Glossary
A shared vocabulary for the intersection of technology, design, and experience.
More than words: the embodied experiences of a digitally-mediated existence.
This index serves as a reference for the concepts and methodologies that inform my work. It is an evolving collection of terms used to examine our digital environments and the systems we inhabit.
Cognitive Auditing
The practice of analyzing how digital interfaces impact attention and mental workload.
Digital Sovereignty
A state where individuals have the agency and clarity to navigate digital systems intentionally.
Mixed-Media Inquiry
A multidisciplinary approach to research that uses art-led prototyping to explore complex relationships with technology.
Algorithmic Dysphoria
The unsettling feeling of being misrepresented by a predictive system. It occurs when an automated feed serves content that conflicts with one's actual self-perception, highlighting the gap between biological identity and digital data-shadows.
Phantom Tethering
The habitual, subconscious impulse to check a device without a specific notification or purpose. This behavior reflects a "lived reality" where the boundary between the natural body and the artificial grid has blurred, creating a psychological dependency on constant connectivity.
Interface Frictionlessness
A design state where every obstacle to consumption is removed (e.g., infinite scroll or autoplay). While marketed as "user-friendly," it often bypasses the user's intentional decision-making tree, leading to a loss of Digital Sovereignty.
Somatic Desync
The state of being physically present in a space while one's attention is fully occupied by a digital environment. This term examines how designed interfaces can lead to a disconnection from biological boundaries and sensory presence.
The Predictive Loop
A cycle where an individual's future behavior is influenced by the very algorithms designed to "predict" it. By examining these "archival traces" of data, we can see how our digital tools don't just follow us—they actively reconfigure our psychological maps.
Cognitive Offloading
The process of externalizing internal mental tasks—such as memory, spatial navigation, or decision-making—onto digital tools. While technology serves as a vital storage vessel, this term examines the "atrophy" of specific brain faculties when the cognitive load is fully automated. It questions how the transmutation of information from internal thought to external data-shadows reconfigures our ability to form deep, abstract connections.
Somatic Anchoring
The intentional use of low-frequency, physical movement to synchronize biological rhythms with creative cognition. Drawing from the neurobiology of the "morning walk," this concept explores how slow, rhythmic movement activates specific brain waves conducive to imagination and flow states. It serves as a grounded counter-measure to the high-frequency "chaos" of digital environments, allowing for a recalibration of sensory awareness.
Technological Enclosure
A design architecture that provides perceived safety and comfort while isolating the individual from unmediated reality. Influenced by Foucault's theories on order and constraint, this term analyzes how digital "emplacements" configure our sense of action and agency. It highlights a paradox of the digital age: a pervasive sense of social connectivity that masks a deep, systemic isolation and a lack of embodied experience.
The Intelligence Mirage
The cognitive bias where access to a vast network of information is mistaken for individual understanding and wisdom. As communication technology transmutes information into instantly consumable formats, this term examines the loss of the "storing" mechanism in the human brain. It probes the gap between consuming media—such as film or narrative—and actually integrating those frameworks into one's own behavior and character.
Neural Sedimentation
The slow, physical "rewiring" of the brain's pathways through repeated interaction with specific technological mechanisms. Following Stiegler's technics, this term views the interface as a tool that evolves the human organism. It explores how the practice of creative design and technical development exercises certain brain faculties, effectively "storing" the history of our digital habits within our biological architecture.
Ritualized Automation
The translation of ancient human impulses—such as belief, storytelling, and survival—into subconscious digital habits. This concept examines how harmful habits and addictions are often "niche" psychological survival mechanisms that have been captured by the predictive loop. It asks how we can reclaim these rituals to foster genuine human development and shared understanding instead of mechanical dependency.