Critical Material Investigation / Privacy / Interpretation
Data Material Traces: To Reveal or Not to Reveal
What changes when the context of personal information is revealed—or withheld?
Birth-control packaging, menstrual representations, earrings, and bodily imprints become material sites for questions about privacy and interpretation. Jana investigated how revealing or withholding context changes what an intimate trace leaves open to inference, and contributed as a manuscript co-author with adviser Audrey Desjardins.
Original material investigation from Data Material Traces. Specific material, process, and disclosure context to be confirmed.
Year
2024–2025
Institution
University of Washington, Interaction Design
Jana’s role
Undergraduate researcher & manuscript co-author
Adviser / collaborators
Adviser: Audrey Desjardins
Why this research
An intimate trace can be visible without being understandable. Material representation makes personal information available to interpretation, yet the person represented may not wish to disclose the context that makes it legible. This project treats that tension as a design question about privacy, inference, and authority over personal meaning.
Approach and scope
The work uses artifact-based critical material investigation. Birth-control packaging, menstrual representations, earrings, and bodily imprints serve as sites for examining what is revealed and what remains withheld. Original artifacts and disclosure choices are the appropriate basis for interpretation; audience reactions cannot be inferred from the objects alone.
What this work contributes
The project contributes material investigations and collaborative research writing that bring disclosure into the presentation of intimate information. Jana’s confirmed role includes undergraduate research and manuscript co-authorship with adviser Audrey Desjardins. The exact manuscript title, author list, venue, and submission status have not been established here.
Intimate traces, partial accounts
Packaging, menstrual representations, earrings, and bodily imprints bring everyday objects into questions of disclosure. The artifact is not a transparent account of the experience behind it.
What can a trace say without its context?
Pending · Individual material photographs
Revealing / withholding
The project varied the amount of context accompanying material traces, asking what disclosure leaves open to inference.
Pending · Context withheld
Pending · Context revealed
From material inquiry to research writing
The work includes a collaborative manuscript advised by Audrey Desjardins. Jana’s confirmed role is manuscript co-author.
Pending · Manuscript title, coauthors, venue & status
Reading across the work
Revealing more context is not automatically equivalent to representing an experience more faithfully. The critical question is also who chooses the disclosure and who retains the ability to refuse it. Reading the artifacts this way foregrounds privacy as an ongoing relationship between a trace, its maker, and its audience rather than a simple visible/hidden distinction.
An object does not explain itself
Material traces invite interpretation without guaranteeing understanding. A next investigation could examine how disclosure is negotiated and who retains control over personal meaning. This is a critical material investigation; no audience-study findings are claimed.
Documentation URL pending