Week 11

Manifestation and A Chrome Extension


Extension for Manifestation

I stumbled onto an article that talked about a trend of the Manifinsta.

Click to view article



I thought back to my writings about the ritual back in week 4. I believe this could be viewed as a modern "superstition" in which we get back what we put out into the universe (in this case, on the internet).

Some interesting quotes from the article:

“There’s a culture of self-deprecation online that I’ve started to reject”

"As young people continue to turn away from traditional organised religions, ideas and techniques like manifestation are ultimately getting picked up by Silicon Valley-type apps and companies."

"While posting that your job interview will go well or that your ex-boyfriend still definitely “needs you” to ten people are harmless, the premise that everything you consume and engage with online builds your future reality is terrifying."

This is yet another example of a well-meaning trend that finds its roots in our old divination practices. The article warns of the risks of such trends, as they still allow insidious advertisements to use the data we put up for its own gain. It seems only a matter of time before our personal manifestations are used by algorithms to sell us a product, or used to manipulate us in other ways.

This begs the question, is there a way we can create a self-contained manifestation portal that doesn't rely on the internet?


I was reminded of Maya Man's project 'Glance Back' that I found a while ago. The chrome extension gets the user to take a photo of themselves at random moments of the day and type a short caption of what they were doing at the moment.

The extension served as little interventions through the day to take the user out of the trance that we often fall into while browsing the internet. Man stressed the importance that the images were self-contained and saved to the local storage, making the experience one purely shared by the user and the computer.


SFPC_Malware_Anthology.zip

A "virus" for lost emails

I also remembered seeing a series of projects by School for Poetic Computation students in which they created a series of "viruses" as interventions. The idea of a virus infiltrating the experience of a user, but turned on its head for positive interventions was so genius to me, and I wanted to see if I could create my own version of that.

Light a Candle

Lighting a Candle in Temples

I thought of the act of lighting a candle in temples that I used to do with my family. I dont have a good picture so the stock photo on the left will do.

I got an idea to create an extension that served as a user's personal manifestation platform. One that was self-contained and did not require the user to post it on any online platform.


So I tried my hand at making an extension.



Asking a tree for answers