Stranger Stories
Filmed on October 19, 2016 at the 2016 AIGA Design Conference
When we talk with strangers in public, these experiences are threaded with emotional resonance and political possibility. Kio Stark explores how these encounters work and why, and their parallels in technologically mediated experience.
Kio Stark has always talked to strangers. When she realized that not everyone shares this predilection, she started documenting her experiences and doing extensive research into the complex dynamics of how people relate to one another in public places. Her novel, Follow Me Down, began as a series of true vignettes about strangers placed in the fictional context of a woman unraveling the eerie history of a lost letter misdelivered to her door.
Stark did doctoral work at Yale University’s American Studies program—and then dropped out. While teaching graduate courses at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, countless people consulted her about whether or not to go back to school, inspiring Don’t Go Back to School, a handbook for independent learners. Stark is also the author of the TED Book When Strangers Meet, in which she argues for the pleasures and transformative possibilities of talking to people you don’t know.
