Terms and Agreement

Terms and Agreement is a video and text-based piece tackling the issue of consent and rape culture. It acts as a mock virus. Viewers are presented with a link, when clicking on them it brings them to a full screen of a familiar blue, that begins to count down and then flashes. A message comes up informing them that their picture has been taken and uploaded to the database.

The messages then switch to common wording used in rape culture. Pushing the blame onto the viewer. Saying things like “You never said no.” “You should have been more careful” “You clicked on the link.” The text gets more and more aggressive as the video progresses.

I was very particular when picking the text and background. I wanted to subconsciously disturb the viewer with imagery that was familiar to them, but not have them understand why it made them so anxious. Something that jumped out to me when researching this was the Amber Alerts that used to come on the TV when I was young. I used a color picker to get the exact shade of blue that the amber alerts used. As well as found a text that mimicked the way the text would look on the low-resolution tv screens. With each message that appears a high-pitched beeping sound goes off, as the messages turn more aggressive they switch to an error sound. I played around with the speed of the messages as well as overlapping the sound until I found a version that worked best.

The most difficult part of this project was finding a way to have the video full screen and play automatically. At first, I had tried to get it to work on my WordPress with the help of Erika Rydberg, but we were unable to override the theme of my website. I then went to two of my Supervisors at the Help Desk where I work, and they were able to help me by creating a code and posting the video separate from my WordPress on my domain of one’s own. We are still working to get it to work on phones and tablets but for now, it does work on desktops and laptops. It would be nice to eventually have it work on smartphones so that I could display it as a QR code that people could interact with.

https://erinelizabeth.plymouthcreate.net/termsandagreement.html