Hilary Dodd: Surging Through Exits When the Bell Goes

This design-led research project examines how the aesthetics of high school environments and digital platforms shape the hidden curriculum of contemporary education. It traces how physical architectures of control have evolved into the visual and behavioural architectures of digital systems, focusing on behaviour monitoring systems.

This exhibition explores the tension between closed systems like schools, and the placelessness of online systems, translating a design-led research project, originally materialising as a publication. It examines how digital infrastructures aestheticise and normalise control as care in schools, shaping the hidden curriculum through platforms, interfaces and everyday design cues.