FINAL PHOTOBOOK
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During the holiday week we had I spend the whole week thinking about what the essence was of the data that I collect. Why do I do it, why does it fascinate me, what do I want to tell with my data in a book? The one moment I thought it was the privacy boundaries I was so interested in, the fact that you go through layers of privacy and then: does that mean you really know that person? Then I thought it was the public information that I find more interesting, the fact that public information is out there for people to read without understanding what it means and knowing if it is accurate.
Then came the realization that these two elements together are what makes it interesting, that is actually what fascinates me. The overall picture of our digital information, that can never be read completely because it is divided between different levels of accessibility, and without a source. Information provided by automated means, safeguarded only for certain people, not all.
From there the book took a good turn and is working with a good concept. The book is basically an encrypted documentation of one day in my life. The stripes of paper are metaphors for the encryption levels you go through to get to my information. It shows that our (in)accurate information is out there, but that it takes some effort to go through this information to get a visual of the person behind the information. But at the same time, it shows that some people do take such an effort and peel away so many layers, and that has quite some weight to it.
The reason I decided to make this book only physical is that I think the importance of the physical action is very high to the concept. Like a classmate of mine put it: "I'm afraid to take away the stripes, I feel like I'm invading your privacy" This is of-course one of the issues I definitely set out to address. When you have only the clicking option of the digital environment you simply won't feel the weight of this barrier.
The book is a very good beginning to a bigger project. I'm planning on researching more about the back story to the concept, by meeting people that work in the encryption field etc. and other artists that touch on similar subjects, in order to expand my horizon and knowledge. Because this subject is actually a continuation of my self-directed research, I will spend next trimesters self-directed research working further upon this book. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
