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I worked on the Saclay plateau during spring 2021 for a six-month internship in a research laboratory focusing on human-machine interaction design. I entered a peculiar institution whose components - both material and human - revolved around the production of thought, as a faint goal bringing together researchers, engineers, PhD students, cleaning staff, building operators and canteen workers in a space designed for it. A territory made of plastic chairs and clean whiteboards, a gamified place of work dedicated to the study of the unconventional uses of technology: Extreme Situated Interactions.

More than the task I was asked to perform (translating boredom into functional prototypes), it’s the environment in which it took place that seemed the most unreal to me. It felt like strolling through a real-life SimCity game, witnessing the continuous construction of new buildings each month. These new structures appeared to form a symbolic system of concrete and glass dedicated to knowledge built on the efforts of underpaid workers.