The Garden of Digital Delights

Mapping the systems behind our digital lives.

Team: 6 people
Duration: 10 weeks
My individual intervention: Cairn

01 / The whole picture

A map to spend time with.

Download PDFOriginal / print quality · 24 MB

A ten-week exploration of the cloud, its infrastructure, and the relationships that shape our digital world. The gigamap brings our research, causal connections, and possibilities for intervention into one shared view.

The full Garden of Digital Delights gigamap: cloud infrastructure and causal connections on the left, a branching research garden in the middle, and a framework for sovereignty on the right — A quick view of the full map. Open it to explore the details, or download the original PDF to keep.

02 / Behind the map

A shared system.
Individual points of intervention.

We needed to connect our research before deciding what to change. The map moves from relationships to findings to intervention possibilities, giving six people a shared basis for different design responses.

A teammate points at clusters of sticky notes on a wall board while two others watch — Working it out on the wall.

Two teammates sit on the floor in conversation in front of the sticky-note board — Working it out on the wall.

Connecting digital life to its infrastructure

The cloud was our starting point. Causal loops brought its relationships and feedback into view, connecting everyday digital life to the systems that support it.

Choosing where to investigate

We used ZIP analysis to identify areas worth exploring further. The central garden brings that research back into the shared map, alongside the causal network.

The map became a point of departure

The framework on the right organises possibilities for intervention. Each team member took a direction forward; my individual response became Cairn.

Three team members stand in front of the printed gigamap on a long wall — Three of us presenting the map, and me talking through it.

Kuldeep talks through the printed gigamap on the wall — Three of us presenting the map, and me talking through it.

03 / From the collective to the individual

My next step was Cairn.

I took personal reflection forward from the shared framework. Cairn keeps the journal and its search on a person’s Mac, and uses on-device intelligence for reflection. The app gives me a way to work through that systems question in a specific daily activity.

Read the Cairn case study