Lateral Computation is the Interaction Design Bachelor Project of Michael Schönenberger.
The presence of computer networks and the associated algorithms rises daily. Filter systems on the internet offer less and less room for unexpected, yet refreshing, encounters. Lateral Computation explores the potential of enforcing serendipity in knowledge retrieval systems by making use of alternative algorithms.
The projects documentation can be found on Academia.
lateralcomputation.ch is a serendipitous knowledge retrieval system. It queries articles from the MediaWiki API and displays unexpected, yet related articles. The yellow line indicates the occurrences of the searched term within the article.
The exhibition setup featured the regular website as well as a Processing sketch to generate Postcards, matching the current experience.
Furhter experiments and earlier versions can be found under lateralcomputation.ch/experiments/[experiment-folder] . Be aware, that these sites are not maintained anymore.