type
Mixed media installation
(incorporating living plant, electronics, realtime
tik tok interaction)
year
2024
exhibitions
Elektron Festival (LU)
Ars Electronica Festival 2024 (AT)
concept
The project explores the relationship between users and social media that are based on endless scrolling and algorithms for customising content. This relationship is represented as a symbiotic relationship between user and technology, in which they mutually influence each other.
While the algorithm adjust the content based on the user feedback at the same time this constant flow of new information stimulate the release of dopamine and keeps the brain engaged, constantly searching for new information and reinforces the habit of scrolling.
description
To metaphorically represent such a relation the installation shift the user-algorithm interaction to a different living organism.
The plant is equipped with multiple sensors that detect the intensity of bioelectrical signals present in the plant and her condition. A device put in front of a smartphone mechanically scroll and like the content of the TikTok “for you” page.
As the interaction between the plant and the app goes on the algorithm start adjusting the content based on the feedback given by the plant.
Symbiosis in biology refers to an association that occurs in nature between two organisms of different species, in which one or both organisms benefit from the relationship. The relationship causes species to evolve together, changing, in most cases reciprocally, in order to maximise the success of the interaction. The interaction between user and social media shares with this definition the aspect of reciprocity. Within the project, the algorithm is almost personified, becoming the signifier for all that set of computational technologies whose function is to adapt to the use made of it by the user, acting, in different extents, apparently autonomously.
The work is part of a broader research aimed at investigating the complex relationships between human beings, technology and nature, with the intention of presenting alternative narratives that challenge the anthropocentric conception/vision/thought.
A second part of the process is currently being developed, in which an attempt is being made to map the interaction between algorithm and plant through an analysis of the proposed content.