The Internet of Bananas: Critical Design and Playfulness for Citizen Sensing and Electronic Literacy

In this paper we recount the “Internet of Bananas” (IoB), a design-led exploration of citizen sensing as well as an exercise in “useful futility”. The project mixed critical design and satire to explore social justice attitudes towards data collection and electronic literacy. In the IoB a number of participants from around the world collaboratively created and set up a small IoT network by programming and interconnecting a set of sensor kits with which they monitored the colour, surface temperature and humidity of a network of bananas for the duration of one week. The main goal of the creation of such network was to be a platform for reflection, discussion and exchange on themes related to data production and collection. The IoB was active for a week, the “Banana Jam”, after which a debriefing provided an occasion to gather precious feedback from the participants and to assess, with their help, the entire process. The feedback, articulated around five main themes, has let to the creation of six final design considerations related to the combination of natural elements and digital technologies, the values of weirdness and play for critical design and its dissemination, and the importance of inclusivity and openness in regard of data collection and visualization.