machine imperfect is a speculative, interactive media project developed by Stephen Yang, a PhD student at the University of Southern California (Annenberg School for Communication).
Seamless, frictionless, stable, reliable. These are qualities commonly attributed to machines. Technology companies routinely invoke them in describing their products and services. Institutions often mobilize them in sketching their blueprints for the future.
Great service and bright future? As we live with machines in our day-to-day life, these qualities rarely take hold.
Crashes, outrages, and breakdowns abound. Even when not spectacular, dramatic, or disastrous, these moments may nonetheless feel inconvenient, uncomfortable, upsetting, or annoying—no matter how minor they may be.
In a way, these moments may feel especially annoying given how they seem so simple and hence so fixable! How are they still happening in 2025 when technologies are supposedly very advanced, very good?
These moments are precisely the seams where techno-fantasies falter. Perfect(ed) technologies, no matter how perfect they may appear, are not perfect. Perfecting itself is not the end all be all.
What if, instead, that we consider how we may live in these moments of glitches? What if, instead, that we consider how the world can hold these moments kinder, gentler, and in more caring ways?
Against this backdrop, machine imperfect invites us to think through these questions through everyday experiences with (smart)phones at hand. Missed notifications, delayed responses, drained batteries, frozen screens. Rather than treating these moments as annoyances to be eliminated, machine imperfect invites people to dwell in them as sites for reflection.
Below is machine imperfect as an interactive probe (click here if it doesn't load). While the probe is designed to be engaged with on mobile devices, you can interact with it on desktop devices as well: