurposing a really cool piece of work I came across. A piece of work I have yet to work out who actually created. And where their inspiration came from. We all build on the backs of others. Which is also the case with this text.

It is to be edgy and esoteric. Mysterious. And I hope is will leave my students with more questions than answers and also a willingness to embrace that. To be ok with complexity. And to recognise the importance of discussion that is well reasoned, well argued and respectful of others and their views. We have been doing this for years now. And their engagement has helped me create the current version of the text.

This is an exploration of technology and our relationship to it. I use mixed methods – poetic inquiry, creative non fiction, art, zine making, graphic design, and analysing my student’s work and our discussions. The hope is that they help me co-create the next editions. And so it will become an anthology – of discussion – poetic and aesthetic and philosophical – and I guess a socially constructed meaning of what it means to be human – and what future we would like to create for ourselves from here on out.

So the title – ‘kaptcha’ – has relevance. It is a tweaked iteration on the contrived acronym ‘captcha’ – the challenge used to tell humans and computers apart. Which interestingly enough, humans fail everyday. Me included.