| DATE // 2020 May 30 |
| ROLE // co-organizer |
| TYPE // presentation |
| HOST // Umanesimo Artificiale |
| AFFILIATION // KRINO |
| VENUE // online |
| TAGS // data cultures, digital humanities, interactivity |
DESCRIPTION //
What does it mean to be human in a data-driven world?
Everyone of us is tracked. Whether we want it or not. Whether we use digital devices or not. During most of our daily tasks we generate data: using a map, accessing a subway, taking money from an ATM, walking close to a security camera. Even when we are doing nothing, an algorithm is calculating, for example, the elapsed time from our last access to a website to email us a “special offer”.
What can algorithms see about people they are profiling? And what about humans? How do they perceive the same data? Can data inspire stories, feelings or emotions? These questions were the starting points of our research project.
We aimed at investigating which kind of relations and associations humans could establish using the same data that are constantly extracted by companies in order to create their profiles.
Thanks to 15s or less showcase , an online Artist-in-residence promoted by Umanesimo Artificiale, we had the opportunity to elaborate on this complex topic in a rather unusual way: 50 Instagram stories to get the public involved in finding an answer together with us.
[STORIES]
We challenged the audience during the showcase in a sort of game, asking them to quickly interact with the images on the screen. The interactions of the participants suggested us a very simple conclusion: we – as humans – constantly tend to see and develop stories in the data. We constantly make an effort to attribute identities to identical profiles.
The analysis of these social interactions led us to summarize the concept in a formula:
PROFILES : ALGORITHMS = NARRATIVES : HUMANS
Our digital traces are part of us: they could help us understand, feel and process our identities but, as it happens in any complex system, the whole is not just the sum of its parts. Being human in a digital world means embracing new, different facets of ourselves: by gaining awareness and becoming more sensitive through our data, we have the opportunity to explore our non-identical identities.