On Rot & Ever-Shrinking Options | Public Session 1 of 2 | September 12 (10:30am–12pm EDT)
We are constantly tired. We are scrolling. And the platforms we labour to make ourselves marketable on are, mostly, the same ones we scroll on to take the edge off.
On Rot & Ever-Shrinking Options is a free public session for anyone who has felt their attention erode and has wanted language for it that isn't "getting off the computer." It's the first of two sessions introducing the ideas behind Parallel Playground, a program co-delivered by UKAI Projects and World Creation Studio.
In this session, we'll:
Sit with the specific, physical texture of the world we inhabit—the six-digit 2FA code you can't hold in your head anymore, the frantic handwriting OCR (optical character recognition) still can't read, the muscle memory it takes to steep a good cup of tea
Introduce why Parallel Playground exists: a residency for creatives who want to work with current tools and systems without handing over creative autonomy, at a moment when the field of real options keeps shrinking
Walk through fermentation as a counter-logic to immediacy: fermentation is both algorithmic and emergent. It is not solutionism—to make fermentation happen, you must set the conditions and trust a process you can't fully direct
You'll leave with:
A growing vocabulary for a feeling most people have and few can describe
The fermentation/rot framework as a working alternative to solutionism
A clearer sense of what Parallel Playground is testing—as a participant, a program co-producer, or simply someone curious
Why This Session Matters Now
Most public conversation about AI and attention lands in one of two dead ends: techno-utopian relief or techno-doomer alarm. Both place the responsibility on the individual's choices. Neither describes what it actually feels like to be a person whose fingers keep scrolling after the phone goes dark. We created Parallel Playground through a framing that captures the weight of labouring on the same platforms that erode our agency and creative autonomy. This session sits within the tension that shaped the Parallel Playground program happening this September in Montréal at World Creation Studio, and treats the discomfort as a moment of reading the terrain rather than a problem to be solved.
Session Logistics
Format: Part 1 of 2 sessions, online (Zoom)
Date: September 12
Time: 10:30am–12:00pm EDT
Cost: Free / By Donation
Facilitator: Luisa Ji, Studio Director, UKAI Projects
No prior reading required. Come as you are, including mid-scroll.
Who It's For
Anyone curious about the Parallel Playground residency and its two streams (Research: Intelligent Terrain: Rot and Technical: Digital Bridges)
Arts and cultural workers, partners, and organizations curious about the thinking behind this program
Facilitator
Luisa Ji works at the intersection of public imagination, digital transformation, and systems of care. As Studio Director at UKAI Projects, she has delivered programs across Canada, South Korea, Iceland, Taiwan, and the UK, including Intelligent Terrain, Cultural Technologies Lab, and Goblin Market, turning abstract questions about AI and ecology into embodied public experiences.