Counter-acting lexicons for the Terms of Service

Hosted by Seda Özçetin

This project is now archived and was part of DDW24

Event type

Exhibition

Location

Strijp T+R

BioArt Laboratories

Oirschotsedijk 14-10

5651 GC

Zine mock-up exploring different vocabularies

Seda Özçetin

Counter-acting lexicons for the Terms of Service is an exploration into the power of words in shaping our worlds. At the garden of BioArt Labs, lexicons that attempt to change the conversation for imagining eco-social contracts will be exhibited.

Words that control us!

Terms of Service is a key figure in the technologically textured everyday. It is used to legitimize the data practices of technology companies. To do so, it taps into the power of the words. By gathering words in a specific flow and structure for a specific purpose, it creates a specific type of narrative. It defines who is who, who can do what, who can’t do what and sets the rules of the game serving to the benefit of the technology companies. Through these tactics, it makes a specific type of world for us to live in and controls our sense of being online and offline.

Words that give us control!

How can we imagine alternatives for the Terms of Service? Could it be through counter-acting words? Exploring eco-social contracts, this exhibition proposes new vocabularies that think with humans and nonhumans rather that only with corporations. How about ‘E’ for ‘ecology’, ‘C’ for ‘care’, ‘N’ for nonhuman? This exhibition is a conversation starter for changing the conversation.

Proudly funded by

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 955990.

Hosted by

Seda Özçetin
[email protected]
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About Seda Özçetin

Seda Özçetin is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie PhD fellow at Umeå Institute of Design, Umeå University (SE) as part of DCODE Network and co-founder and lead designer of Hamide Design Studio (DK). Her work is informed by an attitude of in-betweenness that designerly reflects on the often hidden entanglements of everyday life. In her research, she explores care-centric approaches to forming sustainable relations with contemporary connected things as an alternative to Terms of Service.