Shen Elki

How can communication design use print as a medium to resist algorithmic colonisation in contemporary reading systems

Abstract

Off-Piste explores how publication design can create alternative reading systems that resist algorithmic optimisation. The project responds to the loss of deep, independent reading in a culture shaped by recommendation engines and data-driven visibility. Through practice-based inquiry, it develops a wall-scale magazine that transforms reading into a collective, participatory, and reflective encounter. Drawing on theories of algorithmic colonisation (Birhane 2020) and interdependent publishing (Tweedie-Cullen 2025), the research repositions design as an ethical, social, and collaborative practice. It argues that resistance emerges not through technological rejection, but through material, spatial, and relational strategies that reintroduce care, slowness, and plurality into how knowledge is shared.

The purpose of this phase was to test how illegibility and unpredictability could act as resistance to algorithmic systems in reading. Through experiments with OCR-unreadable typography, asemic writing, recipes, and book lists, I found that technical illegibility was ineffective because algorithms adapted quickly while human readers lost accessibility. This phase shifted my focus toward designing for human legibility, agency, and plurality as more sustainable forms of resistance.

The purpose of this phase was to explore how collective and situated contributions could reframe publishing as a human recommendation system. By gathering peer-generated topics such as cooking, cats, film, and music, I tested how plurality, ambiguity, and participation could counter algorithmic homogenisation. This phase marked a shift from isolated experimentation to interdependent publishing, revealing that resistance in design grows through community and shared context.

The purpose of this phase was to synthesise insights from previous experiments into a cohesive publication system. Through the development of Off-Piste, a large-format wall magazine, I tested how material scale, adjacency-based layout, and reader participation could transform reading into a shared, reflective act. This phase demonstrated that resistance to algorithmic culture can be enacted through design decisions that value slowness, care, and collective meaning-making over optimisation and efficiency.

Artefacts

Select Bibliography

Birhane A (2020) ‘Algorithmic Colonization of Africa’, SCRIPT-Ed, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 389–409, https://doi.org/10.2966/scrip.170220.389.
Drucker J (2014) Graphesis: Visual Forms of Knowledge Production, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
Tweedie-Cullen L (2025) ‘Publishing in the Platform Age: Between Presence and Disappearance’, RMIT Design Archives Journal, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 44–51.