Simplications

Editorial

Client Chemnitz University of Technology, Chair of Computing & Society
Editor Andreas Bischof
Role Concept and illustration
Published in a white paper on risks in smart home technology, in print and digital formats
Layout Martin Hahn

From comfort to control

Andreas Bischof and his team spent three years on Simplications, a research project on privacy in the smart home, with participatory elements. The white paper distills the results. I was asked for illustrations that carry the subject and look editorial. The result is a series of 18 illustrations that tells the story in pictures.

Who sets up the system?

A project page opened, displaying a stock photo of a house with a large Wi-Fi icon. The image said nothing about the human aspects of the research, but Andreas did. During our telephone conversation, he explained that in many households, it is the tech-savvy partner – often the man – who sets up the smart home for the whole family. The others rarely read the terms and conditions or settings, or feel overwhelmed. Such systems can reinforce traditional gender roles. Harmless sensors can also become surveillance tools.

Care workers, for example, may be recorded by sensors without their knowledge or consent. “Why did the humidity in Grandad’s kitchen only start to rise around 2 pm? Was the carer late today? Is she not carrying out her duties properly?” These stories immediately conjured up vivid images in my mind, and I wanted to draw them. The peak: simple sensors that ex-partners misuse to continue spying.

All these stories behind were very clear, and I wanted to draw them.

Blues, and a signal yellow

I read the draft for the paper and proposed motifs as short texts. After the first round I sketched ideas and delivered them as single files for the layout drafts, plus a feedback sheet for the team. With designer Martin Hahn I settled on a grey-blue palette and a bold yellow that marks the technology. The team trusted the illustration style I developed through my narrative work.

The scanner

The key visual turns the walls of a teenager’s room transparent. Inside is everything that is nobody else’s business: the mess, the unfinished things, the moods. A sharp shape spans the room from corner to corner like a scanner and captures every object, even feelings. The image does not invite you to look. It shows what sensors, and the interpretation of their data, take without asking.

Fresh air

Not every motif is grim. A stuffy wall plate in Fraktur lettering carries a made-up house rule: “Gut ist, wer gut lüftet” (“Good is, who airs well”). It picks up the humidity example. Even ventilation habits leave data traces, and they may one day be held against you by your landlord.

From paper to wall

The paper speaks to researchers as well as engaged citizens, for example through the Verbraucherzentrale (German consumer advice centre), one of the project partners next to TU Chemnitz and Plattform Privatheit (Privacy Platform). The team printed the motifs as posters, and they now hang in the corridor of the professorship.

Simplications is a joint project of TU Chemnitz, Hochschule Anhalt (Anhalt University of Applied Sciences), Verbraucherzentrale e. V. and Plattform Privatheit.