Ben Grosser
August 29, 2018
Aarhus, Denmark
software sets conditions of possibility
software art can act as "creative destruction" that reveals an interface after it has disappeared from view (*from Metainterface!)
write software to investigate software
(for example, software recomposition)
my net art course @ UIUC
starts w/ non-technical manipulations...
today's plan/options...
In small groups, select an existing Internet-based platform, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, SnapChat, etc. Spend a little time analyzing how it works: what are its inputs and outputs, its designed/expected uses, its intended audience(s)? Devise a plan for a multi-day (minimum 3 days) performance that could be executed using the platform. What might your set of actions (and/or the reactions it provokes) reveal about how that platform works or who it works for?
For example, Twitter is intended to enable short, 280 character messages in a public broadcast space that connects anyone anywhere in real-time. What if you instead used Twitter as your personal diary space, stringing together 10s or 100s of individual Twitter messages in order to record private thoughts? In another example, consider that Facebook status entries and its newsfeed are designed to encourage posts that get “likes” and grow friend networks. A response could be to devise a system that provokes your connections to unfriend you and/or hide your posts. In both examples, what would the performances start to reveal about how those systems are working? What questions would they provoke others to ask?
Once the groups have had a chance to work, add a description to the Google Doc and we'll share/discuss.
Examples:
Kyle McDonald: keytweeter, Going Public
Kim Asendorf: Riding the API at the Limit
Jonas Lund: Selfsurfing (article about it)
Lauren McCarthy: Friend Crawl, Social Turkers
Hasan Elahi: Tracking Transience
Eva and Franco Mattes: For Internet Use Only, No Fun
Winnie Soon: Unerasable Images
Jeff Thompson: TCPDUMP
Guido Segni: The Artist is Typing
Jill Magid: Evidence Locker
Ben Grosser: Please help me make this status a future Facebook memory, 1 year later
Individually or in small groups, Select one or more existing webpages (e.g. the front page of the NYT, the NSA's 'values' page, etc.) and manipulate their HTML/CSS to change some number of components on the page. You might swap out a logo with your own version (or someone else's logo), edit a key piece of text, remove an interface component, or add text in front of link. Whatever you choose, think about how your adjusted version reveals something previously hidden about the original. Further, what is your strategy? Humor? Sarcasm? Fear?
Once you have your changes made, capture a screenshot of each page (or region of a page). These screenshots should demonstrate your change(s), and should also be enough of a capture to understand the changes within context. The final product, then, is as an image for distribution on the Internet. When you have your image(s), add to the Google Doc so we can all see it.
To manipulate the HTML/CSS for this project we'll use the Chrome (or Firefox) developer console. Using the console, you can edit the page and see the changes instantly. We'll go over these techniques together.
Examples:
TWEAKs from Ben's archive (may require friending me to see):
. Like button alternatives
. bigger status
. facebook birthdays
. FB signup
. Facebook Life Events
. 8-9pm memories
. reputation metric
ADDs:
Nicolas Rubin: Greenhouse
David Tran: on the blockchain
Ben Grosser: ScareMail
ERASEures:
Text Free Browsing by Rafael Rozendaal & Jonas Lund
The Deletionist by Amaranth Borsuk, Jesper Juul, and Nick Montfort
Facebook Demetricator by Grosser
Textbook by Grosser