Architecting Reality

@KatalogofchaosKat King

Takeaways• We live in a shared ‘reality’ sustained

by our continued use of it• Nothing is neutral• We have an ethical duty as

information architects to be aware of the structures we are upholding and how they impact our future

Location

Alphabet

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Category

Hierarchy

• Challenge structures of inequality

• Help more people be healthy, happy, have agency over their own lives, and control of their own meanings

• Helps people make choices that lead to the above

What is Good?

“The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.”

-Niels Bohr

Image by Flickr user amanda_freeman

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.-Carl Sagan

Location

Alphabet

Time

Category

Hierarchy

Chaos

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Alphabet

Time

Category

Hierarchy

REALITY

Thing

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Location

GH IJKLMNOPQRSTUVW

Photo by Flickr user KentWang

Mondrian

Netherlands

Oil

Painting

Alphabet

Hierarchy(Formerly Continuum)

(Briefly Magnitude)

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Cop-out

“Most of our lives are spent joining

others in the re-creation of

conventional understandings; there

is little encouragement to do more, and

numerous reasons to remain within familiar

realities. –Creel Froman (Language and Power Book I,

Section 4.)Image Flickr user funfilledgeorgie

“…there are advantages to some in imposing a language (truth, knowledge) and restricting the creation and circulation of other languages” –Creel Froman (Language and Power, Book I, Section 16)

“Consequences of realities affect different people differently, and those advantaged solidify their advantages into structures.” –Creel Froman (Language and Power, Book I, Section 10)

Photo of illustration inHow to Make Sense of Any Mess by Abby Covert

From This post by Tumblr user La Negra Barbuda

We have an ethical duty to stop this trash.

@KatalogofchaosKat King