The Square Lens Project explores how one can make the strange familiar and the familiar strange through a probe that collects data from a class of students that were imagining and developing a language in regards to complexity. This “probe” attempts to explain how they might articulate that language when asked to photograph it. The students were required to record their experience through a disposable camera with instructions to photograph anything they saw that represented complexity.They were given about a week to complete their assignment. 

The results were engaging in ways unimaginable. The efforts became a study in the pros and cons of cultural probes as a research method and resulted in a way to glean valuable insights about the students views of complexity.

My role as a researcher was to test and create new devices through designed tools to gather data in a new way.