I’m a creative technologist, currently doing a Master’s in Media Design at HEAD – Geneva. I’m spending two months in Kyoto, where I’m dedicating part of my time to field observations in Shinto shrines, in search of new ways of relating to the invisible.
“What the fuck am I doing here?” is a short essay that tries to capture the ambivalence of my position as a researcher and the way I inhabit my days in Japan. It echoes the posture I am exploring: a new way of dealing with the pursuit of a frictionless hyperproductivity in which I have immersed myself for so many years. in which the “interface” becomes a means of relating to the invisible rather than a tool of domination
From this perspective, I consider the “interface” as a means of relating to the invisible rather than a tool of domination. So, to answer the question of what I’m doing here, I need first to go back and ask what an interface could actually be.
Digital technology is made of layers of electronic components, electrical currents, various materials and code that, when assembled, can perform highly complex calculations. I propose to call this calculated matter, drawing on the work of philosopher and researcher Stéphane Vial.
Calculated matter needs an interface to become intelligible. Without one, what happens inside remains mostly invisible, impossible for most of us to perceive or interpret. Just as a cell needs a microscope to appear to us as a phenomenon, the digital needs interfaces to move from something inaccessible to something we can experience.
In the same way, our body acts as an interface between the world and our internal ecosystem, between our thoughts and our actions - an interface that “I” need to take care of if I want it to function properly.
An interface is therefore not simply a “screen”. It is a relational space.
Humans are part of this space: users, engineers, designers, sellers, decision-makers… Objects too: typography, colors, shapes, materials, devices, sounds… As well as the stories: regulations, beliefs, science fiction, myths and, importantly, metaphors. And finally, there is code: algorithms and programs that animate this strange assembly.
Together, these actors form an interdependent network whose relationships participate in shaping a particular “model” of the world.
Like architecture can influence how people relate to their neighborhood, their neighbors, their family or themselves, interface design influences how we relate to the digital world.
And increasingly, the distinction between the digital and the physical is disappearing. Computation is becoming ubiquitous, embedded in our environments and everyday objects. Yet we still need conceptual tools to think about it. The mouse, the desktop, the cloud: metaphors help us interact with technology, but they also create another layer of abstraction. They make things understandable by hiding how they actually work.
AI makes this particularly weird.
We don’t even really know what to call it: artificial intelligence, machine learning, algorithmic intelligence? The terminology is opaque, the algorithms are black boxes, and the stories surrounding them range from statistics to magic and superintelligence.
Everyone seems to be trying to make sense of what the fuck is going on.
One particularly common strategy is anthropomorphism. We make machines talk. We give them names, personalities and human roles: assistant, agent, copilot. We make them appear human while maintaining an almost absolute relationship of domination over them. We command, they execute.
What kind of relationship are we designing here?
This question is also personal. For years, I internalized a similar obsession with productivity and control. At some point, I started perceiving human imperfection as a defect - ambiguity as noise, hesitation as wasted time, error as failure. So, how can I be capable of producing my own narrative?
But the machine isn’t capable of making sense of what it perceives. It isn’t reflective, and its intelligence only appears exceptional in a world where calculation dominates. So, how can it be capable of producing its own narrative?
And this is probably where Kyoto comes in.
I came here to explore other ways of relating to what cannot be directly perceived - to the invisible, the ambiguous, perhaps the unknowable - beyond control, efficiency, or even domination.
A space in which things appear on equal ontological footing, away from anthropocentrism and binary thinking.
In Shinto shrines, I am observing interfaces everywhere. A torii marks a threshold. A path organizes movement. Water prepares the body. A bell announces a presence. Ema and omikuji materialize exchanges with something that cannot be seen. Even the convention of avoiding the center of the path - leaving it to the kami - makes an invisible presence affect physical behavior.
These objects and rituals do not necessarily make kami visible or explain what they are. Instead, they mediate a relationship with them.
I am also discovering a different relationship with objects, materials and making. Being the designer, builder or craftsperson does not necessarily grant absolute authority over what is made. Making can instead imply responsibility: toward materials, toward objects, toward the entities they may host, and toward the relationships they create.
So perhaps I did not come to Kyoto looking for a new metaphor for AI.
Perhaps I came here looking for another kind of relationship with otherness.
I’m trying to understand whether the relational devices used to interact with the Shinto invisible can help me imagine technological interfaces based less on domination, control and hyper-productivity - and more on ambiguity, attention, care and coexistence.
So, what the fuck am I doing here?
Maybe, I’m learning how to talk to kami.