Unflattening, the folding paper game, was created by Julia Velkova and myself as part of the Megabytes versus Megawatts project, located at Technology & Social Change, Department of Thematic Studies (TEMA-T), Linköping University.
The game explores how metrics and values are used to communicate important issues, such as environmental impacts, between the energy and data industries. When these issues are reduced to a number the complexities behind this metric are often ‘lost in translation’ between these industries, energy and data–a process of ‘flattening’ complexity into a number.
We created this playful paper game in response. Through folded paper, it is the literal unflattening of metrics into a more complex and rich description.
We first performed it together at the CLAIMS Infrastructural Play workshop at University of Copenhagen in June 2024.