The mirroring system of instant messaging implies the presumed availability of the interlocutor. However, while waiting for a response, certain questions become recurrent: “Alex is online, why isn’t he answering? What is he doing?”
Latent* is a chat application that allows you to converse with your friends by developing the context of the discussion and what is not said.
Just like theatre, it fuels the conversation by adding didascalies generated according to the collected data (response time, location). By highlighting the unsaid parts of an exchange, the generated reading mode enriches the discussion, creates poetic tension, and allows the interlocutors to become the characters of their own play.
www.melaniefontaine.ch
Diploma project (2022) by Mélanie Fontaine