An obsessive inventor has dedicated his life to defying a self-sustaining censorship machine. Every night, when they're not looking he enters the machine, seeks it's flaws, and invents a defiant device. Every night when he's not looking, the machine responds, generating a new apendage, a software update. One day the inventor will beat the machine, but until then he keeps trying, every night.

"Defiant Devices" explores the history of severe constraint, but more specifically the creative defiance in response to that constraint. Censorship, and other means of limitation have historically (past and present) resulted in the formation of new language such as the hobo code, the songs of the underground railroad, and even 1337 (leetspeak). The project is an investigation of the affordances and implications of high-speed networked communication.

To get a closer look at my rsearch on the topic of defiance and censorship, please visit this article.

Course: New Modes of Reading & Writing
Instructors: Anne Burdick
Term: Concept Year, Term 2