ABSTRACT
Lark Alder is an artist and educator who uses interactive digital media to shape speculative worlds and critical design objects. Queer storylines might subvert normative frameworks for chronological markers of productivity and success. Queer technologies construct critical relations to tools and context by turning utility on its head: embracing inefficiency and failure or repurposing technological applications to suit – rather than exploit – the needs of marginalized groups. The bulk of the media and technology that people use and consume is marked by through-lines of narratives that reinforce systems of dominance and control. In the context of storytelling, innumerable story arcs follow quests for true love, biological reproduction, and landmarks of economic success to set expectations for how time unfurls in a lifetime. These force-fed narratives offer little nourishment as people reach towards unattainable goals, especially for those people whose existence, by definition, is outside the norm.
