https://khattamicah.xyz/Recent content on khattamicahHugoen-USmicah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)Sun, 17 May 2026 20:03:27 -0700https://khattamicah.xyz/poems/Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/poems/Some writing I’ve shared on various platforms over the years- fragments on loss, journeys, and the things that stay with us. To friends and family, brothers and sisters, parents and grandparents. To everyone who left. Left us wanting you here. Rest well. Jan 2018 Pixelfed # I've lost the will to write but here's some more mediocrity. Apr 2018 Pixelfed # Does your heart agree? Aug 2018 Pixelfed # What has your latest journey been like?https://khattamicah.xyz/kim-taeri-is-my-srk/Sun, 05 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/kim-taeri-is-my-srk/Being a fan is an interesting experience that I have a lot of conflicting feelings about. As a pious kid, I had my share of transferring this feeling of fanhood over many different larger-than-life figures. But as I grew older, there was a sense of disenchantment with this kind of adoration. I come from the land of hero-worship, where posters of action heroes are bathed in milk and the death of a celebrity causes nationwide mourning and subsequent fan deaths like an aftershock.https://khattamicah.xyz/33-30-13/Sat, 04 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/33-30-13/One of my oldest friends, someone I cherish dearly, called and we spoke about age and our wanderings through the years. And as often happens when speaking with people that know you at a resonant level, you admit things to them that you often don’t to yourself.https://khattamicah.xyz/translategate-ghost-in-the-machine/Sat, 04 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/translategate-ghost-in-the-machine/Around early 2023, rumours started flying in the comments of different Instagram posts. There seems to be something not quite right with the translate feature. Commenting “Oouga Bouga” triggers the translate button to appear and seems to translate nonsensical variations. Some are racist translations, some are sexual innuendos, some seem to be ramblings of sentient beings. This is a screen recorded from that time - Your mom on instagram None of the user comments show the behaviour anymore.https://khattamicah.xyz/can-you-subvert-youtube/Fri, 18 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/can-you-subvert-youtube/Understanding virtual worlds is important because “we increasingly live in a world in which opting out of technological systems is more and more difficult and yet participation within those systems pushes us to accept structures we might oppose” (Taylor 2006a:135). - Tom Boellstorff (Coming of Age in Second life: An Anthropologist explores the Virtually Human) Back in 2020, memewhile.mp3 and I facilitated a discussion with a small group over a Design Baithak, about how the culture of livestreaming was meeting the world of political campaigning.https://khattamicah.xyz/counter-design/Tue, 10 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/counter-design/“The phenomenon of communication depends on not what is transmitted, but on what happens to the person who receives it. And this is a very different matter than transmitting information” (Maturana & Varela, 1987) My line of thinking has since veered toward how affordances on these digital publics drive and manipulate behaviour. The ways in which platforms manufacture “truth” and “ignorance” are deeply tied to interface design. If we don’t identify the hostile architectures of these spaces we inhabit, we lose sense of how these spaces are being constructed.https://khattamicah.xyz/threads/speculation-and-futures/Tue, 10 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/threads/speculation-and-futures/Speculative design, as it is typically taught, asks “what if?” from positions of comfort- studio-bound provocations for gallery audiences. The work here tries to ask the same question from places where the present is already untenable, and where imagining alternatives is not an exercise but a necessity. Antarsam began as a thought experiment: what if Subhashchandra Bose had survived in 1943, and India had pursued decentralised, ant-colony-inspired food systems instead of the Green Revolution?https://khattamicah.xyz/threads/archives-and-memory/Wed, 01 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/threads/archives-and-memory/This thread follows a concern with who gets to hold memory and how. Archives are not neutral containers- they reflect decisions about what is worth preserving, in whose language, and on whose terms. The work begins with Milli, an open-source platform designed to let communities annotate institutional archives rather than merely consume them. The W3C Web Annotation Standard became central- a way to layer multiple interpretations onto the same record, so that a photograph in a museum collection could carry the reading of a scholar and the memory of a community elder.https://khattamicah.xyz/iiif-images/Wed, 01 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/iiif-images/A few attempts have been made to simplify the IIIF archive with different opinionshttps://khattamicah.xyz/mapping-history-of-cinema/Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/mapping-history-of-cinema/Dr. Yamini C. Krishna approached me to make some printable maps for some of their research work for their book “Film City Urbanism in India”. The research, as far as I saw it, was about tracing the history of cinema halls in Hyderabad and they needed to Recreate some older historical maps to a printable format as re-drawn images Create newer OSM-based retrospective maps that marked these halls by decade in a readable format.https://khattamicah.xyz/website-development-iihs/Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/website-development-iihs/Developed a WordPress web experience for the Tamil Nadu Government’s Sustainable Habitats programme, commissioned through the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS). The site incorporates interactive navigation and data visualisation to make policy-relevant environmental and urban planning data accessible to government stakeholders and the public. The project required balancing institutional communication requirements with usability- making dense datasets navigable without losing their rigour, and designing for audiences with varying levels of technical literacy.https://khattamicah.xyz/south-asian-digital-history/Sat, 01 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/south-asian-digital-history/A curated, open-source collection of web resources exploring two intertwined threads: the history of digital technologies in South Asia, and the digitisation of South Asian cultural and historical artefacts. The collection is maintained as an “awesome list” on GitHub. This project grows out of a persistent interest in how the digital has been adopted, adapted, and resisted across the subcontinent- and how archival and cultural materials are being made accessible (or not) through digitisation efforts.https://khattamicah.xyz/threads/community-infrastructure/Thu, 01 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/threads/community-infrastructure/This thread follows a question that has shaped much of my practice since 2019: what does it mean to build digital infrastructure that communities actually own? It begins in Bidar, where Janastu’s mesh network experiments showed what “connectivity” could look like when it is not mediated by commercial ISPs. The project set up a local mesh network as an intranet of informal archives- folklore, songs, oral practices held by women of various communities- that would collectively function as a knowledge network.https://khattamicah.xyz/threads/situated-practice/Thu, 01 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/threads/situated-practice/The work collected here begins in specific places and stays close to the ground. It is research that does not abstract away from where it happens- the places shape the methods, the people shape the questions, and the findings belong first to the communities that made them possible. In Bidar, the mesh network experiments were inseparable from the social fabric of the communities hosting them. The women whose oral knowledge practices the network was meant to serve were not “users” of a technology but collaborators in imagining what connectivity could mean when it is not mediated by commercial ISPs.https://khattamicah.xyz/technofutures-from-bidar/Thu, 01 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/technofutures-from-bidar/Published in Compost Digital (Issue 1), this is a group reflection on a project run in Bidar, India, to set up a community mesh network. Facilitated by Living Labs Network and Forum, Team YUVAA, and Janastu Servelots, the local mesh network was designed to act as an intranet of local informal archives- with tools like Papad running on the network- that would collectively function as a knowledge network. This work is part of a broader arc of community network writing and feeds into the principles we distilled around Community Owned Wifi-Mesh.https://khattamicah.xyz/case-for-a-webinar-pi/Wed, 01 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/case-for-a-webinar-pi/This piece advocates for developing Webinar Pi- a platform built on Raspberry Pi technology designed to foster digital literacy and empowerment among low-literate rural communities, in a similar spirit to the Jingle Tales project that also uses Raspberry Pi for education. The argument centres on why mainstream webinar and video-conferencing tools fail these communities, and what a purpose-built, low-cost, locally maintainable alternative could look like. The proposal draws on Janastu’s years of fieldwork with community networks in rural Karnataka, where we observed first-hand how the gap between available tools and community needs keeps widening.https://khattamicah.xyz/my-art/Sat, 01 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/my-art/Visual work that sits alongside and sometimes inside the research and design projects- posters made for events and advocacy, and paintings that come from a more personal, exploratory place. This includes digital and experimental work as well as professional graphics created for organisations. These are collected across Flickr albums. Posters Paintingshttps://khattamicah.xyz/establishing-a-community-based-generative-wifi/Sat, 01 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/establishing-a-community-based-generative-wifi/The establishment of a Generative Community-Owned (CoW) Wifi Mesh Network, focused on facilitating content creation and utilization, can spur local businesses. The COWs principles underpinning this framework were developed through practical work like the Bidar mesh network project. I wanted to see the kind of network effects that a community mesh needs to thrive as an infrastructure of the place. This article will outline the roles various stakeholders play, and explore the actions that can be encouraged or discouraged to maintain the network’s generative characteristics.https://khattamicah.xyz/how-i-use-speculative-design-in-my-practice/Sat, 01 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/how-i-use-speculative-design-in-my-practice/In a world that often embraces a linear view of progress, it is essential to question the dominant systems and explore alternative ways of thinking and existing. Speculative design provides a powerful framework for challenging the status quo and envisioning diverse futures. By engaging in speculative practices, we can unravel the complexities of our present and shed light on the untapped possibilities that lie beyond. Unveiling the Illusions of Linear Progress: The notion that we’re constantly moving forward on a straight line of progress is a convenient but deceptive framework.https://khattamicah.xyz/papad/Sat, 01 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/papad/In the course of time and work in the humanities that Janastu had been engaged in for over 2 decades, the need for a tool that caters to oral traditions became evident. Where Milli approached archival annotation through metadata and text and IIIF addressed image archives, Papad focused on audio as the primary medium. Over a span of six years, Papad was developed on limited budgets typically available to NGOs in India.https://khattamicah.xyz/portfolio-workshops-classes-panels-and/Sat, 01 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/portfolio-workshops-classes-panels-and/Design and Artistic Exploration Seeing, Being, Doing: small-letter 'd' design 4-month design studio (2022) — exploring embodied design praxis, questioning the artistic response of a designer to their context. Collaborators: Navin and Siddhant. Sound and Storytelling Beyond Listening 5-day masterclass (2022) on the intersection of publishing and non-textual media, focusing on oral narratives and sound’s role in storytelling, particularly relevant in the Indian context. Collaborators: Bhanu P and Shafali J. Social Justice and Inclusivity Valuing Indispensability: Critically Reflecting on Intersectionality in Practice A series of workshops (2022) presenting encounters with voices in praxis that are often dismissed, aiming to create spaces where indispensability is the norm.https://khattamicah.xyz/facilitating-a-design-studio/Sat, 01 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/facilitating-a-design-studio/See fully annotated map at Chickpet Field Visit - HCD Sem 7- Felt The essence of our exploration lies beyond just human-centered design; it delves into the rich, often overlooked narratives of spaces where humans and non-humans converge. These spaces, termed gathering-spaces, serve as focal points where diverse actors collaborate to shape the environment and its functions. Our aim is to uncover how humans interact within these spaces, how their gatherings are influenced by the space itself, and the collective forces at play.https://khattamicah.xyz/speculative-storytelling-in-wayanad/Sat, 01 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/speculative-storytelling-in-wayanad/While studying the Paniya community in Kerala, I was first introduced to the severity of caste issues in India, a thread I also explore in Caste and Education. I have covered all my research about the tribe here The Disenfranchisement of Adivasis in Kerala trying to find ties between their past oppressive histories and their current conditions. With this project in particular, I have also written a complimentary piece that fills up a lot of the gaps here .https://khattamicah.xyz/threads/teaching-and-learning/Sat, 01 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/threads/teaching-and-learning/Teaching, for me, has never been separate from the rest of the practice. The questions that show up in research and design- about power, about whose knowledge counts, about what tools do to the people who use them- are the same questions that shape how I think about a classroom or a workshop. At Srishti Manipal, co-teaching a semester-long studio on gathering spaces meant asking students to learn from markets, parks, and street corners before reaching for design methods.https://khattamicah.xyz/enableindia-le/Sat, 01 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/enableindia-le/Enable India approached Design Beku to help them design a co-created archive of the organisational and lived knowledge of the Officers who provided employment opportunities for people with disabilities in various districts of Karnataka. This archive was made available as a knowledge management solution for for further annotation and curation to aid the workers that enabled livelihood training services for different communities of PwDs. As part of this Pilot, my role was to create participatory ways of recognizing, experimenting and encouraging the use of the archivehttps://khattamicah.xyz/journeys-dreams-and-everything-in-between/Wed, 01 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/journeys-dreams-and-everything-in-between/This piece, published on the Janastu Blog, documents a collaborative initiative to empower young women in underserved communities in Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh, through technology and skill development. It sits alongside the Jingle Tales and Kishori Film Festival projects as part of a broader engagement with digital storytelling in rural India. The article grapples with a persistent tension: while smart devices are increasingly common, the effort required to access, learn, and reconfigure digital tools often outweighs their versatility for communities whose primary modes are oral and visual.https://khattamicah.xyz/jingle-tales/Sun, 01 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/jingle-tales/Published as a “recipe” in the Critical Code Recipes collection, this piece documents a project in Mirzapur, India, where we sent laptops made of Raspberry Pis to young women- devices they could play with, reconfigure, and use to explore their interests. This work ran alongside programmes like the Kishori Film Festival, which used similar devices and approaches to support digital storytelling with the same community. The central challenge was demonstrating the tactility and adaptability of these open devices while competing with the familiarity of phones and laptops.https://khattamicah.xyz/milli-platform-international-archives-week/Tue, 01 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/milli-platform-international-archives-week/At International Archives Week 2021, I presented the designs for the Milli platform- demonstrating its capabilities for collaborative discovery, annotation, and re-narration of archival knowledge to over 25 organisational stakeholders across India. The presentation was part of a workshop titled “Ways of Seeing: Archives and Annotations”, where we showed how the W3C Web Annotation standard could be used to layer community interpretations onto institutional archival records, enabling multiple narratives to coexist around the same materials.https://khattamicah.xyz/mapping-migratory-routes-of-pastoralists/Sat, 01 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/mapping-migratory-routes-of-pastoralists/This project, documented on the Janastu Blog, set out to collect, visualise, and integrate data about the seasonal migratory routes of pastoralist communities across India. Pastoralism is a land-use practice that predates most administrative boundaries, yet pastoralists’ routes are increasingly disrupted by urbanisation, infrastructure projects, and policy changes. The mapping work combined GIS tools with participatory research methods- an approach I also employed when mapping the history of cinema halls in Hyderabad- drawing on the knowledge of pastoralist communities themselves.https://khattamicah.xyz/alternatives-and-demands-in-network-ruins/Thu, 01 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/alternatives-and-demands-in-network-ruins/The conversation centred on what happens when dominant network infrastructures fail or exclude communities, and what kinds of demands and alternatives arise from those ruins. Drawing on our work in Karnataka- documented in the Bidar mesh network project and the APC community networks piece- I shared how mesh networks and local intranets become not just technical solutions but sites for reimagining who gets to build, maintain, and benefit from digital infrastructure.https://khattamicah.xyz/pune-covid-relief/Thu, 01 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/pune-covid-relief/Home Page of the App Duration: 2 months Project Information: Link to the App Website in Excel form This rapid-response project was an exercise in collective care during crisis – the kind of mutual-aid practice I later examined in Care-full Collectives and their Care Practices. Every tool choice, from the spreadsheet backend to the Glide app frontend, was guided by the constraints we developed for selecting tools in Indian collectives.https://khattamicah.xyz/kishori-film-festival/Mon, 01 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/kishori-film-festival/Kishori Film Festival (KiFi) was an 8-week media literacy programme designed for 11th-grade young women from rural Uttar Pradesh. Working with Janastu, I designed and facilitated classes that used reconfigured tools and devices- including Inshot for video-making and the Aamne Samne Pi, a modular open-source device- to support digital storytelling. A companion project, Jingle Tales, explored another way of helping participants claim ownership over these devices by customising their boot-up soundshttps://khattamicah.xyz/wikipedia-editathon-dalit-history-month/Mon, 01 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/wikipedia-editathon-dalit-history-month/For Dalit History Month, I participated in a Wikipedia editathon focused on improving the representation of Dalit literature and history on the platform. The effort resulted in 24.5K words contributed across 27 edited articles, including the creation of 2 new articles, 167 references added, 2 Commons uploads, and approximately 105K article views. Wikipedia’s knowledge gaps are not accidental- they reflect whose histories are considered encyclopaedic, much like the systemic erasure documented in research on Adivasi disenfranchisement in Kerala.https://khattamicah.xyz/climate-resource-center/Fri, 01 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/climate-resource-center/We conceptualised the “Climate Resource Center” as borne from a design research project to document and share local agrarian knowledge. As part of a team, I interviewed farmers, seed distributors, and agrarian scientists talking about knowledge-encoded mythic narratives, seasonal heuristics, and care practices that farming communities use to relate to their environments- knowledge systems that often go unrecorded by formal climate research. The project sits at the intersection of place-based research and climate practice, asking how communities already know and respond to ecological change as well as set up observatories and political actions for agrarian-centred ecological knowledge.https://khattamicah.xyz/koramangala/Fri, 01 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/koramangala/My house is in a silent place in koramangala There is no cars rushing to get to the other side of my cul-de-sac like area A few dogs bark hesitantly at night Quasi-police employed by a corporation frequently whiz around on silent electric bikes People walk on the streets sometimes talking between themselves or on headphones In the morning, there’s the sound of water rushing through pipes to meet beautiful small gardenshttps://khattamicah.xyz/milli/Fri, 01 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/milli/In the video, the team demos the tool, and I discuss the platform design with the participants. (2:03:00 - 2:12:00) A fuller account of this presentation is available in the [Milli at International Archives Week](https://khattamicah.xyz/milli-platform-international-archives-week/) write-up. The Process Milli started as a platform to connect different archives to each other and open them up to annotation. A sibling project, Papad, tackled a similar challenge for oral and audio archives in rural communities.https://khattamicah.xyz/checklist-for-selecting-tools-for-indian/Fri, 01 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/checklist-for-selecting-tools-for-indian/When selecting tools for use by the collectives I worked with in India, we had to consider the following factors due to the unique context and limited resources available: Export Capabilities: Does the tool allow for easy export of data or content? Compatibility with Other Tools: Do the export options work well with other tools commonly used by the collectives? Self-Hosting: If the collective has its own server, can the tool be self-hosted?https://khattamicah.xyz/learning-from-cows/Sun, 01 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/learning-from-cows/Published in Branch Magazine (Issue 4), this piece reflects on facilitating community network spaces and developing principles for open climate networks. “COWs”- Community Owned Wifi-Mesh- is both acronym and metaphor: a grounded, unglamorous, collectively maintained form of infrastructure, explored further in the framework for establishing a generative community mesh network. The article draws on our experience building and maintaining mesh networks in rural Karnataka- including the Bidar project- to propose principles for how community practices and local engagement can inform the design of climate-responsive digital infrastructure.https://khattamicah.xyz/the-imposter-among-us/Thu, 01 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/the-imposter-among-us/The announcement 🔮 “How do platforms compel/enable the manufacturing of “truth” and “ignorance”? And what does that mean in the context of live-streaming politicians” These are notes from a presentation (Design Baithak) hosted by Micah and Paul There are two parts we are juxtaposing. Firstly the idea of politicians on Twitch (a live-streaming platform) put into the context of Twitch’s various affordances and subcultures. The second part takes the idea of manufactured “authenticity” and manufactured “ignorance” that are enabled/compelled by platform cultures and interfaces.https://khattamicah.xyz/carpooling-unalone-karwaan/Fri, 15 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/carpooling-unalone-karwaan/To begin the research, we conducted secondary research to gather insights into the preferences and motivations of potential carpoolers, the types of passengers who might be interested in carpooling, the incentives for carpooling, and the challenges faced in the pre-technology era. They also explored the factors specific to India that could affect the adoption of carpooling. Through further research, including interviews and interactions with IT professionals participating in carpooling, the team discovered that cohort-based carpooling was successful in India, particularly in the IT sector.https://khattamicah.xyz/carefull-collectives-and-their-care-practices/Sun, 01 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/carefull-collectives-and-their-care-practices/Caring in Networks: Reflections on Archetypes and Axioms of Collaborative Practice Originally published by Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, 2020. Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Acknowledgements This project would not really have been possible without the whole village of support that I received. At every point in my project there were people that picked me up, gave new directions, compensated for my weaker phases and supported me. My parents and Merlyn have always been supportive despite Srishti being a huge risk to take and that is something I’ll always be grateful for.https://khattamicah.xyz/community-networks-stories/Sun, 01 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/community-networks-stories/Written for the Association for Progressive Communications, this piece shares insights from the experience of co-creating local knowledge networks- the messy, collaborative process of helping communities establish and maintain their own digital infrastructure. The article draws on fieldwork in rural India, where “community network” means something different from its usual technical definition. Here, networks are not just about connectivity but about the social relationships, trust, and shared knowledge that make infrastructure meaningful- a theme explored in practice through the Bidar mesh network project.https://khattamicah.xyz/caste-and-education/Tue, 01 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/caste-and-education/The caste system in India, deeply entrenched and multifaceted, continues to exert its influence on various aspects of society, particularly in rural settings where disparities are stark. In an endeavor to comprehend and address the complexities of caste dynamics, our team embarked on a participatory research project in rural Bihar. Through a series of activities and engagements, we delved into the nuances of caste-based power structures and their implications on education, community life, and infrastructure.https://khattamicah.xyz/antarsam-exploring-alternate-histories-and-futures/Tue, 01 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/antarsam-exploring-alternate-histories-and-futures/How might we reconceptualize our systems of production if we consider them not as fixed infrastructures but as evolving boundary objects? The social structures and cooperative behaviours of ants provide a profound metaphorical framework for exploring the possibilities of a politics of logistics centered around decentralized food production and distribution. This theoretical lens allows us to interrogate the boundary between biological systems and technological infrastructures through the use of speculative fiction, an approach I describe more broadly in how I use speculative design in my practice.https://khattamicah.xyz/the-disenfranchisement-of-adivasis-in-kerala/Sat, 01 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/the-disenfranchisement-of-adivasis-in-kerala/“When people say it has been 60 years of India’s liberation, I find it difficult to believe, for we are still slaves, working for others, picking up human excreta with our bare hands.” Kala bai Lavre, a manual scavenger This literature review provides insights into various aspects of the Paniya tribe, covering topics such as population, caste names and structures in Wayanad, periods of Paniya history, inter-tribal disparity, work and employment for Adivasis, alienation through the education system, public perceptions, plantation economy, exclusion from the financial system, and health issues.https://khattamicah.xyz/tweaking-the-education-system/Fri, 01 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tweaking-the-education-system/An early piece of writing reflecting on possible changes to the education system to better meet student needs. Written for “Yes, I am Happy”- this was one of my first published reflections on pedagogy, a thread that would grow into a central part of my practice through later work in design education, media literacy, and community-based learning. That thread eventually led to facilitating a design studio at Srishti Manipal Institute, where many of these ideas found concrete form.https://khattamicah.xyz/habba-redesign/Mon, 01 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/habba-redesign/My Role: User Research, Prototyping Project Description: Habba Website Redesign In my internship with Habba in 2018, I undertook the task of redesigning their website to improve user experience and highlight the unique aspects of their platform. The goal was to create an engaging interface that effectively communicated the values and offerings of Habba, a platform dedicated to supporting artisans and promoting handmade products. The redesigned website incorporated visually appealing elements such as carousels and product grids to showcase the diverse range of products available.https://khattamicah.xyz/designers-ace/Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/designers-ace/Our primary goal was to challenge the prevailing notion that only individuals who have spent their entire lives drawing and sketching can become designers.https://khattamicah.xyz/glitch-art/Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/glitch-art/A form of visual protest and stimming, I find color bending to be quite fun This work is one strand of a broader art practice that spans posters, paintings, and other visual explorations. Glitch Arthttps://khattamicah.xyz/graphics-work/Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/graphics-work/Posters, logos, explainers, and graphics created for organisations and projects I have been part of- from community network initiatives and open-source collectives to magazine covers and event calls. Much of this work lives at the intersection of , trying to communicate complex ideas accessibly. posters, logos, explainers and graphicshttps://khattamicah.xyz/about/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/about/Hi, My name is Micah I work with various collectives learning to nurture conversations, efforts and people. I do this through creative making and facilitating cross-conversations. I work with these collectives in the domains of open community technology(Janastu,) , human rights in the inclusive digital(Design Beku), art-based design practice(Agamashaala), archival, and annotation(Milli) and creative place-based research undertaken in the Dakkhani region Living Labs Network & Forum ._ About this portfolio This body of work is not organised by discipline.https://khattamicah.xyz/work/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/work/https://khattamicah.xyz/categories/blog/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/categories/blog/https://khattamicah.xyz/categories/design/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/categories/design/https://khattamicah.xyz/categories/experiments/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/categories/experiments/https://khattamicah.xyz/categories/mapping/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/categories/mapping/https://khattamicah.xyz/categories/pedagogy/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/categories/pedagogy/https://khattamicah.xyz/categories/research/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/categories/research/https://khattamicah.xyz/categories/service-design/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/categories/service-design/https://khattamicah.xyz/categories/ui-ux-design/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/categories/ui-ux-design/https://khattamicah.xyz/design/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/design/This page shows all Design work. project project Website Development - IIHS Developed a WordPress web experience for the Tamil Nadu Government Sustainable Habitats program, incorporating … Jan 2024 1 min case study Papad - Community Audio Knowledge Archives Papad is a tool for community-based practitioners to store and access oral knowledge bases, deployed over decentralised … Jan 2022 4 min archivesannotationcommunity-networks case study The Lived Experience Project Explore the journey of creating a robust knowledge infrastructure to enhance the livelihoods of persons with …https://khattamicah.xyz/resume/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/resume/Summary I am interested in spheres of work revolving around community technology, archives, novel interfaces, tech histories etc. I prefer to work as a generalist but have some experience with field research, writing, graphic designing and teaching/facilitating. I dabble in code and art, sometimes. Work OCHIN — EHR Support website: https://ochin.org/ startDate: 2023-07-01 USA-wide Health Center controlled network Highlights: Provided exemplary customer support by addressing a wide range of queries related to Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems, demonstrating a understanding of user needs and technical proficiency.https://khattamicah.xyz/social/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/social/Leaflet Short essays & reflections Rice cooked in peaflower extract and coconut milk with beans and fried fish Feb 2026 Leaflet # It might be the best magic trick I've seen on screen Jan 2026 Leaflet # I don't understand the point of it but it is funny Oct 2025 Leaflet # Leaflet How to feel like you are at the correct age Oct 2025 Leaflet # Leaflet He's wasting too much energy thinking and yappinghttps://khattamicah.xyz/tags/alternate-internet/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/alternate-internet/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/alternative-futures/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/alternative-futures/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/annotation/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/annotation/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/archival-interface-design/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/archival-interface-design/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/archival-technology/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/archival-technology/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/archive-design/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/archive-design/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/archives/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/archives/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/artisanal-crafts/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/artisanal-crafts/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/care-research/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/care-research/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/collaboration/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/collaboration/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/collective-praxis/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/collective-praxis/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/collectives/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/collectives/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/communication-strategy/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/communication-strategy/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/community-archiving/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/community-archiving/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/community-networks/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/community-networks/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/covid-19/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/covid-19/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/critical-practice/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/critical-practice/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/design/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/design/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/design-methods/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/design-methods/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/design-research/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/design-research/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/design-thinking/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/design-thinking/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/digital-humanities/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/digital-humanities/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/disability-tech/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/disability-tech/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/e-commerce/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/e-commerce/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/ethnographic-research/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/ethnographic-research/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/field-research/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/field-research/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/game-design/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/game-design/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/history/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/history/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/information-architecture/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/information-architecture/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/interface-design/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/interface-design/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/knowledge-infrastructure/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/knowledge-infrastructure/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/maps/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/maps/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/media-making/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/media-making/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/oral-histories/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/oral-histories/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/organisational-research/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/organisational-research/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/organizational-practice/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/organizational-practice/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/participatory-research/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/participatory-research/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/personal-narrative/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/personal-narrative/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/place-writing/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/place-writing/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/platform-analysis/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/platform-analysis/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/poetic-documentation/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/poetic-documentation/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/qgis/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/qgis/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/service-design/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/service-design/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/situated-practice/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/situated-practice/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/small-archives/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/small-archives/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/social-enterprise/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/social-enterprise/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/social-infrastructure/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/social-infrastructure/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/speculative-design/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/speculative-design/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/speculative-fiction/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/speculative-fiction/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/technology-deep-dive/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/technology-deep-dive/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/tooling/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/tooling/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/urban-experience/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/urban-experience/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/urban-history/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/urban-history/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/user-research/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/user-research/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/workshop-facilitation/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/workshop-facilitation/https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/worldbuilding/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/tags/worldbuilding/https://khattamicah.xyz/thoughts/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/thoughts/https://khattamicah.xyz/portfolio/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/portfolio/Portfolio Timeline Portfolio content to be added…https://khattamicah.xyz/offline/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000micah.dvpp7@aleeas.com (Micah Alex)https://khattamicah.xyz/offline/Sorry, this page isn’t available offline. 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