Drawing from the background research for the conference, I am looking to explore the idea that the mouse holds the user. “It holds you,” stayed with me as a gesture towards emotional labor, both in its form and functionality as a physical link between digital and analog space. I consider the intimacy and guiding power of the mouse to be feminized in its labor. I propose a mouse from a repurposed antique chair.
Ton is both a controller and a training tool that empowers you to discover intimacy and connection like no other. As you flick the tongue, the screen shows a de-pixelating photo of you from Google image search. Based on reflection on an abusive relationship, the project explores the relationship between digital agency and privacy by drawing parallels with an equally powerful and revealing sexual act.
Stretch Breaks is a collection of exercises for computer-caused pain management. Nodding to credentialed medical advice and ergonomics, Stretch Breaks offers an impractical regimen for balancing conflations of productivity and self-worth, psychosocially exacerbated chronic pain, and conscious pursuits of bodily escapism. It is apologetically hand-drawn.
The nature of our interaction with the mouse is such that through its physical manipulation, we alter the digital space: our hand+mouse movements have consequences inside the screen. However, what resides inside the screen is not a painting or a film’s closed universe, but most often it is a link back to our own world.
Jack-In is a mouse that inverts the strap-on to attempt a functional prosthesis of a vagina that doubles as a direct interface to digital spaces where users can explore alternate identities. Continuing the legacy of overtly yonic mice such as the “G-Spot Mouse”, Jack-In is a strap-on harness mouse with a trackball clitoris and g-spot clicker.
The Calm Down hand-like mouse invites the user to click but in the comfort of a heavy, sand filled hand below and a weighted-blanket style hand above. Comforting, even sensual, the mouse hands appear as though they are both guiding you and slowing down your clicking activities to a more measured speed. With this comfortable and reassuring but slowed down method of surfing the web, one can avoid manic clicking on too many tabs and have time to rethink hitting the “buy now” button.
In the last decade when algorithms were weaponized and turned on its users to feed them anxiety, longing, and validation, the click now serves acts as a conduit to scratch an itch.
While the physical computer mouse fades into obsolescence, the design of the mouse cursor (or pointer) is likely here to stay. If the computer mouse mediates exchange between body and computer, then what can the design of the mouse cursor say about desire and intent? Examining the mouse cursor as a site for personal modification - CURSORWORLD is a mouse cursor creation and sharing tool, guided by our collective values as computer users.