Blocked Throat is an installation that stages a breakdown. It begins with calm familiarity— a meditative display of radio wave-generated light patterns invites passive observation. After a few minutes, viewers are asked to give feedback. A microphone is placed prominently, offering a clear next step: speak. But when they do, their voice is captured and returned to them as fragmented, distorted noise. The work draws on principles from product design, where good systems guide users seamlessly from perception to action. I mimic this logic to build trust—only to rupture it. The microphone, an object that normally promises agency and clarity, becomes a site of failure. It doesn’t silence; it interrupts, rendering communication difficult, even absurd. This moment—the “And Then”—is the core of the piece. Viewers realize the system they trusted is unreliable. The breakdown is not a bug but the message. It forces participants to question not only what they’re experiencing, but how they expect systems to behave. Rather than providing answers, Blocked Throat creates friction. It critiques how predictability is engineered into our daily interactions— from digital platforms to public services—conditioning us to expect control and efficiency. Here, disruption becomes a tool to expose that conditioning, inviting a confrontation with the limits of expectation, agency, and the invisible contracts we enter when we interact with systems.