User:Lassebosch/graduation

KEYS:

micro-tasking, microprocessing, unconscious cognitive labor, asymmetry, production and gain, exclusion vs inclusion, utilization of the crowd, machine labor vs human labor - when does it pay out?

What I've been doing so far:

I've been engaging in several small experiments, all trying to reconceptualizing, re-frame or make explicit services and systems which engage the 'crowd' seeking to aggregate value from it. In this sense my interest does not fly far from central research questions of my first year in Piet Zwart, yet it extends this in two ways:

1) From researching the utilization of the crowd within the field of design, my focus has shifted to systems and services which seek to aggregate data, extracting the cognitive resources of crowd, but at another, more unconscious, micro-based level.

2) While my stance last year was rather black and white, arguing that the individual in discussed systems was exploited, I intend to refine this by looking into asymmetrical flows of interest. The individual does not feel exploited since s/he also gains a certain outcome. This outcome, though, differs entirely from the gain of the service provider, and thereby both parties are satisfied. For further elaboration please see my graduation proposal.

The experiments:

A) Liking for food

Sitting around in different cafe's I attempted to earn money for buying food by 'liking' content on Facebook. I made small signs and banners advertising for this service, which i would place on the table I sat at. The experiment is a small gesture which questions the dynamics of 'liking' and asks if a monetary value is applicable; an exchange from a less tangible reputational currency into a physical monetary system.

B) Free wifi

How much information are you willing to hand out about your self for free wifi access? What kinds of less obvious tasks are you ready to complete? What can be accumulated by this kind of information harvesting? The initial framework is to set up a wifi hotspot which, upon joining it, you will get asked to perform certain actions before you gain access

XXX C) Bibliotecha project

This project is less directly related to the graduation, but I'll bring it in anyway. The project is a digital library system providing books on a local wifi-network hosted by the system it self. A raspberry pi functions as a local wifi-hotspot and library server, where anyone are able connect to and downloads and upload books.

D) Catching Recaptchas

For a deeper introduction on the recaptcha-system please see my project proposal

I've scraped 30000 recaptchas from the recaptacha-service, separated the CAPTCHA and the 're'-part out, and archived them alphabetically. Its a dictionary of lost words, fragments from scanned books, which now are properly 'liberated'. Theres a strong sense of futility, since the 'key'; how the pieces should be put together, is unknown and in the possession of the service provider.

E) Recaptchas for the digital Library

Why not apply a recaptcha system within the public library? (see bottom idea in proposal: The Individual in (and out of) the Database v.0.4)

Read/Write w. Steve
Graduation Seminars
Links, Gems & Notes