Taking on the network: making space for the identity play of networked publics Ben Dalton Royal College of Art Winter 2018 A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Author’s Declaration This thesis represents partial submission for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Royal College of Art. I confirm that the work presented here is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. During the period of registered study in which this thesis was prepared the author has not been registered for any other academic award or qualification. The material included in this thesis has not been submitted wholly or in part for any academic award or qualification other than that for which it is now submitted. Signature: Date: 2 Author’s Declaration Abstract This thesis is positioned in the field of communication design research and seeks to critically examine the practice and potential of identity play by digitally networked publics. It defines identity play as entailing a form of identity design practiced by participating publics themselves. The research contributes an understanding of the role of the designer in the entangled networks of digital public space by treating identity design agencies as co-produced with audiences and materials. The thesis locates identity play as part of a productive tradition of anonymous pseudonymity practices. It challenges design assumptions of anonymity as a contemporary privacy problem and of identity as detached and preexisting. The thesis elucidates an intra-active interpretation of identity design as on-going processes of collectively re-making network apparatuses and identity phenomena, moving beyond the limits of centralising and commercial models. It constructs the designer-researcher's role in making space for identity play through taking on the network. The Creative Exchange (CX) – a UK Arts & Humanities Research Council Knowledge Exchange Hub – provided the space to collaborate and research with diverse consortia of designer-researcher participants and their networked audiences to explore the possibilities of digital public space. The methodology employed by the thesis is grounded theory research through design underpinned by a "diffractive" research stance, with theory and practice read iteratively through each other. I have collected and critically analysed data using "design conversations" with materials, participants and audiences, through multiple projects and prototypes, bounded by the CX Hub and its activities over five years. The thesis constructs three prototype design patterns to make space for the identity play of networked publics from my practice as a designer-researcher: Sticking together, Fashioning our own belongings and Taking on the network. Each pattern produces an intersection of practices of identity design, networked public participation and design research. The design pattern of Sticking together offers ways of using assemblage to create anonymity and reputation. It calls for and requires the solidarity of collective assembly and ways to make identity play commonplace. Fashioning our own belongings investigates possessions as embodied networked apparatuses of identity, and audience relations as belonging. This design pattern grasps network function and fosters pseudonymity (dis)ownership. Taking on the network is formulated as a performance of inversion by publics through the resistance of the carnivalesque and the responsibility of infrastructural inversions. Taking on the network provides the overarching framework for the design patterns to take on the functions and models of cloud infrastructures. These findings demonstrate how identity design by publics requires active forms of network literacy that comprehend the network intra-actively, and that it is possible to take on the network by contesting cloud identity apparatuses and models. The design patterns make space for the identity play that, importantly, enables critical and creative anonymity practices to take place. The research offers identity play as a public critical infrastructure with benefits for the resilience and creativity of networked publics. It lends support to designers to reconfigure their part in identity design. The original contributions to knowledge are: (1) prototype design patterns for making space for the identity play of networked publics; (2) an articulation of the design space for identity play; (3) a diffractive form of design pattern that entails multiple intersecting practices; and (4) an intra-active interpretation of the discipline of identity design. Abstract 3 Table of Contents List of Illustrations 6 Acknowledgements 10 Dedication 11 Chapter 1 – Introduction 13 The Creative Exchange Hub 15 Research inquiry 17 Identity within digital public space 18 Thesis outline 21 Chapter 2 – Literature review 22 Identity design 24 Identity 27 Anonymous pseudonymity 36 Anonymity 51 Networked publics 61 Designer-researcher practice 70 A material-discursive understanding 75 Chapter 3 – Methodology 78 Project conversations 78 Scope of the study and theoretical sampling 79 Research through design 81 The diffractive practitioner 83 Grounded theory approach 85 Grounded theory research through design 90 Constant comparative design methods 94 Critical reflective research practice 96 Intra-active contestational prototyping 99 Introducing the data analysis: a note & an appendix of the data set 102 Chapter 4 – The overarching design pattern 106 Prototype design patterns 109 Identity design 112 Networked public participation 112 Designer-researcher practice 113 Infrastructural inversion and carnivalesque inversion 113 The design space: Designing for identity play 114 Anonymous pseudonymity apparatuses 119 Cryptographic identity apparatuses 121 4 Table of Contents Chapter 5 – Sticking together 124 Identity design 125 Anonymity patterns: Creative constraints and context collapse 125 Assemblage: Designing identities through sticking together 133 Resisting and inverting: Reputations and stereotypes 139 Constituting audiences and authenticity through knowing fabrication 143 Networked public participation 148 Making identity play commonplace 150 Designing identity collectively 162 Social data chaff 164 Designer-researcher practice 169 Chapter 6 – Fashioning our own belongings 174 Identity design 176 Network cabinets 182 Possessions 187 Getting to grips with: Embodying identity design agencies 196 Belongs to: Contesting (dis)ownership 206 Common goods 213 Networked Public Participation 217 A common place: Public spaces 218 Make good: Ongoing repair of identity apparatuses 223 Bothering 228 Designer-researcher practice 233 Chapter 7 – Taking on the network 238 Identity design 240 Networked public participation 246 Designer-researcher practice 260 Contesting clouds: Re-distributing agencies 261 Intersecting aspects of taking on the network 263 Identity play: Inversions and literacies 267 Iterations of identity play 267 Identity play in carnivalesque spaces 269 Identity play and playing mas 272 Ethical considerations. Facing one's own assumptions and privilege 273 Inversions: Taking on the network 273 Chapter 8 – Conclusions 276 Theoretical and methodological contributions of the thesis 276 Using these contributions 278 Research limitations 280 Important learning and challenging assumptions 281 Cutting identity design apart-together 282 Where next? What design research might follow? 283 Shifting contexts from project inception to completion 285 Appendix A – Project appendix 288 Appendix B – Example of coding and memo-making 322 References 325 Table of Contents 5 List of Illustrations Fig.1 Comparative analysis through some of my studio mapping and sorting practices...............................95 Fig.2 A timeline of activity of the larger projects and proposals during my CX research process....................104 Fig.3 Floor of paper cut apart together.......................................................................................124 Fig.4 Printing an ascii-key experiment.....................................................................................126 Fig.5 Experiments in mask making using memorable typographic forms.............................................126 Fig.6 A placard written within the creative constraints of a stamp kit..................................................127 Fig.7 Charles Fréger exhibition in Liverpool................................................................................127 Fig.8 Barrow Woodwose experiments over the week-long residency. Photos: Benedict Phillips.....................128 Fig.9 Drawing tablet and scanner Tor Toys prototypes...................................................................128 Fig.10 A Chattr participant dictates a text art . Photo: Hwa Young Jung..............................................129 Fig.11 Notes from our early Walk in the Park design discussions........................................................130 Fig.12 A Desk Snap selfie......................................................................................................130 Fig.13 The larger sections of a print typecase show the relative frequency distribution of common letters..........131 Fig.14 Part of my sketch mapping the identity design histories of the LulzSec.........................................133 Fig.15 A philosopher and gender theorist, the fairytale image diffraction patterns....................................134 Fig.16