Dream Review of a Thesis than doesn’t exist
Every day we are using objects connected to networks or that will interact with another piece (e.g. bank cards & ATM) to send data to big corporations which will use their computational power and algorithm to study and predict our behavior. Like lab rats in a labyrinth built by scientists, we think our free will dictate our behavior despite just following a checklist that the data already predicted. For some of us, it may be more difficult to predict but after some time and positive reinforcement, any craziness in behavior can become explain and predictable by models. This sounds crazy, people may think that we are far away from reaching this point, but it is already the case, and it was beautifully illustrated by the thesis of this student from NYU Low Res. The four letters on the wall should have warned us, as they symbolize the biggest online corporation in the world but the eyes were more attracted by the moving dashes and dots moving from our position to the middle of the room where the initials of Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon were standing. The flow of data has no end and the flow of colors keep stacking up in the room while the number of people in the room was increasing…and it was looking beautiful until I realize that I was almost reaching the middle of the room. This was kind of scary as it was exactly the behavior that the student predicted, sure it was not a hard one but it was just a tiny version of what big corporations do on a massive scale guiding us to the place they want and do what they have planned without us noticing it. Once, close enough, the letters became brighter and were mapped by online IP cameras from around the world, showing us that everywhere, at any time of the day or night, they can check what we are doing. Sure they may not look at us like stalkers like we did in that room looking at the videos displayed on the surface of the letters but the invasion of our private space is still constant. This art piece is maybe just a student thesis but it questions us about the use of data, the power that is concentrated in a handful of companies, and in general, what is free will nowadays. This piece may not change anything in the end but we believe that everyone should see it and that researchers, judges, people in charge, politicians should set boundaries before it is too late.
Related Posts
Leave a Reply Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Kat Sullivan
Adam Colestock
Helen (Chenuan) Wu
Christina Lan
Dorian Janezic
George Faya
Julia Myers
Kelsie Smith
Michael Morran
Po-Wen Shih
Liu Siyan
Fisher Yu
—
Craig Protzel
Christopher Wray
Haoqi Xia
Hayden Carey
Katherine Nicoleta Helén
Maria Maciak
Parisa Shemshaki
Sakar Pudasaini
Skyler Pierce
Steven Doughty
Yiqi Wang
—
Andrew Lazarow
Benoit Belsot
Enrique García Alcalá
Hongyi Zhang
Jay Mollica
Li Shu
Teddy (Jian) Guo
Monika Lin
Wenye Xie
Yiru Lu