Spread the Bread

Inspired by firsthand experience with these developments, Kiki uses speculative design to explore and design for this social and societal context. Spread the Bread uses toast and toasters as a speculative medium to explore the context by employing the wide range of associations that toast and bread bring forward, their mundane character, everyday use, and material affordances.  We set out to explore what role toast could play in the context of activism and expression, and what the development and deployment of the speculative designs can uncover about activist expression and communication.

This resulted in three design interventions. First, a laser-powered toast printer to provoke thought and discussion and present a speculative yet experienceable alternative.  Second, we organised a toast engraving session to interactively inquire about thoughts and experiences on activism and (online) communication. In the last step, Kiki created a protest sign to take into the field, in this case, a protest, and experience firsthand how people respond to such an intervention while further building a network to use for further inquiry in her upcoming graduation project.

The activist community is more aware of online surveillance and data gathering by big tech. Spread the Bread applied speculation, absurdity and humour to build a network of inquiry and find what we can learn from this community. How can we reclaim our communication, data, and overall privacy? 

In the further development of her graduation project, Kiki Meiland will use and extend the network to explore this question.

The next iteration of the project can be viewed (and maybe tasted) during the Manifestations exhibition during DDW.