For Praxis 3, the three topics that I addressed were racism and misogyny in technology and code, the complexities of existence shared between a Utopian and Dystopian future, and a Dystopian imagined future. Although the subject of each media post was quite different, I found that contributing to the “Manifesto for the Future” did not only make me think about how these specific issues would take shape in the future, but how their existence in the past have affected the present that I currently live in. 

With communication as a basic human need in an increasingly digital world, words become much more powerful to listeners and viewers when delivered with pictorial representation. For Praxis 3 Week 1 project, The Coding Cycle, this project was my most thorough and successful one in the terms of how it serves as both a multimedia intervention and as a critique of hidden histories. For this project, Madeline, Jonathan, and I wanted to focus on how present technology and code are inherently racist, sexist, heteronormative, homophobic, and transphobic. Because of society’s dependence on technology from the minute we’re born, it’s impossible to not absorb and take part in these oppressive ideals. Therefore, by simply using and needing technology, we rely on and constantly contribute to this oppressive cycle of information. Creating our own multimedia enhanced our argument because we were able to visually communicate the evident dominance that white cis males have in the CS industry while also being able to provide a history of the women-lead advancements that have been erased overtime. Our annotations were made as a form of “call to action,” where we elaborated on women in the CS industry that deserve recognition for their technological advancements in improving our worldly technology. 

For both my Week 2 and Week 3 projects, the process of collaborating for these multimedia projects was extremely useful in generating ideas that I had not even considered. For example, for my Week 2 project with Annie and Megan, Annie told us that she was very interested in exploring the similarities and differences of utopias and dystopias. She suggested using media that we’ve consumed in the past to use as a point of reference for the ideals, values, and beliefs shared between the two futures. As someone that has never really thought about the intricacies of a dystopia or utopia (because I found them farfetched and unrealistic), I really enjoyed using Week 2’s multimedia as a learning opportunity. This lined up perfectly for me because in Week 3’s project with Eujue and Katie, we decided to delve into the idea of an “imagined future” for their Week 2 post, where they created a future dystopian society in which social class is determined by access to technology and high-speed internet. Inspired by our in class discussion of Wakanda and the role of imagined futures, we decided to further build their Dystopian society by creating an interactive narrative that depicts the toilings that a low-class member must go through to rise in ranks. Through our Week 3 multimedia project, 3024, I was able to take into consideration the type of dialogue that takes place in a dystopian imagined future. Building the narrative ourselves forced us to balance both the creative and realistic thoughts of our main character’s struggles, and how these struggles impact her interactions with her surrounding peers and environment. 

On a more personal level, this 3024 forced me to be more aware of how this hierarchical society is not too far off from how our current society is structured. In a way, it’s true -- those with greater access to technology and internet are most often the ones that are higher class, whereas those who are low and working class must go through a series of financial and economic troubles to gain better access to technological advancements and amenities that the majority of humanity is now dependent on. This brought me back to the very first post I did in Week 1, which is all about how this systemic cycle of oppression is never ending. Those that are oppressed rarely escape their oppression, which is exactly what happens to the main character in 3024. In a way, although all three of my multimedia projects came full circle and directly related to one another, it allowed me to draw conclusions that I find uneasy and anxiety-inducing: if this dystopian future has a possibility to come to fruition, then what kind of social change needs to take place to completely revamp the infrastructure of how our current society functions? Does such a change even exist? And even if it did, would there be enough time to implement this change before the effects of the oppressive cycle become irreversible?