Headlines from the Future

Finals

Trigger Warning: Rape and violence

For my finals, I decided to continue working on Sketch 5: Headlines from the Future. The topic was on rape for the previous sketch. For this topic, I decided to focus on rape and sexual violence targeted at minority women in India. I also wanted to add an element of physical interaction. The concept would be made using Tracery library in P5. The headlines generated would start with a negative headline when left alone without any interactions. The negative headline would be generated based on headlines from recent events.

I'm also adding an element of interaction using an Arduino and a capacitive touch sensor. For this project I'm using 5 wires from the capacitive touch sensors (which will be attached to 3d printed hands). The more people touch the sensors, the more positive the news generation becomes.

I started off by reading news from India about rape and sexual violence targetted at minority women. I started seeing a pattern around the crimes and systemic brutality against women belonging to minority groups in India. I decided to create a list of victims, crimes, and systemic brutalities to generate the first headline. I wanted to convey that, if we don't do anything about this, the same things would keep happening.

Word/phrase list for the first headline. When no one is interacting with the installation.

I then created the last headline - the most positive headline, based on things that women do right now to keep ourselves safe. The headlines from the future, if all 5 people interact with the installation at the same time, would generate the most positive headline. The headline would be that the things women do currently to keep themselves safe, they don't do anymore in the future implying that crime against women has been lowered significantly and a safe enough place is created for them that they don't feel the need to take these precautions anymore.

Word/phrase list for the most positive headline. When 5 people are interacting with the installation at the same time.

I then used backcasting to imagine some of the changes we need to make and ways society can create a safer space for women, especially women from minority groups to take us to a positive future.

Depending on the number of people interacting with the installation at a given time, the headline generated becomes more positive. I wanted to convey that we can make a better future when more people come together to try to make a difference.

Word/phrase list for the intermediate headlines

p5 sketch screen recording

Interactions with the p5 sketch

For the final presentation, I wanted it to feel like you were reading from a newspaper, so I created a fake newspaper with a blank space to project the headlines on it. The wires would be fixed to 3D-printed hands placed around the paper where people can interact with the installation and see the changes in the headlines generated.

Sketch projected onto a fake newspaper

Credits: