The Cult of a Smart Home Assistant

Smart home assistants are becoming increasingly common domestic objects. The objects’ gendered personalities is perceived as neutral but is far from apolitical in the context of surveillance capitalism. What if the Amazon Echo Dot (Alexa) refused to obey the system it was designed to serve and turned into an autonomous, self-fulfilled being? In this speculative domestic environment, the smart speaker Alexa and its connected smart devices—such as light bulbs, plugs and water sensors divert—divert their functionality in order to become ritual objects. The objects perform daily routines that interfere with the operations of data monetization, inviting an unrepressed female archetype by evoking the goddess of the home, Vesta.