From words that control us to words that we have control over

In one of her research projects, Seda is looking into the everyday phenomena of technological gaslighting, known as the Terms of Service. She explores how we can shift from this undemocratic and oppressive form of contract towards an eco-social contract model that cares for humans and nonhumans not just for corporations’ interests.

At Dutch Design Week 2024, she exhibited an installation that was accompanied by zines exploring alternative words for imagining alternative worlds. As you might have gathered from ‘this is …’ line in our Soul of City collection, Seda loves playing with words. So, she tapped into this old habit of thinking through and with concepts and arranging them graphically in designing this work. She made the expression ‘eco-social contracts’ with the first letters of the words ‘entanglements, care, other-than-human, sympoiesis, ontological design, co-performance, indigenous, authenticity, listening, contestation, otherwise, negotiation, trans-appearance, radiance, agency, commons, temporality, symbiocene’ to invite the audience to reflect on Terms of Service more pro-actively.

The installation formed as an unfolding circle, starts from the ground and gradually rises to illustrate an idea of movement through reflection and engagement. The words making the installation were carefully selected through ongoing research activities. The windmills hint the necessity to shift towards green energy, while the plexiglass material choice acknowledges the artificial aspect of technology.