From cloud aesthetics to alternative circuits and assemblages: Bridging theory, fieldwork and design to nuance our computational tropes and narratives

From the seminal “cloud” metaphor to green buttons and blue thumbs-up emojis, our interactions and dominant discourses around the digital embody a specific capitalistic agenda: the one of technology as a commodity fetishism we simply consume and later trash without understanding how it operates. In addition, these interfaces and metaphors hide the complex human, material and environmental assemblages enabling, operating and optimising our digital processes. Drawing from this context, the article is intended for artists and interaction designers interested to critically engage with technology and their “blackboxes”. It argues for the importance of bridging design with social-science and ethnographic fieldwork. Through this lens, it posits that designers can, first, better understand the lifecycle and infrastructures of our electronic objects as well as, second, create artefacts that nuance and critique these dominant narratives and beliefs around digital “immateriality”.